EPA Grant Project in Elkhart County Enabled By Undoing ‘Upgrades’

Good stories often contain an embedded lesson such as the old adage ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’. Though we may not know the author of this sage advice, proof of its wisdom lies in this story of a federal grant project in Elkhart County, Indiana. The tuition for this particular lesson was paid in the form of wasted tax payer money and an entire year lost waiting on failed attempts to replace an existing system that was already working fine. Most good stories have a happy ending such as ‘the lost dog comes home’ or ‘the princess finds her mojo’. Despite the wasted time and money in this story it does have a happy ending. Several years ago Elkhart County in northern Indiana was awarded a federal grant to develop a brownfield inventory tool as part of the EPA Brownfield Assessment Grant program. One of the main objectives of the grant program was to link previously unconnected information in an easy-to-access single source for finding and managing important brownfield information. Ryan Eckdale-Dudly of the Symbiont Company in Wisconsin headed the grant project to develop the solution that they would ultimately name e-Atlas. Before the e-Atlas project could become a reality it was necessary to standardize the separate varieties of information relevant to brownfields and ground water in Elkhart County. Ryan had data collected, analyzed, and compiled to create overlays for the Elkhart ESRI ArcGIS system. The resulting database provided a table of primary reference coordinates for linking data. To be able to access accompanying documents and records the next step was to digitize the original paper copies and store them in a digital document management system. The digitized documents then needed to be indexed and matched to the primary reference table to facilitate linking between GIS coordinates and records in the document repository. Ryan reviewed a number of different document management systems to determine what would work best to fulfill the digital document management duties for the project, including Docuware and Laserfiche which were both already in use in the county. For a variety of reasons Ryan selected the Laserfiche system and the Laserfiche reseller (BOLT Document Management) to work with. He next contracted BOLT to scan and index tens of thousands of pages of county brownfield records which were then published as digital volumes and loaded into the existing Elkhart Laserfiche system. BOLT also provided technical assistance required for enabling e-Atlas to access the brownfield records stored in the Laserfiche system. In mid 2007 the e-Altas project was progressing well and on schedule when everything suddenly hit a wall. The Elkhart County administrators had hired an Indianapolis based consulting firm to make recommendations regarding the consolidation of information systems being used in the county. The consultant performed a cursory review and recommended that the county settle on Docuware, a recommendation the county soon followed. Relegated to relying on the Docuware system to fulfill the document access functions for the e-Atlas system, Ryan and the grant project were now on hold until the system conversion was completed. Performing a document management system conversion is more complicated than simply installing and training new software – a rather obvious fact to most anyone except apparently the consultant and Docuware vendor. Many years worth of documents were stored in the Laserfiche system and required migration to the Docuware system, including the brownfield records. The initial claims and promises of the consultant and Docuware vendor quickly turned into a steady stream of delays and excuses.   By 2008 the stalled conversion project had become a very sore subject in the Elkhart County Health and Public Works department. Not only were they no longer able to scan their rapidly growing backlog of documents into their Laserfiche system, they were now being presented with high quotes for a migration and conversion not yet performed. The Docuware vendor now claimed that every document in the current repository would require re-indexing by hand due to the proprietary nature of Laserfiche – something never previously mentioned by the consultant or vendor. Interestingly, Laserfiche repositories are structured using industry standard TIFF Group IV images and MS-SQL / ASCII database tables. Even more alarming, the vendor was having problems just installing and training the new Docuware software. Advised of the project delays BOLT Document Management explained to Elkhart County administrators that if needed BOLT could design and create a delimited list file for the migration. With a list file the Docuware vendor would have no need for programming skills and it would also negate the issue of proprietary structure (real or imagined). In a conference call initiated by the consultant BOLT explained to the Docuware vendor how an import list file works and how it would facilitate migration of the documents. At the request of the Docuware vendor BOLT furnished a sample list file and documentation on how to use it. The Docuware vendor then requested BOLT to create the list file and it was delivered in mid September 2008. Meanwhile, Ryan and the e-Atlas project were still on hold. In late October 2008 the Elkhart Health and Public Works Department was still without a functional replacement for their Laserfiche system. Scott Mills, the new director of the Elkhart County IT Department was now fielding complaints from the Public Works department. His calls to the Docuware vendor were met with promises but no tangible results. Finally, on a Friday afternoon (November 7th, 2008) enough was enough. Scott placed a call to BOLT and asked that the Laserfiche system be re-activated to full functionality as soon as possible. The following Monday morning Elkhart staffers were happily greeted by the restored and functional Laserfiche system. One county employee summed it up with a simple “Halleluiah!” Later that week BOLT offered to temporarily host the Elkhart County Laserfiche repository via Laserfiche WebLink until the IT department could install the required Internet server to host it themselves internally. Once web enabled, the reactivated and functional Laserfiche system would provide renewed access to the brownfield documents allowing Symbiont to complete in days the project that had been stalled for over a year. The completed e-Atlas project with its’ GIS and Laserfiche integration has received national recognition* for Symbiont and Elkhart County. A video demonstration of e-Atlas at http://www.elkhartcountylanduse-reuse.com/e-atlas/e-atlas/ shows the seamless manner in which information from several different information systems has been masterfully combined into one powerful, easy to use application. The e-Atlas represents an important tool for managing the brownfield inventory in this northern Indiana county and anywhere else that it may be deployed in the future. The Elkhart County e-Atlas project is an important reminder that integration projects can only be successful when built upon solid, well functioning primary applications. It is also a reminder of the critical difference between the claims and promises that products and vendors claim and what they can actually deliver. And, of course, it is a reminder to everyone that ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’! *The Elkhart County e-Atlas project has been awarded Best New Technology Paper at the U.S. EPA Brownfields 2008 Conference, Detroit, Michigan, for Use of U.S. EPA Assessment and Cleanup Grants in Goshen, Indiana.

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