OIT—Case Study
Penn State University’s Human Resources Department
Cuts Costs and Increases Productivity
Penn State University, one of the world’s largest and most recognized institutes of higher education, currently has 80,000 enrolled students and 15,000 employees on twenty-four campuses spread across PA. Campus locations include: University Park, Harrisburg, Hazelton, Abington, Altoona, Beaver, Erie, Dubois, Fayette, Great Valley, Delaware County, Lehigh Valley, Mckeesport, Mont Alto, York, Wilkes Barre, and other locations in Pennsylvania.

Penn State has one centralized Human Resources Department located at their main campus at University Park. HR is responsible for all aspects of employment for every campus location. With potentially 15,000 Penn Staters available to apply for job postings during the first stage and an infinite amount of people to apply if the posting goes to the second stage (public), and the fact that each applicant had to submit an application, cover letter and resume, the amount of paper being shuffled through HR each year was becoming more and more difficult.

Thousands of Documents
Before implementing the Optical Image Technology, Inc. (OIT) DocFinity® Suite of Document Management Solutions, HR would collect every outside resume, cover letter and application for each new job opening and enter that information into a database. Each week, Penn State could have between 15-45 new job openings with 5-50 or more applicants for each position. This means that HR was receiving up to 6,750 new documents a week! HR would sort through the documents and organize them per job posting, then photocopy each document to be faxed or mailed to the correct department. HR would then store each document for two years.

Once the applications made it to the correct department, the manager would copy each document five to ten times, depending on the number of people sitting on the selection committee. If a department posted ten new jobs a year, and each position had 50 applicants, the department would receive 1,500 documents. If their selection committee contained eight people, the number of documents quickly jumps to 12,000. Multiple that by the number of departments on each campus and the number of documents per year is well into the hundreds of thousands. Also, most departments were also storing these documents (the same ones HR stored) for two years.

In June of 1998, Penn State appointed Harold Hockman, Lead Application Programmer Analyst of the Human Resources Department, to come up with a way to reduce the amount being spent on printing, faxing and storing documents while increasing productivity. Using OIT’s DocFinity Document Management Solution and Allarie Corporation’s Cold Fusion Development tool, HR went live with their new application in November of that same year.

A Better Way
Penn State University had implemented an unlimited amount of servers and licenses of OIT’s DocFinity COLD-ERM, DocFinity Imaging, DocFinity WorkFlow, DocFinity IntraVIEWER® (Browser Access), DocFinity Hierarchical Storage Manager (HSM), and DocFinity Print/Fax Server. Using this as the backbone of the project, Mr. Hockman developed a simple way to gather and store each applicant’s cover letter, resume and application.

Using the centralized account system database Penn State had already implemented to store every student and employee name and Identification number, Mr. Hockman developed a way for any Penn Stater to bid on new job postings (stage one). He created a website that has all available job postings listed by department. The user logs in using their User ID and password and simply clicks on the job they wish to bid on. After they do that, they get immediate email confirmation. When they are ready, they can upload their cover letter and resume (staff members do not need an application since the university already has this information on file). As Mr. Hockman stated, “It’s easier than using an ATM machine!”

Once the user has created their cover letters and resumes in either rich text format or HTML and has submitted them once, links to both are stored and automatically appear on the application screen

Benefits
Within seconds of the applicant submitting their resume it is received by HR. Since the files are received electronically, the information is automatically entered and stored in the database via the OIT software, eliminating the need to print all of the documents and the cost and time of entering the information manually.

On average 80% of all applicants submit their information via the Internet. Of the remaining 20%, 15% is faxed and 5% mailed or hand-delivered. HR collects faxes via Zetafax, which is imported with OIT’s Filer. Every other document must be scanned and indexed by authorization number into the system for storage and distribution.

As soon as the applicant uploads their cover letter and resume, the department manager has access to their information. This allows the managers to monitor the position applicant by applicant, instead of waiting for all resumes to be received and then spending days sorting through the material. Since the manager can determine which users have the administrative rights of viewing each candidate’s information, the entire selection committee may be granted rights. This means the documents can be stored, passed onto the department manager and the selection committee in an instant without printing and copying the material!

The system also allows the selection committee to rate each applicant. Then, when they meet to discuss the applicants, all they need to print are the materials of the candidates they feel are most qualified. It is very easy for the committee to quickly eliminate applicants simply by only interviewing the candidates who appear unanimously on all of their lists. In just minutes they have sorted through hundreds of resumes and found the most qualified applicants.

If none of the applicants meet the requirements, the job posting goes into the second stage and is opened to the public. “This new system allows jobs to be posted to the entire university at once. Since the job postings are updated weekly, qualified applicants are being interviewed sooner and jobs are being filled faster,” states Mr. Hockman.

Since November 1998, HR has received close to 5,100 files or 15,000 pages electronically, each containing two or three pages. Where it previously took five employees in the HR department to sort, organize and enter the information in the database, three people can now handle the task. Since the resumes and cover letters are now being stored in the database once rather than being printed, copied ten times and stored for two years in several different filing cabinets, the costs related to printing and storing documents has greatly decreased for every department in the university. This, along with the ease of use and the increased productivity has made the project a huge success for Penn State.

Mr. Hockman plans to incorporate DocFinity IntraVIEWER’s Java Version in the near future. “We have developed an easy way for managers to streamline their business. The use of Java will make the process even easier as we will be able to view TIFF images without having to reconfigure any computers with helper viewers. The project has caught on quickly and we’re expecting even greater success in the future.”

Optical Image Technology, Inc. (OIT)
OIT is a global software developer dedicated to providing products and services that improve business performance with better information management, decision making and customer service. Based in State College, Pennsylvania, the company provides customers with innovative document management and workflow products that respond to industry needs. We deliver helpful and reliable customer service that supports our product line. Our aim is to empower customers to achieve the highest level of business performance, and we partner with them to ensure success. www.docfinity.com