Optimal document creation and collaboration thanks to the online working environment at the Municipality of Hoorn
“The combination of SmartDocuments for consistent document creation and the MensCentraal application for the overall customer experience brings us a lot of benefits.”
The Municipality of Hoorn has created a stunning online environment for cooperation with partners in the social domain, according to Ben Bodewes, application manager at Hoorn. “We have one uniform way of communicating, sharing and storing information, which is always and everywhere accessible through cloud technology.”
Reasons
The online working environment of the Municipality of Hoorn is known as 1.Hoorn. "With 1.Hoorn, we wanted to create an online environment for the teams and all the chain partners in the social domain before the 1st of January. Due to the sensitive nature of the information, we did not want to risk any mishaps. Specifically, the rights structure had to be very well-organized. We used cloud technology in the design of the 1.Hoorn working environment. Information had to be easy to share but also accessible on the road elsewhere. We chose MensCentraal as the basic application and SmartDocuments as the document creation software. Both are Web-based, which makes us place and time independent.”
"SmartDocuments enables us to keep a grip on our outgoing documents and communication.”
Experience
The SmartDocuments software for document creation has been in use by the municipality for some time now. Joris Wal, back-office employee: “For the municipality of Hoorn, SmartDocuments is the document creation software. Corporate identity and all the text components that are needed are found within SmartDocuments. When we were working on the 1.Hoorn environment, we didn’t have to think twice. You want to create an environment in which all stakeholders can go to a single work area. Moreover, you want all communication with those stakeholders to be optimal and consistent.”
"For Hoorn, SmartDocuments is the document creation software. The corporate identity and all text components that are needed are contained in SmartDocuments."
In practice
MensCentraal is the central application within the social domain of the Municipality of Hoorn. The application shows a complete customer overview by presenting information from different sources. It carries out tasks, forwards them and monitors the actions. SmartDocuments is there for the recording and communication of information. It is used for creating correspondence such as reports, evaluations, etc. These must be easily completed by members of the social neighbourhood teams. “We do all that with SmartDocuments,” says Bodewes. “It gives us a strong grip on our outgoing documents and communication.”
Benefits
The processing time and processing of documents has been greatly reduced. This is an important advantage for all the stakeholders; everyone wants to move quickly as they serve people in need of help. Loss of time because of manual entry or retrieval of information is clearly not desirable.
Joris is very satisfied with ‘his working environment’. “There is a lot of automation, so now there is much less manual labour for me. This also means a big reduction in errors. By default, documents are saved in MensCentraal and always immediately available to interested parties. That includes the almost fully automated documents created in SmartDocuments.”
Good progress
“Municipal authorities increasingly function as a central chain organization in a complex environment with many other stakeholders. This is why it is important to optimize support activities and systems as much as possible. This ultimately benefits the entire chain, including the client,” says Ben. “The use of the right instruments in the right place has helped us make good progress in the fight against unnecessary bureaucracy, manual labour and paperwork. In fact, 1.Hoorn will soon be a regional government point of contact.”
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