Thames Valley Housing Association On-line access for digitised Housing Files

Thames Valley Housing Association

Thames Valley Housing Association (TVHA) is a Registered Social Landlord under the Housing Act 1996 and is registered with the Housing Corporation and the National Housing Federation. It provides affordable housing for people in need and manages over 5,000 rented properties and 4,000 shared ownership properties in London and the Thames Valley basin.

The Challenge

Having already selected a document management solution from ECMS, TVHA wanted to digitise over 30,000 paper-based files that covered every aspect of the business including all properties, finance and health & safety. These files were in regular use by over one hundred staff, primarily in TVHA’s customer service department, and many of them are updated daily. TVHA also wanted to have an efficient file tracking system that would provide the customer services team with rapid access to all documentation.

The Solution

Worked closely in partnership with TVHA’s project manager Mark Fraser, e-Docs UK developed key processes that would meet the requirements of the business. These included defining the indexing and scanning requirements for each document type, assured quality practices to ensure that all documents were correctly prepared for processing and an efficient tracking system using bar code recognition so that any required file could be located and returned to a member of staff within 24 hours.

To make the digitised documents easy to use, e-Docs UK converted all documents to Adobe PDF using the latest optical character recognition technologies. This enables the contents of documents to be quickly located using search criteria such as key words and dates. All documents can be accessed using OneView, a powerful, easy to use online repository that gives users secure, instant access to documents from any location around the clock. OneView is directly linked to e-Docs UK’s high speed scanning processes making digitised documents immediately available.

e-Docs UK also provided a solution to handle the processing of new documents. Using e-Docs UK’s remote scanning solution, TVHA staff can now load new indexed documentation, linked to other relevant paperwork, directly into OneView.

Commenting on this project, Ana Orbe, IT Manager at TVHA said: “e-Docs UK has provided us with a powerful, cost effective solution that enables us to rapidly access all documents. This has help deliver increased productivity across our organisation. Throughout the project, e-Docs UK has taken the time to understand our requirements and has delivered an efficient solution that meets our needs both now and in the future.”