A major draw for East Coast Scaffolding was the forms component. “With health and safety so critical in our industry, DocuWare forms became the perfect entry point for streamlining site‑specific risk assessment and audit reporting.” Workers can arrive on site with a tablet, open a job‑specific link, review a pre‑populated form, add photos, answer questions, and submit - giving the business instant access to the completed report.
Automatic Client Distribution
“Another advantage of forms is the ability to submit and automatically send them to our clients,” Aaron said. In construction, for certain reports and handover certificates, the end user must receive a copy. DocuWare allows forms to be routed to multiple recipients automatically and instantly, eliminating the need for an employee to attach the form to an email and send it off, which used to be done previously by the company. Too, with this functionality, East Coast Scaffolding’s clients can be confident that documentation is handled through a compliant, consistent, and reliable process.
DocuWare integrates with the company’s existing ERP software, a Microsoft Access database, which is used as its primary scheduling tool. Aaron commented, “Certain functions that are done in DocuWare will trigger other actions within our database. That's done via the SQL server and ‘DocuWare telling it to do things’. It's quite clever how it all integrates.” With this integration, the company gains access to additional features, such as tasks, workflows, and lists that help streamline processes and support the team.
ROI and Future Growth
East Coast Scaffolding currently has almost 11,000 documents and 5,300 forms in DocuWare. It’s been calculated that, based on six employees, around 264 hours per year are saved with DocuWare - an estimated return on investment of AU$40,000 per annum. It’s not only the immediate returns that matter to East Coast Scaffolding. The company sees strong long‑term potential in DocuWare and is looking forward to the additional capabilities that will be introduced. “A big benefit is that the platform sets us up to adopt new technologies like artificial intelligence. We’re on the right path for the future of our business.”
