The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), a statutory body evolved in 1999 from the Tertiary Education Fund of South Africa, has overhauled its workflow processes with the implementation of TRIM, an electronic document and records management system.
The commercial off-the-shelf system, implemented by document and records management specialist Metrofile, was initially intended to enable electronic image storage but has also played a crucial role in the processing and managing of historical agreements into a central repository for easy access.
NSFAS, funded primarily by the National Department of Education, provides study loans to academically able but financially restricted students who wish to study at one of SA`s public higher education institutions. The scheme awarded some R635 million worth of loans and bursaries to more than 93 500 students in 2001, with 92.4% of its funds received from government, 1.1% from international donors, 5.3% from institutions and 1.2% from the private sector.
"TRIM has enabled us to move from a cumbersome and inefficient paper-based process of managing agreements, correspondence and records to an electronic document management system that allows effective and immediate storage and retrieval of a virtually unlimited volume of paperwork," says Sandi Hoole, IT operations manager at NSFAS.
"The system also speeds up our workflow processes, enables the routing of documents through our internal processes, and provides a way of re-indexing thousands of historically scanned documents such as student loan agreement forms and correspondence with donors and tertiary education institutions."
TRIM, which went live in October, replaces a manual system in NSFAS that used network directories for document storage, a small scanner and an inefficient process of manual indexing. The system has 20 users, with potential for 40 as NSFAS enhances its workflow processes. Physical records will continue to be stored at Metrofile in the event of a need for disaster recovery.
"As a national financial aid scheme, NSFAS required an affordable system that would be up and running quickly without blowing the budget on professional services," says Metrofile marketing director Paul Mullon.
"TRIM was easy to install and is user-friendly. It enables the management of all correspondence, provides visible access to all scanned images, presents a view of all paper documentation throughout the organisation, and manages e-mails and correspondence using a simple electronic workflow process."
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Metrofile, a company in the JSE Securities Exchange-listed MGX group, is the South African market leader in the management of business content, and is committed to help customers reduce costs and improve productivity in processes that are centred around documents and corporate records.
All companies have a combination of paper and electronic documents, and are forced by law and customer requirements to secure the availability of the documents for the duration of their lifecycle. For most organisations, the volume of documentation is growing at an exponential rate, and is becoming increasingly difficult to manage.
Metrofile, which also has an international presence, is uniquely positioned to provide consulting and implementation of full lifecycle paper and electronic records management solutions from storage and conversion through to destruction.
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