The city of Sindelfingen in Baden-Württemberg is a dynamic, internationally renowned location for technology and production, a major centre for trade and services and, with a population of 64,000, an attractive residential location situated between the state capital Stuttgart and the northern Black Forest.
The Sindelfingen Foreigners’ Authority is responsible for all matters concerning non-national residency in the city of Sindelfingen. As the population of Sindelfingen includes a large number of non-nationals (roughly 20%), processing all the individual cases has always involved large amounts of paperwork. Thankfully, digitisation has now eliminated a mauor part of the paper files.. On top of this, the processes have been digitised. The digital files used today provide a better overview and are always at hand. Scanning the files for information – simply by entering individual search terms – is now also much quicker.
Services
- Digitisation of 11,000 non-nationals’ files
- Scanning as searchable PDF/A files with OCR full-text read-out
- Conversion of all data and clean import into the document management system enaio®
- Unique ID number in the PDF file name checked against the list of all PDFs in a CSV file
- Documentation of the scanning in accordance with DIN ISO 9001
The task
For the electronic filing in relation to non-nationals’ affairs, it was necessary to digitise the existing files so that all data could be processed in the document management system enaio®. In June 2022, the digitisation of the old existing files was put out to tender.
REISSWOLF was awarded the contract, which was to cover the digitisation of roughly 9,600 non-nationals’ files with a total of 924,600 pages – partly because the Hamburg-based company is known as a proven specialist in data protection.
Ultimately it was just under 11,000 files that were digitised thanks to the certified expertise of REISSWOLF. All kinds of queries were always responded to promptly by our very friendly point of contact Oliver Schwarz (Head of Department – Public Order and Registry Office I Residency and Business I City of Sindelfingen).
» Throughout the digitisation process, REISSWOLF was a great support and a good source of advice. I am delighted with the entire collaboration. Our communication was very friendly, goal-orientated and absolutely reliable at all times. «
Oliver Schwarz
Head of Department – Public Order and Registry Office I Residency and Business I City of Sindelfingen
Implementation
In early July 2022, all relevant aspects of the projects were once again discussed and coordinated in an online kick-off meeting involving the REISSWOLF project management and the responsible parties of the city of Sindelfingen. Following this meeting, a test phase was commenced with roughly 50 files.
Once the test phase had been completed successfully, all other files were collected in August 2022. As some files could not be collected as they were being used by the responsible staff members, REISSWOLF provided transport boxes and the city was able to deliver the remaining files to REISSWOLF securely bit by bit.
For the processing of the files, REISSWOLF was given a list of all non-nationals’ files by the city of Sindelfingen in the form of a CSV file. The unique ID number – LadivaID – was chosen as the criterion for matching the CSV entries to the relevant PDF and the PDF files were named accordingly. This enabled a clean import into the customer document management system enaio®. The files were transferred via a secured SFTP server.
The REISSWOLF scan service had to fulfil the following requirements:
- The documents were scanned in the same sequence as the originals – a standard procedure for REISSWOLF. As the city of Sindelfingen organised the files with the most recent document on the top of the pile, the digital files created were organised in the same way.
- Certain documents needed to be detected and separated out: original documents like passports, IDs, driving licences, certificates, bound and sealed contracts.
- Every file that was delivered was checked against the list provided by the customer. If a file was not in the list, it could always quickly be clarified how to proceed.
- Each file was scanned in completely in chronological order, with double-sided scanning and including the file cover and automatic deletion of any empty pages, thus creating a new digital file.
- Also, a separate PDF/A document was created for each paper file.
- Multi-volume files were scanned in as one digital file, in chronological order.
- Any tabs, dividers or similar were also processed.
- Edges were removed and skewed pages were corrected.
- Everything was scanned in full colour with a resolution of 300 dpi.
- The files were converted into a format compatible with enaio®.
- Each file was scanned as a searchable PDF/A file – including OCR full-text read-out (‘hidden text’).
The entire scanning procedure was documented in accordance with DIN ISO 9001.
Furthermore, we were able to ensure optimal and uninterrupted protection of all data throughout the scanning procedure, as the security of information and the IT environments at REISSWOLF have been inspected and certified to ISO/IEC 27001.
Customer benefit
Digitising the files relating to non-nationals’ affairs and converting them into suitable formats made it possible for them to be directly integrated into enaio®, the document management system used by the city of Sindelfingen.
The space taken up by several hundred metres of files was consequently freed up, and it was possible to set up a new office.
Customer feedback
Oliver Schwarz (Head of Department – Public Order and Registry Office I Residency and Business I City of Sindelfingen) was extremely satisfied with how the project had gone and summarised as follows: ‘From the collection of the non-nationals’ files to the integration of the digital files, everything worked perfectly, with no problems at all and within the agreed timeframe. If a file was needed very urgently, it was always entered digitally within 24 hours at the latest.’
The final feedback provided by REISSWOLF was equally positive: ‘Throughout the entire project, our communication with Mr Schwarz was always open and friendly. The collaboration was friendly and goal-orientated at all times. It sometimes occurred that files were not included in the list or original documents were to be excluded from processing. Mr Schwarz then provided the information we needed and a joint procedure was defined.’