Electronic Signatures: The Ideal Solution for the City of Saint-Eustache
The City of Saint-Eustache, a suburb just west of Montreal, revolutionized how it works by introducing electronic signatures to its employees and customers.
By starting with a review of its organizational processes, the team assessed their overall needs and identified which departments would be involved in the process:
City needs
Modernize archiving
- Digitize city processes
- Facilitate digital archiving
- Help destroy old documents, free up space
- Offer efficient and compliant services to residents and organizations
- Avoid having to travel to sign documents
- Reduce the city’s environmental footprint
Streamline procurement
- Spend city funds wisely
- Expedite contracts with suppliers
- and subcontractors
- Reduce processing times and
- minimize follow-up to obtain
- signatures
- Enable efficiency when working
- remotely
Main departments involved
- City Clerk
- Public Library
- Finance
- Administration
- Procurement
- Urban Planning
- Arts and Culture
- Human Resources
- Community Engagement
- Parks and Recreation
Once they identified their overall needs and key stakeholders, it was time to review electronic signature technology and its uses. Very quickly, the team saw the value the new technology would contribute to their digitization strategy and efforts to improve productivity and performance across departments.
Why use electronic signatures?
- Key piece of overall digitization strategy
- Increasingly common across Quebec
- Ease of use
- Convenient for remote employees
- Facilitate communication and collaboration
- Significant productivity gains
Knowing that there are countless options in the electronic signature space, the team further narrowed their needs and were able to identify just one solution. eZsign quickly stood out as the front-runner in their search for the best technology for their needs.
Why choose eZsign?
Homegrown partner
- A Quebec business supporting cities in Quebec
- Bilingual software
- Bilingual team
Affordable
- Top tech without breaking the bank
Proactive team
- All questions answered quickly
- Understands cities’ unique needs
- Attentive customer care
Smart automation
- Automatic follow-ups and reminders
- Never miss a signature
- Less risk of human error
Security
- Transparent security policy and Trust Centre
- Multi-factor authentication
- Futureproof long-term validation (LTV)
Satisfied departments
- General Management
- Finance Department
- Legal, IT, Archivists and more
“When you implement new technology, you have to think through old processes and systems and clean them up. It can be uncomfortable, since it requires a lot of effort and time. But when you have a new, modern process paired with an e-signature solution, you can really see just how valuable change is.”
– City of Saint-Eustache
Since implementing an e-signature solution, the City of Saint-Eustache has experienced many benefits.
Practical examples of how e-signatures help cities:
- When a city has to make purchases, these expenses need to get approved by the Procurement Department.
- Getting all parties to sign off often takes a very long time. However, with the introduction of eZsign, approval documents are signed by the next day.
- The experience for the department, and the efficiencies created within teams, mean they can now focus on other more meaningful tasks and work.
- eZsign delivers significant productivity gains within a city.
- Another perk of eZsign: document follow-ups and reminders.
- Departments spend a lot of time chasing signatures. eZsign helps teams work better with smart automation, so you never have to chase a signer again.
- People work can lead to errors. eZsign’s automated digital workflows reduce the risk of human error.
- eZsign is more than just a signature solution, it makes paperwork easy.
Where cities can use e-signatures:
Saint-Eustache’s experience since the switch
Onboarding new technology is just the start. To use e-signatures effectively, Saint-Eustache rethought and revamped outdated processes, streamlining them and making them more efficient.
The result: significant productivity gains, less human error, and major time savings.
Example: Thanks to eZsign, Saint-Eustache was able to obtain approvals very quickly, sometimes even on the same day!
Overcoming Saint-Eustache’s biggest challenge
Change is hard, but change is also necessary. With a partner like eZsign, change doesn’t have to be scary.
The city successfully managed the change process through:
- Appointing a champion
- A team member helped coach key players through the process
- Convincing city leaders
- The champion helped convince top officials, who helped convince others
- Earning stakeholder buy-in
- The City’s archivists recognized the value of the solution, which helped convince others
How e-signatures benefited the city of Saint-Eustache
Paperwork made easy
City staff has been able to stop chasing paper and start working better together! Faster, more efficient processes mean teams can focus on more meaningful, value-added work.
Collaboration
City departments are notoriously siloed. Digital tools like e-signatures helped this city break through the silos, facilitating teamwork across departments, across offices, and even from home.
Saint-Eustache’s archiving needs
Challenge: Storage spaces were at capacity due to the significant amount of paper documents.
Solution: In line with the digitalization strategies implemented for several years at the city, the eZsign electronic signature application provides long-term validation (LTV) for documents using PDF/A.
In addition, record retention needs are being met and the City remains the custodian of its records and manages them in accordance with its retention schedule.
eZsign’s archiving benefits:
- Long-term validation (LTV) to comply with document retention schedules
- Digital document storage to free up space and money
- Flexible document destruction features
- PDF/A standard digital storage
Saint-Eustache experienced many benefits that enabled the city to improve collaboration and efficiency among departments, enhance storage and security of documents, and support their goal of a more digitized strategy.
Is your city ready to take a step towards more digitized, efficient and collaborative processes? Speak to one of our experts today to get started.
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