Turning Near-Failure Into Strength: Kofile’s Public Records Backbone

Executive Summary

Client: Kofile

Industry: GovTech

Engagement: Long-term Strategic Partnership

Country: United States

Project at a Glance

In 2014, Kofile, one of the United States’ established public records vendors, faced a critical failure. After 18 months with another partner, the platform was broken, incomplete, and only a few months from a high-stakes launch tied to government contracts. VOLO stepped in as the rescue partner, embedding architects and dedicated teams to refactor the backend, rebuild and restructure modules, and stabilize the infrastructure for county-level workflows. Within the remaining launch window, the platform launched on schedule, contracts were preserved, and VOLO became Kofile’s long-term technology partner.

700+

jurisdictions served

83M+

transactions annually

$8B+

in public-sector revenue

99.9%

platform uptime

About the Client

Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Dallas, Texas, Kofile is a leading provider of critical records management and digital transformation services for local, county, and state governments across the United States. It delivers preservation, digitization, secure access, and records management solutions to more than half of U.S. counties, including many of the fastest-growing. Backed by private equity investment, the company has expanded its capacity to innovate and scale, making uptime, accuracy, and compliance mission-critical for the clerks, administrators, and compliance officers who rely on its platforms every day.

The Challenge

By 2014, Kofile’s flagship public records platform was nearing failure. Mounting technical debt, inconsistent architecture decisions, and recurring stability issues made development unpredictable and difficult to scale. Under the existing team structure, critical release milestones continued to slip, and confidence in the delivery plan eroded, putting the production launch at serious risk with only a few months remaining.

With government contract deadlines fixed and little room for delay, leadership faced growing pressure from both internal stakeholders and public-sector clients. To regain control of execution, ensure on-time delivery, and protect long-standing trust in the business, Kofile began evaluating a restructuring of its delivery organization and the engagement of an expert partner to stabilize the platform and accelerate the roadmap.

Key Challenges

Platform instability is disrupting workflows and case processing
Compliance and security requirements with zero margin for error
Legacy infrastructure is limiting scalability and integrations
Cloud migration issues are due to a complex architecture
A high-stakes launch deadline is just three months away

Broader GovTech context: many government systems still run on fragmented legacy infrastructure, carry heavy compliance burdens, and struggle to meet rising expectations for digital services.

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Our Solution

VOLO stepped in as Kofile’s rescue partner, taking full ownership of stabilizing and rebuilding the platform under immense time pressure. The objective went beyond meeting the immediate launch deadline; it was about creating a foundation that county governments could rely on for the upcoming years and be able to scale with new digital products.

We engaged business analysts, solution architects, and database specialists to establish a precise baseline and an executable plan. The team assessed the current state, mapped risks and dependencies, and produced a phased roadmap with the necessary team structure to deliver it. At that point, we were able to form multiple small cross-functional feature teams with clear end-to-end ownership of scoped work running in parallel. Each team was accountable for implementation, testing, and release into controlled environments. In parallel, we implemented platform-level QA automation and CI/CD to maintain quality and speed throughout rapid delivery.

One of the core decisions was moving the product from a monolith toward a microservices architecture in incremental steps, avoiding a risky “big bang” rewrite. Core domains were separated behind clear APIs, services were containerized for independent deployment, and shared concerns such as auth, logging, and configuration were centralized. This shift improved reliability, simplified scaling, and made integrations cleaner without disrupting ongoing releases.

Multi-Jurisdiction Support 

The system was re-architected to operate reliably across more than 50 counties, ensuring consistent performance in multi-county environments. By refactoring the backend for modularity and efficiency, VOLO created a foundation that scales with new jurisdictions. Rehearsed data migration and rollback procedures safeguarded integrity as the platform expanded, giving counties confidence in daily operations. 

Secure Audit Trails and Compliance 

VOLO strengthened trust and accountability by implementing secure audit trails and aligning access control, logging, and retention with compliance standards. This was supported with centralized observability: unified logs, metrics, alerts, and health checks tied directly to service objectives. These measures not only improved oversight but also ensured long-term resilience in government environments where data security and compliance are non-negotiable. 

Automated Indexing and Redaction 

To minimize manual work and reduce errors, VOLO built automated indexing and redaction flows, paired with asynchronous processing in high-volume paths to eliminate bottlenecks. Clerk and administrator workflows were further streamlined with role-specific dashboards and validation flows, significantly lowering the operational burden. The result was faster, more reliable processing that reduced risks of human error while improving productivity. 

Resilient Infrastructure for Public Trust

A cloud-native architecture was introduced, leveraging Azure Blob Storage, Redis, and independently deployable microservices to ensure real-time, scalable operations. This design maximized uptime and accuracy, while centralized monitoring provided early visibility into issues before they could impact the public. The result was a stable, resilient platform that not only reduced operational risk but also positioned counties to extend new digital services confidently. 

The Impact

What began as a rescue mission evolved into a long-term partnership. The platform now powers critical public services across the United States, from accessing records to filing vital certificates, submitting legal documents, and applying for licenses.

For county operations, the platform advanced digital transformation. With VOLO’s work, automated workflows, validation checks, and clear interfaces for clerks, citizens, and other authorities reduced manual effort and errors, lowered costs, and returned valuable time to administrators. For residents, services are reliable, turnaround times are predictable, and access to essential records is timely. For the business, contract continuity was maintained, and delivery risk decreased. The platform now provides a stable base for new digital products and integrations.

Today, the platform serves more than 700 jurisdictions, processes over 83 million transactions annually, and supports more than 8 billion dollars in public sector revenue.