Case Study: Washington State Department of Ecology achieves faster, more accurate water-rights permitting with ActiveDocs

Washington State Water Resources Program helps to keep permitting process flowing smoothly

The Washington State Department of Ecology’s Water Resources Program manages complex ground and surface water rights permitting that blends law and hydrogeology. Manual Word templates and scattered data sources made permit creation slow, error-prone and exposed the agency to potential disputes and legal action, so the program turned to ActiveDocs for a more consistent, auditable document creation process.

The program implemented the ActiveDocs template management and document automation system on a central server (47 licensed users across regional offices), using templates, snippets and wizards that pull data from SQL databases, Excel and Outlook and apply business rules during compile. ActiveDocs delivered a single “golden” version of vetted language, sharply reduced the time to produce water-rights documents, lowered the department’s risk of inaccurate permits and improved customer service through direct data and file linkage.

Washington State Department of Ecology

Jeff Marti

Environmental Planner