Until 2025, the City of Winterthur processed most of its incoming mail on paper. Letters were physically distributed and either archived in paper form or digitized only after the cases had been closed, using a process known as late scanning. This resulted in delays, fragmented paper-based and digital workflows, inefficient processes and limited transparency. To make documents available more quickly and enable staff to work from any location, the City of Winterthur decided to outsource its entire incoming mail process to a specialist service provider.

Once fully rolled out, the Digital Mailroom will process approximately half a million mail items per year. In a subsequent phase, content could also be extracted from the mail items and processed further in a structured format to accelerate digital processing within the relevant operational workflows.