Municipal workers using digital devices for field timekeeping and approval processes in local government operations.

Modernizing Municipal Document Management in Microsoft 365

Client Overview: Cardston County

Cardston County is a municipal government located in southern Alberta, responsible for delivering a wide range of public services across a large geographic area. Departments across the organization rely on shared documents to support daily operations, council reporting, and long-term records obligations.

As document volumes grew, the county’s legacy repository made it increasingly difficult to maintain a consistent structure or to find information quickly across departments.

The Challenge

Documents were stored in Xerox DocuShare in a manual, folder-driven environment. Each department had developed its own conventions over time, which made standardization difficult and left staff navigating deep folder paths to locate files.

Key challenges included:

  • Limited search, filtering, and retrieval across departments
  • Inconsistent information structure from one team to the next
  • Author and ownership metadata that needed to be preserved for audit purposes
  • Document access that was not consistently aligned to staff roles
  • Migration risk associated with moving a large, long-established repository

Our Approach

Segue Systems designed a Microsoft SharePoint Online environment built around departmental sites and document libraries, replacing deep folder structures with metadata, views, and role-based permissions managed through Microsoft 365 groups.

Before production migration, DocuShare content, metadata, identities, and destinations were mapped to the new structure. A representative pilot then validated file counts, metadata, permissions, throughput, and search behaviour before the work was scaled up.

The full dataset was migrated in batches with monitoring and retries, followed by verification of file counts, metadata, document openability, and permissions. Administrative documentation, end-user guidance, training, and a post-go-live stabilization period supported adoption.

Impact & Outcomes

Cardston County now works from a single, structured document repository in Microsoft 365.

  • Documents are searchable and filterable by metadata rather than folder path
  • Departments share a consistent library and naming structure
  • Access is governed by role, improving permission consistency and audit retrieval
  • Pilot-first validation reduced cutover risk and confirmed results before full migration
  • The county has a Microsoft 365 foundation for future information-management initiatives

Technology Used

SharePoint platform icon for collaboration and document management.
SharePoint Online
Microsoft 365
Xerox DocuShare

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