Case Study: City of Elgin achieves faster permitting and improved citizen services with Box

The City of Elgin, Illinois Giving citizens a direct line to city government

The City of Elgin, Illinois (population ~115,000) faced slow, paper‑heavy processes across 19 departments that made starting a business, reporting city issues, and coordinating multi‑agency care cumbersome and opaque. Entrepreneurs and residents dealt with lengthy permit and application waits, unclear status updates, and fragmented information that hindered timely service.

Elgin centralized 10–12 TB of content on Box, integrating it with Salesforce and Office 365 to launch a self‑service small‑business portal, geotagged 311 photo reporting, and shared case management. The cloud workflows and strict permissioning eliminated many in‑person steps, improved inter‑agency coordination, shortened business application processing from 30+ days to about a week, and delivered faster, more transparent, and secure service for residents.

City of Elgin

Laura Valdez

Assistant City Manager