Weimarer Wohnstätte increases customer satisfaction with ELO. Thanks to the DMS, the staff have instant access to tenants’ files from every workplace. Incoming and outgoing post is also processed and electronically archived with ELOprofessional. Ancillary costs invoices and tenant data are automatically integrated from the housing industry software AS/400 via the ELO COLD interface into the electronic ELO tenant file. The result is increased customer satisfaction, optimised corporate information flow and effective business processes.
Weimarer Wohnstätte GmbH creates living spaces – especially when it comes to letting or selling affordable homes. As a 100% subsidiary of the City of Weimar, Weimarer Wohnstätte works and acts towards future-oriented urban development and construction. This commitment focuses mainly on the interests and ideas of its tenants and homeowners. "We create living spaces" is not just a promise of affordable housing, but rather an avowal of more housing culture and quality of life.
Before introducing ELO, Weimarer Wohnstätte had already started archiving its tenant files in electronic form. But the company wanted to update its housing industry software over the next few years. It had been clear since 2003 that they needed an innovative, flexible and above all independent archive system for long-term archiving, which can be linked with any other software. Weimarer Wohnstätte didn’t take the easy way out when evaluating archiving software, particularly as the solution it already had also offered an archive component for the core business areas. After a year and a half of extensive research and comparison of different archive and document management systems and several practical trials at other housing companies, the team decided on ELOprofessional.
Despite the electronic tenant files, the company worked with a central paper archive. It was strenuous and time-consuming to find information from a tenant file. Key criteria for choosing ELO as an electronic archiving system were its simple and intuitive operation and the fact that it is easy to learn. And the company was also impressed by its flexibility in adapting to the housing industry software in use. It took only a single day to connect the two software systems. Now all information is available at the touch of a button – including for service centres outside of the headquarters – immediately accessible via ELOprofessional.
If a company gets customer feedback like this, it can be rightly proud of its staff. Weimarer Wohnstätte offers 24-hour service for all technical problems in the tenants’ apartments, for example. Every major residential area has its own Weimarer Wohnstätte service centre. And the company deals with owners’ interests with just as much dedication and competence, for example in managing and maintaining their buildings and properties. Considering this dedication to tenants and owners, the electronic ELO archive is an important way for the company to raise customer satisfaction.
Weimarer Wohnstätte started its ELO project off by processing and archiving the active tenancies. The ELO filing structure includes contract and correspondence files, such as rent contracts, changes in rent and direct debit authorisations. The files also contain documents on judicial activities, deposits and guarantees, ancillary costs invoices and other payment agreements. Information about the apartments is archived in ELO in an apartment file, containing floor plans, photos and other material. During the initial archiving process, working processes within the company were deliberately simplified, so that the trained staff can archive their own documents in a single step. In this context, Weimarer Wohnstätte organised electronic archiving of email and fax documents from Lotus Notes into the ELO electronic tenant files. With the ELO COLD interface, the staff can automatically feed in ancillary costs invoice letters from the housing industry system AS/400 and other data into the ELO tenant files.
Simple operation and the link to the housing industry system helped the DMS achieve a high acceptance level among all staff at Weimarer Wohnstätte. The archive system has become an important and essential element of the everyday working processes. ELO is available to all employees, including those working outside of the head office. The tenants see fast reactions, immediate information and copies printed on demand as a positive factor. "The heating costs invoices, which used to be delivered in metre-high paper lists by external calculation companies, now fit onto 2 CDs with around 7000 datasets," says the Project Manager Dr. Angela Wernicke.
"I think in future we will build up the already very advanced housing archive into a company archive, archiving key documents on corporate organisation and management in electronic form and making them individually usable for our employees via the differentiated ELO authorisation rulings," Angela Wernicke says. The electronic ELO archive is a constantly growing system, which can make many internal processes more efficient.
"We’ve created the possibility to archive huge amounts of data as documents in ELO – individually for every tenant – in only about 20 minutes. That’s not only an enormous relief for our staff, but also saves a lot of time – which we now use for really useful things." Dr. Angela Wernicke, IT and Project Management, Weimarer Wohnstätte GmbH
"Many MS Office documents are already archived in ELO – it’s a very comfortable solution as part of the standard ELO archive system package. I’m really impressed." Dr. Angela Wernicke, IT and Project Management, Weimarer Wohnstätte GmbH