Department: Universal Services
Department Head: Sindhu Menon, Executive Director & CIO
Regular or Supplemental RCA: Regular RCA
Type of Request: Investment Memo
Investment Memo Type: Final Investment Memo
Project Name: Electronic Document Management
Project ID (if applicable): NI037
Vendor Legal Name (if applicable): N/A
MWDBE Contracted Goal (if applicable): N/A
MWDBE Current Achievement (if applicable): N/A
Justification for 0% MWDBE Participation Goal: N/A - Goal not applicable to request
Managing Entity: Universal Services
Incremental Authorization Requested: $1,753,680
Total Estimated Project Cost: $3,507,360 (FY25 & FY26 2-year total estimate)
Request Summary:
title
Request for approval of the Final Investment Memo for Electronic Document Management (continuous) project for an additional incremental authorization of $1,753,680 for FY2025.
end
Project Description:
The Electronic Document Management program aims to develop and implement a strategy to provide an enterprise document management system for Harris County. This program consists of multiple projects that apply enterprise-wide and department-specific solutions using a shared document management infrastructure and a set of document management-related technology services. These services include document and image management, records management, information archiving, search and usage analytics, scanning and optical character recognition, electronic signature, and record-auditing capabilities. These services are made available to specific Harris County departments using a phased approach to implementation with ongoing support by Universal Services.
Now that the initial project setup has been completed, the project is entering its continuous improvement phase with new solutions. This request covers project needs for FY25, and future funding requests will be submitted to Commissioners Court annually.
Project Scope:
The scope of work for projects in FY25 are:
• County Wide Migrations to OpenText- Centralized location for department content collections. An electronic document management program will provide security and access control, preservation, identification, and management of personal and confidential information, the ability to work seamlessly with desktop tools including MS Office and SharePoint, the ability to support mobile technologies and remote access (proved important given efforts to address Covid-19), and the ability to store a wide range of content types including email in native formats. The scopes include departments such as District Courts, Fire Marshalls Office, Public Library, and repositories for their multiple applications.
• Community Development has chosen to us OpenText as their content repository. This will include both born digital files and paper records to be digitized. Community Development wants OpenText as the back-end repository for their multiple applications.
• Forensic Science has expressed a need for business process automation, records management, and retention for records currently stored multiple repositories and on paper.
• Enterprise solution for Harris County Human Resources have requested process automation and auto form creation for Human Resources documents. This will become an enterprise solution for Human Resources County-Wide.
• Engineering Document Migration and Integration has chosen to us OpenText as their content repository. This will include both born digital files and paper records to be digitized. Engineering wants OpenText as the back-end repository for their multiple applications.
• Precincts Warrants Digitization Phase 2 - The Precincts are requesting a solution to digitize all warrant type documents. This will be an enterprise solution for law enforcement.
• OpenText Intelligent Capture Implementation - OpenText will go through a migration. Replacing the BRAVA annotation solution
• OpenText Single Sign On
• OpenText to the Cloud
Procurement to Pay Efforts
There might be changes in the County’s needs that results in minor operational changes for the project throughout the Fiscal Year, but the overall scope will remain the same and any additional authorization would go through Commissioners Court approval.
Justification:
The County continues to move forward to an electronic standardized enterprise document management platform.
With the current projects completed, we have seen a decrease in storage costs, an increase in the implementation of records management, automation of business processes, collaboration, and the sharing of documents across County departments. The Enterprise Document Management solution has also provided more efficient management for security, compliance, archiving, scalability, and analytics.
The success of the project can be measured through the following performance metrics:
• Reduce the number of physical records stored by the Harris County Records Center
• Reduced reliance on paper
• Reduced cost within departments of document storage on-premises and at 3rd party facilities (e.g., Iron Mountain)
• Improvements in average time for invoice reviews prior to entry in PeopleSoft (Auto Invoicing (AI))
Alternatives and Engagement:
Based on Commissioners Court's approval and direction, Universal Services has invested significant money and time building the infrastructure for the centralized electronic records management repository. The OpenText platform was selected in an RFP in 2015 because it is an industry-leading electronic records management system that satisfies the County’s security, functional, and technological needs. The proposed project expenditures will be paid entirely from CIP. Universal Services does not have an alternative enterprise offering in this domain.
The impact of not receiving funding would result in Universal Services no longer being able to support the existing solutions. County departments will be forced to find and pay for a solution that could fit their needs. They would spend time and capital to implement them. This will bring the departments back into their individual silos and mean we do not have a centralized document management approach.
Communications and Organization Change Management functions can be engaged to drive faster adoption of the platform by additional departments.
Key stakeholders for the overall project include the Harris County Records Management Officer and the County Auditor. Both parties are looking for expansion of this program and engagement with more departments in order to expedite and facilitate compliance with the County’s Records Management Plan.
Anticipated Project Expenditures and Timeline:
This project is to fund new solutions, and to repair and replace existing solutions.
In addition, I am requesting continuation of 3 full time resources, three existing product specialist, and contract resources needed for post go-live support of existing solutions and implementation of new solutions (as mentioned in Project Scope).
The anticipated project expenditures will be funded with commercial paper.
|
Scope of Work |
Estimated Cost |
Estimated Completion |
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3 Product Specialist Contractors (product experts to support work on department-specific projects) * |
600,000 |
9/30/2025 |
|
3 FTE’s - 1 Developer, 2 analysts |
325,000 |
9/30/2025 |
|
County Wide Migrations to OpenText (500 hrs. @ 180/hr.) |
90,000 |
9/30/2025 |
|
OpenText to the Cloud and Single Sign on (640 hrs. @ 180/hr.) |
115,200 |
9/30/2025 |
|
Engineering Document Migration (160 hrs. @ 180/hr.) |
28,800 |
9/30/2025 |
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Community Development - Digitization, Migration, and Integration efforts (320 hrs. @ 180/hr.) |
57,600 |
9/30/2025 |
|
Institute of Forensic Sciences - Process automation (160 hrs. @ 180/hr.) |
28,800 |
9/30/2025 |
|
Precincts Warrants Digitization and Automation Phase 2 (320 hrs. @180/hr) |
57,600 |
9/30/2025 |
|
Public Health Digitization, Migration, and Integration - (640 hrs. @180/hr) |
115,200 |
9/30/2025 |
|
OpenText Intelligent Capture Migration (160 hrs. @ /180 hr.) |
28,800 |
9/30/2025 |
|
Enterprise solution for Harris County Human Resources (80 hrs. @ / 180 hr.) |
14,400 |
9/30/2025 |
|
Sub-Total |
1,461,400 |
|
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Contingency 20% |
292,280 |
|
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Total Planned FY25 Expenditures |
1,753,680 |
|
*These are existing contractors, their roles include: 1st line of customer support for new project work, enterprise content management business liaison (Requirements, discovery, and design), and project documentation.
The estimated costs above are HCUS-generated; they are estimated levels of effort from similar past projects and the implementation partners blended billing rate.
The primary risk this project has is being unable to locate or access all relevant records for a department in a timely manner. Discovery of new relevant records that is previously not accounted for can result in significant changes to scope, design, and/or estimated costs to complete a defined work effort for a department. A lack of availability of knowledgeable and empowered departmental personnel in the area of records management is another risk to this project.
This program is already in progress. There are no dependencies on other initiatives in order to start. The items listed above in the Statement of Work are dependent on additional funding.
At this point, US is asking for authorization for FY25, CP allocation will be requested later when the PO is ready to be issued.
Alignment with Goal(s):
X Justice and Safety
X Economic Opportunity
X Housing
X Public Health
_ Transportation
X Flooding
_ Environment
X Governance and Customer Service
Previous Court Action:
|
Date |
Agenda Item # |
Action Taken |
|
6/24/2014 |
CIP Project Submission |
Initial TCO for 5-year forecasted costs of Electronic Document Management program |
|
3/31/2015 |
I.4.b |
Request for $2.8M of $27.4M for project costs expected to be incurred for initial implementation. |
|
1/25/2022 |
22-0495 |
Request for approval of commercial paper funding for $665,000 |
|
5/10/2022 |
22-2872 |
Request for approval of additional authorization of $625,000 and commercial paper funding for $300,000 |
|
6/14/2022 |
22-3516 |
Request for approval of commercial paper funding for $325,000 |
|
8/23/2022 |
22-4954 |
Request for FY23 additional authorization of $3,000,000 |
|
10/18/2022 |
22-6605 |
Request for approval of commercial paper funding for $1,500,000 |
|
8/29/2023 |
23-4826 |
Request for an additional incremental authorization of $2,125,000 for FY24 |
|
8/29/2023 |
23-4790 |
Request for approval of commercial paper funding for $650,000 |
|
10/10/2023 |
23-5834 |
Request for approval of commercial paper funding $1,065,000 for a total of $4,505,000 |
|
12/5/2023 |
23-7149 |
Request for approval of decrease commercial paper funding $1,600,000 for a net CP funding $2,905,000 |
|
6/4/2024 |
24-3365 |
Request for approval of commercial paper funding for $470,000 |
Address: Multiple
Precinct(s): Countywide
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Anticipated Court Date: 10/8/2024
Anticipated Implementation Date (if different from Court date):
Legal funding compliance confirmed by: Paige Abernathy, Assistant County Attorney, 9/10/2024
Department Approval by: Christee Lewis, Manager-Document Management and Web Technologies, 7/9/2024
OMB CIP Team Approval by: Amiel Chen, CIP Manager, OMB, 9/10/24
Commercial Paper Request (For OMB use only):
Receiving Department: N/A
Project PeopleSoft ID: N/A
CP Series Description: N/A
HB 1869 compliance confirmed by: N/A
OMB Financial Management contact: N/A