Coinciding with its move to new premises, Irvine Housing Association is in the process of moving to paper-free working with the introduction of an electronic document management system from Documotive.
The Ayrshire-based housing organisation plans to electronically store and manage its housing tenancy and HR files, with the Documotive system expected to be live in the next few months.
Angus McLeod, IT manager, Irvine Housing Association, said, “The sheer practicality of storing and accessing the huge volumes of paper which we generate here was becoming more of an issue as the organisation continued to grow. By storing all of our documentation electronically, the time taken to retrieve items is greatly reduced, thereby improving customer service and making life a lot easier for our staff.”
The new document management system will also make it easier for Irvine to deal with the data protection and security issues of storing customer and employee records. Angus McLeod added, “We are committed to providing the highest levels of data protection for our customers and the Documotive system will provide an easy to use, paper-free audit trail which will enable data to be accessed only by authorised personnel.”
Storing the housing tenancy and HR files electronically will also meet Irvine’s commitment to sustainability and environmentally-sound working practices. Angus McLeod explained, “We are keen to introduce environmentally friendly ways of working wherever possible. The long-term strategy is to store all documentation electronically, removing the need for paper storage altogether. Documotive’s system will integrate with our IBS OpenHousing and OpenPeople systems and by hosting all documents in this way, any negative impacts on the environment will be greatly reduced.”
