How the City of Mesquite put its dispatch log on the record

Challenge

The IT team at the City of Mesquite was looking for a document management solution that could help them eliminate their paper-based processes and improve transparency by making specific documents publicly available and easy to find on the city’s website.

The service that we were using to manage our documents had become outdated and fairly inefficient. Adding files was time-consuming and, overall, we just needed a better platform to move forward, explained Dirk Marshall, the IT Director at the City of Mesquite who oversees their infrastructure and services.

Internally, employees were using Google Workspacein their day-to-day work. As Dirk and his team explored other options, they specifically looked for services that complemented Google Workspace.

We thought it was a good idea to take advantage of Google Drive for our storage. That’s what led us to AODocs, Dirk said.

Story

The City of Mesquite knew that AODocs workflows would have a significant impact on their day-to-day efficiency: “We knew we could find different ways to make the automated workflows useful to improve our internal processes and enhance our use of Google Drive itself,” said Dirk. “AODocs just gives us more flexibility and ease of use in automating our document processes.”

One particular process involved a log that was used by the city’s dispatchers. This log was managed in a Word document. On a daily basis, items in the document were changed, added, or deleted before it was emailed as an attachment for the rest of the dispatch team to read.

It was a complex process for something that is now very streamlined with AODocs, said Dirk.

Although every person was required to read the log at the start of their shift, there was no way to track it. That made it impossible to tell who actually read the important daily information and who didn’t. Dirk wanted a way to track the document, retain a record of who looked at it and when, and keep a copy of the document to reference later on.

With AODocs, we set up a Google Doc to use as a template and created a workflow to ensure that all members see the daily log. Then, they approve it so we know they’ve seen it. Now, the dispatch supervisor knows exactly who has and hasn’t seen the log, they get a good history of what’s going on, and can go back as far as they need to.

Results

Our dispatchers are in charge of all of the communication that goes out to police officers and medical and fire personnel. Making sure they have accurate and up-to-date information is important,” Dirk explained. “Our Dispatch Daily Log workflow in AODocs helps make sure that information from one shift gets passed on to the next.