Case Study: Tompkins Cortland Community College achieves instant student-record access and campus-wide digitization with DocuWare

Named number one in the nation for deploying technology to streamline operations and better serve their students by securely digitizing their storage of student information

Tompkins Cortland Community College (SUNY), which serves about 3,000 students across 38 associate degree programs, faced major operational bottlenecks from paper-based student folders and an obsolete digital records system. Multiple offices had to physically retrieve single-access paper files, slowing service and limiting concurrent access; the college needed an affordable, non‑proprietary solution that supported web retrieval and migration of 40,000 legacy permanent record cards.

The college deployed an on‑premises DocuWare system with four scanning stations and more than 100 users, digitizing documents on receipt using student numbers to auto-fill indexes and migrating legacy records into the new platform. Retrieval time fell from 10–15 minutes to seconds, staff could answer inquiries immediately, workflows extended across Registrar, Admissions, the Dean’s office and library, and the college handled a 40% enrollment increase without adding administrative staff—earning national recognition for technology deployment and maintaining records-retention and FERPA compliance.

Tompkins Cortland Community College

Marty Christofferson

IT Director