As the leading provider of career-oriented secondary education in the United States, Lincoln Tech faces challenges like no other institution. With 22 campuses in 14 states, Lincoln Tech has a myriad of different requirements for students, staff, and faculty making it difficult to streamline processes institution-wide. Their unique student body includes adult and full-time working students, so they needed a way to simplify how they handle document and records management, making Laserfiche a perfect solution.
Lincoln Tech’s Story
When Lincoln Tech started their digital transformation journey, they had clear goals; they wanted a single hub for records that’s easily accessible to auditors, staff, and students, get rid of paper files, streamline forms, and get started with automation. It was critical to integrate with their Student Information System Anthology Student (formerly CampusVue) to utilize the document tracking feature. They looked into countless solutions, and even considered building it themselves in SharePoint, but nothing fully fit their overarching need to produce measurable change on campus, until they began working with the Accelerated Information Systems team on implementing Laserfiche.
For a large, far-reaching institution like Lincoln Tech, managing operations can be a huge headache. Regulations differ between campuses based on location, and information was prone to information being siloed by campus. Finding ways to streamline these disjointed processes was a top focus for Lincoln Tech on their Laserfiche journey and has proven to be one of their quickest and most impactful wins.
A Unified Solution for a Nation-Wide Campus
When students start at Lincoln Tech, they have a list of forms they need to complete; previously these forms were paper-based and handled manually causing compliance headaches and students missing required information. Lincoln Tech integrated Laserfiche with their Nexus system to track student documents with information moving seamlessly between platforms. With Laserfiche as the repository and handling process automation, students are notified after a specified amount of time that they have forms that need to be completed. Once the processes are completed, status information is automatically updated in Nexus. Importantly, FERPA and other compliance guidelines are always followed with built-in security in Laserfiche and Nexus.
This new, automated approach to document management helps not only staff meet compliance requirements, but also helps ease overall student life. Instead of manually following up on outstanding tasks, there’s easy insight into what a student is missing. Plus, electronic forms and online processes helps meet students where they are; whether they’re on campus, working at their full-time job, or are anywhere else they can easily submit forms that previously required a trip to campus administration. Since getting started with Laserfiche, Lincoln Tech has published nearly 50 forms including 23 in their Career Services and 25 in their Academic Records departments leading to over 170,000 student processes generated.
“I could say we’ve saved thousands of admin hours and it would still be too low.”
– Valerian Thomas, CIO at Lincoln Tech
An Evolving Solution
Going forward Lincoln Tech plans on continuing to build on their success to transform more processes on campus. There are still many paper-based, manual processes that Laserfiche could help automate and make even more impact institution-wide. One such process is around staff certification and license tracking.
As a career-focused institution, Lincoln Tech instructors may need a special certification and/or license to legally teach some classes; currently instructor certification/license information including expiration dates are managed on spreadsheets. This requires manual checking of who has valid certifications, when those certifications expire, and renewal information. If an instructor’s credential expires and it’s missed, instructors may not be allowed to teach a course leading to instruction disruptions. An upcoming project Lincoln Tech is working on is automating this process so not only is operations aware, but teaching staff is empowered to be up to date on their requirements without manual tracking.
“As the leader in career-focused education, Lincoln Tech has the highest standards for their student services. Laserfiche was the perfect choice because it easily adapts to the varying needs of their network of campuses across multiple states. The Accelerated team and I are honored to work with such a visionary team.”
– Zaheer Master, President of Accelerated Information Systems
Looking Ahead
In addition to new processes, Lincoln Tech also plans on moving their financial aid and admissions documents into Laserfiche. Currently, financial aid and admission documents are stored in a separate portal; by moving everything into Laserfiche, Lincoln Tech will have a single location for each student housing nearly 99% of their student documents. Student records in Laserfiche will only be accessible to the right staff members based on security rights, helping to create a secure, easy-to-access hub for student data. With this project on the horizon, plus the 50 forms and 170,000 student processes generated, Lincoln Tech is well on their way to a seamless campus experience for their community.
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About Accelerated Information Systems
Accelerated Information Systems (AIS) is an award-winning professional services firm focused on solving business challenges with software solutions. AIS provides expert guidance, utilizing industry expertise and a strong technical skill set to design, implement, and support enterprise solutions.
AIS provides a full suite of professional services including consulting, solution design, implementation, technical support, data conversion, system integration, training, and project management.
Clients of AIS include State and Local Government, Colleges and Universities, Financial Services (Wealth Management, Investment Advisors, Broker-Dealers), Manufacturers, Not-for-Profit Organizations, TV and Media, and Multi-National Non-Governmental Organizations.
Founded in 2005, AIS is headquartered in New York and is also certified in multiple other states as a Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) and a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE). In addition, Accelerated is a Platinum Certified Laserfiche Solution Provider and the 2019 Laserfiche Cloud Solution Provider of the Year.