New Haven Unified School District Chooses OPTIX® Document Management System

Flint Hill, VA - January 22, 1996 -Blueridge Technologies, "The Internet Document Management Company," announced that the New Haven Unified School District (NHUSD) of Union City, California has installed an OPTIX Document Management System. NHUSD uses the system to store and retrieve district forms, student, business and personnel records, and digital pictures of all staff members. Once archived, the information will be available to all teachers and administrators directly from their desktops.

A key selling point of the OPTIX system was compatibility. Like most school districts NHUSD uses both Macintosh and Windows workstations. Unlike most document management systems, the OPTIX system is completely cross-platform. This ability to work with both Macintosh and Windows workstations equated to real financial savings for NHUSD. It meant that the cash-strapped district wouldn't be forced to pay additional charges to standardize the district's entire computer system.

According to Jim O'Laughlin, Associate Superintendent of Personnel Services at NHUSD, two long-term goals were at the forefront of the district's decision to install a document management system. First, the NHUSD is committed to planning for the future. Second the district actively seeks ways to work more efficiently and cost-effectively. After all, nationwide only three states spend less per student than the state of California, and NHUSD is one of the lowest wealth school districts in the state.

A baby boom is projected for the next ten years that will eclipse the post-war baby boom in size, As a result, the future is rushing to meet school districts like New Haven. The boom will equate to an explosion of documents that school districts will be required to process and store. According to O'Laughlin, "Because NHUSD was already struggling to manage its records, we realized immediately that we'd never be able to handle the projected number of documents manually. With OPTIX, we now have the tools in place to cope with this coming explosion."

Within a year, every teacher in every classroom in the NHUSD will be networked to the OPTIX system. Networked teachers already have instantaneous access to student records and other necessary information. And OPTIX's workflow feature allows teachers to process district forms directly from their desktops. This immediate availability of data is resulting in increased efficiency, and will free teachers to administrate less, and teach more.

Administrators and clerical staff are also benefiting from the system. Prior to installing OPTIX, employees who needed personnel and student files had to physically travel to a secure vault and retrieve them. Now, authorized individuals can retrieve records from their desktops. Numerous individuals can even access the same information simultaneously from separate locations. As a result the district will realize a tremendous savings in storage space. More importantly the same size staff is able to handle a larger number of both documents and students.

And how are things going? According to O'Laughlin, "We've found that OPTIX far exceeds our expectations. In fact, we've yet to find any limitations to its application."

Founded in 1988, Blueridge Technologies is one of the industry's oldest and most respected providers of electronic document management systems (EDMS). Long the leading industrial-strength document imaging and workflow system for Apple Macintosh computers, in 1994 OPTIX became the first electronic document management system to offer workflow, document imaging, document control, COLD (Computer Output to Laser Disk), and natural language text retrieval for both Windows and Macintosh workstations. Via the new OPTIX WEB interface, OPTIX also supports popular Web browsers, including Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer from Microsoft, Mosaic, and all the client platforms these products support, including Windows, Macintosh, and UNIX workstations. An online demo of OPTIX WEB is available at http://www.optixweb.com. Blueridge Technologies is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Metters Industries.

OPTIX systems begin in the range of $40,000 and include server software, client software for both Macintosh and Windows, installation, training, and support.