From your morning routine to your evening downtime, every part of your personal life is digitized in some way thanks to smartphones, online shopping, smart assistants, and other helpful technology. But what about your workday?
If you work for a government agency, your day-to-day might not be as digitized as you would like. Shuffling piles of paperwork across desks and spending hours on tedious data entry may have you thinking there’s got to be a better way. Isn’t it time your local government processes matched your digital expectations for fast, convenient workflows?
There’s more and more local government digital transformation thanks to changing times and interactions with tech-forward citizens. Municipalities that have updated their operations know it doesn’t have to be a major overhaul either. There are a number of digital government examples that are easy to implement, from automated forms and document generation to eSignatures and beyond.
5 Digital Government Examples You Can Easily Implement
The benefits of digital transformation in government are many, from eliminating mounds of paperwork to quickly and efficiently gathering citizen information instead of waiting for snail mail to arrive. You can digitize nearly every process in your office, but you might start with these five:
1. Citizen Self-Service
Free up the phone lines and save citizens from searching for important forms like applications, claims, and permits with a self-service portal. Easily point community members to a central hub to keep all your municipal forms organized and accessible. That way, they can access everything from burn permits and business license applications to trash pickup requests and community event flyers in one convenient place.
The best part? Formstack Portals are easy to set up in just three steps—no coding required. With Portals, you can seamlessly share individual forms or groups of forms with designated people inside or outside your organization.
2. eSignatures for Official Documents
When possible, allow citizens to skip the trip to the courthouse with digital documents they can electronically sign. Not to worry—the best eSignature solutions are highly secure with encryption, secure SSL connections, and compliance measures, making them perfectly safe for government documents. Prep any government document for eSignature with drag and drop fields that are easy for citizens to fill out.
Related: Electronic Signatures vs. Digital Signatures: What’s the Difference?
3. Inquiry or Complaint Forms
Think of all the paper forms your government office currently houses. Each one could be digitally available, eliminating paper waste and the need for citizens to pick them up in-person. But beyond simply posting a PDF on your website, digital forms are fillable online too—no printing, hand writing, mailing, or faxing required.
With Formstack, intelligent forms capture your citizens’ information automatically, sending it right back to your account for easy review, follow-up, or analysis.
4. Utilities Invoices
Save taxpayer money (and protect your local environment!) by skipping the postage fees and sending utilities invoices by email instead. Automated forms pre-populate each citizen’s information so you don’t have to rekey data each month.
Formstack offers more than 260 integrations so you can automatically pull in the electric, water, or trash disposal data you already collect in apps like Salesforce. You can even integrate payment apps like Stripe so citizens can see their invoices and pay in one place.
5. Internal Approval Processes
Digital government is good for your city, but it’s also beneficial for your team. When your data and forms are online, everyone can access the same form templates and necessary citizen data from a central place. Automate internal workflows to approve contracts and important documents without having to send papers to another government building and wait for a response. Team members can even check in to track workflows and approvals if they’re on the go with their mobile device.
Start Your Government’s Digital Transformation
Digitizing your government office benefits your internal teams and citizens at the same time. With automated forms and digital documents in one place, you can easily capture important data and keep your employees productive without constantly stopping to answer community inquiries. From citizen self-service to smoother internal processes, make your entire community more efficient through digital transformation.
Is it finally time to modernize your government operations? Discover how Formstack can transform your office processes with digital forms, documents, eSignatures, and more.
