City of Friendswood, Texas

City offices discover user-friendly storage solution.

By archiving reports generated from their AS/400 to hard disk instead of paper, the City of Friendswood, TX, has saved about 10 hours per week and large amounts of storage space while improving their data security.  By implementing the MetaViewer system from Metafile, Rochester, MN the city has been able to reclaim the considerable space that was used to store their paper reports.  It has also become practical for the first time to create backup copies of all the city's reports and store them offsite where they will be safe in case of disaster.

Established in 1895 midway between Houston and Galveston, the City of Friendswood has a current population of over 34,000.  Each year the city generates a stack of reports about 30 feet high.  These reports need to be archived, typically for three but in some cases up to seven years in order to meet regulatory requirements.  The result in the past was that the city had already filled one entire storage room and was rapidly filling up every spare inch of space in the municipal offices.  Other concerns were the amount of time required to located specific information from the financial records and to deal with the paper records themselves.

The city's information technology department picked the MetaViewer solution for several different reasons.  This solution automates the report indexing process to such a degree that it requires almost no administration.  From the user's standpoint the software is very easy to use and makes it possible to access documents based on their full text as opposed to limited predefined tables.  Finally, the MetaViewer customers that they spoke to raved about the product's functionality and the level of support offered by the vendor.

"Budgets are tight yet we can't compromise on our commitments to the citizens of the town as well as our obligations to comply with the wide range of regulations," members of the financial staff concluded. "Technology has helped us meet these challenges by increasing the productivity of our staff." 

"MetaViewer has played a significant role by making it possible to find important information in a fraction of the time that was required in the past while also helping us free up storage space for more productive uses.  We are already beginning to expand our utilization of this tool."

~City Personnel
City of Friendswood, TX

Read all about the City of Friendswood's success.