United Counties of
Prescott and Russell
Among the First Municipalities in Ontario to Make the Digital Shift
In spring 2018, five departments in the United Counties of Prescott and Russell adopted Notarius’ electronic and digital signature solution.
IT
Finance
PUBLIC WORKS
HR
COUNCIL
Background
For several years now, the United Counties of Prescott and Russell have wanted to make the shift to digital technologies. At their IT department’s initiative, the goal of this digital transformation was to improve and simplify their different departments’ administrative processes. Unfortunately, after looking into the options, none of the solutions available seemed user-friendly enough to meet their needs.
Pilot Project
In December 2017, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) chose Notarius as their official provider of electronic and digital signatures. During a presentation of Notarius’ solutions, the association announced that it was launching a digital transformation pilot project and that all of Ontario’s municipalities were invited to participate. During the presentation, the United Counties of Prescott and Russell discovered that Notarius’ solutions are exceptionally user-friendly, which convinced them to participate in the pilot project.
“For two or three years now, we’ve been
wanting to transition to an electronic process.”
“For two or three years now, we’ve been wanting to transition to an electronic process. We started by replacing paper internal documents with electronic copies, and then we wanted to do the same thing with signed documents. However, we wanted to avoid systematically printing the documents to be signed, getting them signed and digitizing them, and then destroying the original documents, so we started looking for an electronic signature solution.”
JUSTIN BROMBERG
Chief of Staff and Communications Manager
The Solution
Notarius’ digital and electronic signature solution has allowed the United Counties of Prescott and Russell to make their processes 100% digital. They can now:
Create authentic electronic documents that certify that the signature does in
fact come from the signing employee or signing department;
Send documents to be signed internally and externally thanks to the
ConsignO Cloud electronic signature platform;
Sign documents in batches thanks to ConsignO Desktop.
“For two or three years now, we’ve been
wanting to transition to an electronic process.”
“To make our processes completely digital, we needed to find a solution that would allow us to get internal and external documents signed and to certify that the documents originated from us. The challenge was finding a comprehensive, user-friendly solution without multiplying the digital environments by relying on multiple providers. Notarius, as a trusted certification authority and a provider of electronic signatures, had everything we were looking for, in addition to being able to guarantee the reliability of our documents since proof of the signers’ or signing organizations’ identities are embedded in the signed document.”
Marc-André Drouin
IT Manager – Systems and Services
The Challenges
The greatest obstacle: MAKING THE CHANGE
Often, users are not convinced that the change being proposed is more efficient than conventional methods. In addition, many people are hesitant to use information technologies. We must therefore convince and educate them on the advantages of making the change by supporting them in the transition.
The Results
After only one month, Notarius’ solutions had already been adopted by several departments at the United Counties of Prescott and Russell.
- Savings in time and productivity.
A contract that took 3 to 4 weeks to sign can now be signed in just a few hours. - Almost immediate adoption both internally and externally.
The platform is so easy to use that no signers have needed help signing documents.
“ConsignO Cloud is just so easy to use.”
“ConsignO Cloud is just so easy to use. I recently had to sign an important contract for a multi-million-dollar project with a supplier. Four people had to sign the document, two internally and two externally, and the process went extremely well, with no problems or questions.”
Justin Bromberg
Chief of Staff and Communications Manager
Some of the many reasons
to make a digital transition
Security & reliability
Document quality
Time savings
Financial gains
More physical space
Environment
What advice would you
give to a municipality
who wants to transition
to digital technologies?
“What advice would you give to a municipality
who wants to transition to digital technologies?”
“It is important to designate the key players in your different departments to make the transition easier. These key players should take a positive approach and demonstrate leadership to the people they are influencing. There weren’t any technological challenges, but the culture and municipality needed convincing. Gradually making the change to digital technologies, like we did, is another way to make the transition easier. What worked for us was to let staff members discover Notarius’ solutions on their own so that they could see for themselves the many advantages the tools have to offer.”
Marc-André Drouin,
IT Manager – Systems and Services
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