Background

The Texas State Directory Press, Inc. publishes a listing of all Texas state and federal officials, along with other companion products. The directory tracks the contact information and business relationships of more than 25,000 officeholders and staff, in a rich, easy to use format.

Objectives

Texas State Directory was looking to move from a manual process to something more automated to produce their publications. They also wanted to create a new online version of the directory, which would allow customers to get expanded, constantly updated information on any office. Ideally a single system would:

• Ease management of book preparation and production.
• Provide a robust online sales system for all of Texas State Directory’s products.
• Allow online subscribers to quickly search for any office or person in the directory and get the most current information.
• Automatically manage subscription lengths, renewals and reminders.

Working Together

Polycot partnered with the Texas State Directory’s graphic design firm to totally redevelop the web site and directory application. The previous developers had stopped development midway through the process, so Polycot migrated all existing client data into a new and more robust database schema, and then developed simple interfaces for both users and administrators.

Polycot also created an export function which generates the book directly into digital formats for printing, avoiding costly errors and proofing time. The system has reduced the pressure of end-of-year timeframes due to continual administrative availability data consistency across published materials.

About Texas State Directory Press

Texas State Directory has been published since 1935, and has been a trusted resource referred to as the bible for anyone working in or wanting to learn about state, city and county government. You can read more about it at www.txdirectory.com.