The City of Santa Fe Springs is rooted in community. The small town, nestled southeast of Los Angeles, delivers big when it comes to resident services. It manages an impressive array of programming for recreation facilities — ranging from aquatic centers to teen lounges and even special event spaces.
To keep such a diverse range of services running smoothly, Director of Parks and Recreation Gustavo Hernandez knew that the city’s processes needed to be reimagined. That meant ditching paper forms and turning to a more efficient and streamlined way to collect and manage information.
Luckily, Hernandez had already been introduced to Jotform Enterprise.
Case study results at a glance
# of submissions
23,880
# of form views
50,000
Reduced approval time by
85%
Ditching manual processes
“I was with another agency and an employee approached me about a more efficient way to collect volunteer applications,” he explains. “I did a little more exploring and found the variety of things we can do with Jotform Enterprise. It was a real game changer in the parks and rec profession, so we started using it there.”
[Jotform Enterprise] was a real game changer in the parks and rec profession.
Gustavo Hernandez, Director of Parks and Recreation, City of Santa Fe Springs
Then in 2019, Hernandez began his manager position at the City of Santa Fe Springs.
“I was a little overwhelmed by the amount of manual processes and knew we were going to have to switch over,” he says. “Then COVID-19 hit and we couldn’t have any kind of in-person contact. We did a lot of distanced activities. When it came time to reopen our facilities, we took our physical rental PDF applications and put them online so people can complete it without coming in.”
That was just the beginning. The City of Santa Fe Springs quickly outgrew a single-user Jotform plan. Hernandez transitioned to Jotform Enterprise, giving his team the flexibility and the control they needed to run their programs smoothly.
“We’re not just [using Jotform for] facility rental applications now,” Hernandez says. “We use it for vendor agreements, vendor applications for special events, RSVP forms, and internal training documentation. We use it for our fitness program and our training modules. We’re able to directly embed different training videos we’ve created over the years. It streamlined our part-time staff training. If you look at the backend of our website, we probably have over 100 different ways we’re using Jotform Enterprise.”
If you look at the backend of our website, we probably have over 100 different ways we’re using Jotform Enterprise.
Gustavo Hernandez, Director of Parks and Recreation, City of Santa Fe Springs
Jotform Enterprise changed the game
Jotform Enterprise revolutionized the way Hernandez and his team operate.
For example, an approval process for waiving rental fees for schools or nonprofits that request the use of facilities used to take up to two weeks of manual work to complete. To waive the fee, the site supervisor would have to collect manual signatures from their manager and then the director. With Jotform Sign, the process is completed and fees are waived in a matter of days.
Onboarding new staff was once done in person, with individual employees watching a training video in the office. Now, onboarding has been streamlined into a remote training video, sent via a link. Internally, Hernandez and his team can track new staff’s viewing of the training videos, even noting how long they’re watching and who skips ahead.
“We’re able to call those employees and tell them to try that training again,” says Hernandez.
The different integrations that we can utilize with Jotform Enterprise were much more robust than anything else. It was a good fit for us.
Gustavo Hernandez, Director of Parks and Recreation, City of Santa Fe Springs
Staff also streamlined vendor payments with Jotform Enterprise by leveraging its integration with PayPal. Before, if a food truck wanted to sell its product at an event, they’d have to call Hernandez and his team, ask to be a vendor, and give their payment information over the phone — a time-consuming, manual process. Now, through Jotform Enterprise, prospective vendors are sent forms that include a payment field with a PayPal option, so they can make payments directly online.
“The different integrations that we can utilize with Jotform Enterprise were much more robust than anything else,” Hernandez says. “It was a good fit for us. It’s allowed us to get more vendors and it certainly saves us time on the staffing end as well.”
Furthermore, switching to digital incident and playground inspection forms has eliminated clunky paper binders and ensured faster supervisor review, improving turnaround time and maximizing safety.
“Jotform Enterprise has been very versatile for us,” he says. “We’ve had a lot of different applications for it, and I would definitely encourage folks to explore it and see how you can leverage it for yourself and your team.”
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