Case Study – Public Sector
State Department of Labor
Centralization and Standardization Deliver Faster Turnaround Times
The State Department of Labor is a public-sector agency that provides employment- and unemployment-related services to state residents. The agency administers the state's unemployment insurance system, labor exchange system and Welfare-to-Work programs, in addition to overseeing state worker protection programs.
Three general situations prompted the generation of a document at the Department of Labor:
- Clients phoned or wrote, requesting information or making changes to a claim
- System data prompted representatives to create a document (delinquent payments, final payment notice, etc.)
- Notification of policy change/legal notice was received
Before considering xPression®, the division was using two different letter composition systems for their document processing needs: Microsoft Word templates for open systems, and Letter Generation Application System on the mainframe. Both systems were used to create letters printed on mainframe printers and archived in Image Plus. Output from the Letter Generator client application was FTP'd to the LAN and converted to files to be stored in Image Plus. This was a labor- and time-intensive process. In addition, Image Plus was no longer supported; there was a concern that it might not work in the next release of the mainframe's operating system.
Document Sciences' xPression is being installed in the agency's Unemployment Insurance (UI) Division. It will be used by the UI Division to generate correspondence (e.g., letters to users of unemployment services) using print, PDF and email delivery methods. xPression is being installed on an IBM AIX platform with a WebSphere application server and an Oracle database. It is being integrated with IBM's Content Manager for archive and workflow and a front-end HR administration system from Curam.
The agency selected xPression because it met its dynamic content publishing needs delivering an industry-standard, Web-based technology with more of an open architecture. In addition, the sense from the department was that Document Sciences listened and developed trust and respect with the agency's staff, and that product demonstrations were tightly focused on the agency's "pains."
The two major improvements expected from the agency's use of xPression are:
- Faster turnaround time for the creation and generation of documents
- Greater degree of both centralization and functionality available for field case managers