DURANT, Okla. – Intertribal Software Consultants has been helping businesses and tribes better serve their citizens with software and information technology solutions since 1993.
A 100-percent Native American woman-owned corporation, ISC is gearing up for its fourth year to tell its story from Feb. 22-24 at the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development’s Reservation Economic Summit 2010 in Las Vegas.
ISC offers several productivity solutions. Its Tribal Assistance Manager® software automates tribal citizen assistance programs by tracking participant eligibility and history, tracking different funding sources and producing custom vouchers that can be sent to the finance department. Programs such as the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program , WIA, Summer Youth, Johnson O’Malley, Eyeglasses, Dentures and Hearing Aid program, Federal Child Care Assistance, Elder Care, Per Capita Gaming distributions and other citizen services benefits from this integrated system.
The program enables tribes to merge “islands of data” and centralize all their records so every department can access and update the same information.
“The TAM system is completely integrated with our Electronic Records Management System so each department can go paperless in a short time. Time savings and efficiency is an immediate benefit. More and more tribes are looking at their citizenship as clients,” Ida Curely-Wilcox, ISC president and CEO, said. “Our job is to empower governments with software solutions to better serve their citizens.”
Another product ISC is offering is, laserfiche electronic records management or ERM. Laserfiche is making business easier for many customers by integrating records, cutting down on paper handling and making documents easier to find and search. It also helps preserve and make historic documents more accessible. ISC currently supports more than 20 tribal organizations with laserfiche records management system.
“The Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes were using original enrollment documents from the 1890’s as part of their enrollment research. We scanned all those historic documents, created a secure indexing system and made them electronically searchable,” Steve Wilcox, ISC vice president, said.
The city of Vail, Colo., is another laserfiche user that runs the program to not only be more efficient, but to reduce paper.
“From a paper management perspective, we’ve been able to destroy 664 boxes of records. We scanned 364 boxes of backfiles and got rid of 300 boxes of duplicates and records beyond retention. We even built out a couple of offices from the saved space,” Michael Wolfe, Vail’s town records manager, said.
The real benefits of laserfiche, Wolfe said, are the ongoing ones. “The most savings come from recovering staff time. For example, Open Records requests that used to take two weeks and many photocopies to fill can now be addressed in minutes by looking up the information in laserfiche and posting the response via WebLink or sending an e-mail,” he said.
In addition to laserfiche, a new product ISC is rolling out is AtTask. AtTask allows managers to plan projects, as well as add and edit tasks easily and intuitively, with a spreadsheet-like task worksheet and an interactive Gantt chart. Collaboration between team members is easy because the program provides a full set of workflow notifications and tools to help people talk about tasks and issues, and resolve problems.
“Every tribal government and enterprise is faced with managing numerous simultaneous projects. In managing all these projects each administration is faced with hours of meetings and follow up communications to track issues and challenges,” Wilcox said. “This software makes a lot of those meetings unnecessary.”
Administrators can be updated from their desktops instead of the conference room. The program allows users to track time and expenses; update task status, including approvals; create notes; and attach documents, as well as submit and track issues or delays to each project.
In addition to productivity, ISC helps with connectivity by being a one-stop service for Web development. The company will do any or all of what is required toward establishing a high quality Internet presence - from acquiring the Web site name to developing the site to hosting and maintaining it.
It’s also developed a software product that can help keep Web site costs down by enabling clients to manage and perform development tasks themselves, a product recently used to develop a site for the Comanche National Museum in Lawton.
“I am responsible for updating our Web site and I must say, I was a little hesitant about taking over the task. I had some previous experience with updating another Web site and it was a pain. I didn’t have any problems with our new site though. I was amazed at how user friendly they made it. Intertribal came to Lawton and trained me over a morning and I was good to go,” said Candy Morgan, the museum’s Education and Public Programs manager.
“Another great feature thing about Intertribal is that they can log into my computer from their headquarters. That allows them the chance to see my computer as I see it. If I run into any really big problems, they can fix things on the spot. I haven’t had to call them for that yet because their software is so easy to use,” she added.
To contact ISC, visit its Web site at www.intertribalsoftware.com or stop by booth 218 at the RES 2010 business trade show from Feb. 22 -24 at the Las Vegas Hilton.