Regional School Unit 24

DocuPhase Case Study

Industry
Education
Department
Administration
Solution
Document Management

Overview

Regional School Unit (RSU) 24 serves nine communities along the Down East coast of Maine, with nearly 1,000 students enrolled in the district’s five schools.

With archives dating back to 1953, the district relied on metal filing cabinets to house and organize the thousands of student records they kept on site: That's why their guidance secretary panicked when the head custodian told her they planned to transfer its 8,000+ student records offsite.

Without access to these files, daily administrative tasks like photocopying and mailing out student transcripts would be impossible. The issue was brought to the district’s technology coordinator and superintendent, and the team agreed that the time had come to make the transition to digital record keeping.

Results at a Glance

8,000+

student records digitized

"A lot of times you sign on with a solution that can do what you want in the moment, but then you realize you need it to do something else later on and they can’t. DocuPhase is flexible and can do a lot more than document storage, and I really like that."

Ginny Dennison Technology Coordinator

The Solution

The district initially explored using Google Drive to manage student records, but found that it didn't meet their requirements for secure storage and flexible permissions. They needed a system that could adapt to changes in staff and provide a streamlined way of organizing and locating files. As a result, they started looking for a user-friendly platform that could efficiently digitize 70 years' worth of records.

DocuPhase fit the bill. By partnering with a local scanning service, DocuPhase’s document management system enabled RSU 24 to easily organize and access their digital records in one place. DocuPhase also features:

  • Configurable organization frameworks, providing structure for file organization
  • Role-based permissions, restricting access to sensitive data
  • Paperless record keeping, eliminating the hassle and clutter of housing paper documents on site  
  • Easy search functionality, making records accessible at the click of a button 
  • Hands-free scanning, allowing archived documents to be digitized and indexed without diverting staff attention or hiring dedicated resources 
  • Scalable features, offering long-term support and opportunities for further optimization in other departments.

The Results

Since digitizing their student records with DocuPhase, RSU 24's guidance secretary can now retrieve and send documents instantly from her desktop, without needing to search through physical files. The solution has not only surpassed the district’s criteria for time-savings and ease of use, but it also offers the added benefit of scalability.

“After using it for a while, we realized how much more the platform could do,” said Ginny Dennison, RSU 24’s Technology Coordinator. The district plans to leverage DocuPhase’s flexibility by expanding its usage to other departments and workflows in the future.