Ontario Firearms Safety Education Provider Achieves Information Governance Compliance and Optimized Search with SharePoint and Collabspace 

About the FSESO

Established in 1993, the Firearms Safety Education Service of Ontario (FSESO) is committed to promoting public safety through firearms safety education across Ontario. The organization collaborates with the Chief Firearms Office to deliver the Canadian Firearms Safety Course and the Canadian Restricted Firearms Safety Course.

Headquartered in Orillia, Ontario, the FSESO manage over 300 active instructor members throughout the province. 

Technologies

SharePoint Online 

Collabspace 

MS Dynamics 365 

Pen to Print (OCR tool) 

Rapid API (to bridge software + build automated workflow) 

By the Numbers

300+ instructors

1,000,000+ students enrolled

Source: fseso.org

Business Context & Goals 

The FSESO requires proper records classification and data accessibility to comply with strict regulatory requirements by the RCMP and the Government of Canada, while also ensuring staff have access to essential records, such as instructor data and Mandatory Course Reports (MCRs), for their day-to-day operations.

However, the FSESO team initially faced challenges with document management and search in Microsoft SharePoint and Dynamics, causing manual processes and delay.

To resolve this, they chose to implement records management cloud solution Collabspace for beginning-to-end information governance to improve document organization, ensure regulatory compliance, enhance searchability and reduced risk.

The FSESO sought Gravity Union's expertise to support SharePoint solution design, migrate documentation, build a new Employee Portal and provide in-depth training for Collabspace and information governance practices.

Solution Highlights & Benefits

Ensured Compliance & Reduced Risk

Gravity Union enhanced FSESO’s information governance by conducting a pre-migration content audit in SharePoint for improved classification, which also ensured clean data ingestion into Collabspace, where retention schedules will be enacted with automated records lifecycle workflows for end-to-end records management.

Collabspace’s Write Once, Read Many (WORM) compliant storage adds an extra layer of security to ensure critical data remains easily retrievable yet secure.

Additionally, Collabspace offers the FSESO valuable data analytics, such as content volume, type, and age, giving them a comprehensive overview of their data for better business insights.

These information governance improvements will ensure the FSESO maintains strong records management compliance while enhancing data security and reducing organizational risk.

Image description: Collabspace analytics dashboard shows content source volume, age, file and content type.

Image description: The FSESO can now search scanned PDFs, reducing search time from days to seconds.

Improved Search with Automated OCR Integration

The FSESO faced challenges with their SharePoint search functionality, particularly when searching for scanned PDFs such as their mandatory course reports (MCRs). MCRs were often requested by students, but locating these reports could take days since the documents were not text searchable. To address this, Gravity Union implemented seamless automation process using Power Automate and a Rapid API integration with the text conversion tool Pen to Print.

Now, when a scanned PDF is uploaded to SharePoint, it is automatically converted into a searchable text document, all without any changes to the end-users’ routine.

This enhancement reduced search times from several days to just a few seconds, significantly improving the efficiency of responding to student inquiries and ensuring regulatory compliance.

Streamlined Instructor Data Management

Managing instructors within the FSESO system was previously cumbersome, with difficulties connecting Microsoft Dynamics CRM to SharePoint. This made upload, searching, filtering, and organizing instructor data a challenge. The Gravity Union team reconfigured the backend integration between Microsoft Dynamics and SharePoint, enabling efficient file uploads, sorting, filtering, and workflow connections. As a result, instructor management is now more organized, allowing for quick access to essential data, convenient content upload and on-going file management for both staff and to more easily meet regulatory requirements.

Additionally, transitioning from individual folders to document sets for instructor files organized these vital records for the FSESO to improve tracking of service records, adherence to instructor requirements, and other key information.

Image description: Instructor data management in Microsoft Dynamics significantly improved through integration with SharePoint.

Image description: the new FSESO Employee Portal provides a centralized spot for the FSESO staff.

Improved Staff Access

The FSESO staff requested a centralized location to access various resources. Gravity Union delivered an Employee Portal that consolidates key information, including site directories, events, time-off requests, calendars, benefits information, news, and staff contacts. This portal enhances internal communication and ensures that staff can easily find everything they need in one place.

“Gravity Union was always there to assist us in achieving our goals and any time an issue arose, they were right on top of it.”

— Allan McDonald, Executive Manager, FSESO

Empowered Team with Targeted Training

To ensure lasting success, Gravity Union provided targeted training that empowered the FSESO team to move forward confidently. The FSESO Project Manager received specialized training on accessing and configuring Collabspace, including assigning permissions and building out a sample file plan so he could then build out fitting file plans and to enable automated end-to-end workflows.

Training later extended to the broader team, focusing on four key areas within Collabspace that were most relevant to the FSESO’s needs so the team could efficiently navigate their new system to gain the most value from their investment.

Ongoing support will be provided by Gravity Union to help FSESO achieve continued success.

Image description: sample of some training documentation provided to the FSESO PM.

Project Results

  • Governance and Risk Reduction — Achieved through content organization and migration in SharePoint Online, coupled with targeted Collabspace training to empower the FSESO team.

  • Compliant Data Management — The FSESO now confidently manages and accesses content, knowing it is securely, properly classified and compliantly governed in accordance to regulation.

  • Improved Searchability — Automated OCR integration reduced document retrieval times from days to seconds, making content easily searchable.

  • Enhanced Operational Efficiency — A centralized Employee Portal, streamlined instructor data management and an efficient complaint tracking system improved organizational structure, security, and accessibility.

“Gravity Union did an exceptional job crafting and implementing a comprehensive document management solution for the FSESO. They genuinely care about their clients and go above and beyond to ensure that every detail is taken care of. Both their commitment to excellence and expertise are top-tier.”

— Mark Mullaly, Project Manager, FSESO

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