IATSE Local 600, the International Cinematographers Guild, represents camera operators, cinematographers, publicists, and still photographers working across film, television, and commercials. Local 600 is one of more than 350 locals chartered by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which represents workers in the entertainment industry across the United States and Canada.

A local serving cinematographers and crew maintains an enormous volume of member-related paperwork: membership applications, dues deduction authorizations, political action contribution forms, photo IDs, and the documentation that accompanies contracts, employers, and grievances. The records existed in a dedicated document management system, but staff still had to leave their union platform to find them.

Rather than replace that document management investment, Local 600 worked with the eMembership team to integrate the two systems so that union document management runs as a connected workflow inside the platform staff already use every day.

Documents on file, but disconnected from the member

Before integrating with eMembership, Local 600 stored its member documents in a standalone document management system. The documents existed and were managed, but retrieving them during day-to-day business meant leaving the union platform and searching a separate tool.

• Documents disconnected from member context. Staff working in a member profile had to switch to the document system to see what was on file.
• Slow retrieval during routine business. Looking up a single dues deduction authorization or photo ID required navigating two interfaces.
• No easy way to query documents. Identifying which members were missing a specific document type was difficult without leaving the union system.
• Documents not linked to broader union entities. Paperwork tied to employers, contracts, or grievances lived separately from the records it concerned.

Local 600 needed union document management that lived inside the union platform, without abandoning the document management investment it had already made.

Open API integration between two systems

Using eMembership's open architecture, the Winmill team built APIs connecting eMembership to Local 600's existing document management system. Documents now appear inside the member record and across other eMembership entities, with the underlying storage handled by the document system the local was already using.

Documents inside the member profile

Every member's documents are accessible from both the document management system and eMembership. Clicking a document link in eMembership opens the file for reading, saving, or printing. From the user's perspective, the documents simply live in the member record.

Documents tied to multiple union entities

Documents can be associated with more than the member they concern. Records can be linked to employers, contracts, or grievances, so contract addenda surface inside the contract, employer agreements surface inside the employer record, and grievance documentation surfaces inside the grievance.

Document data queryable from reports

Document associations are visible to the reports and queries module. Staff can build queries such as "members with no political action contribution document on file" or "members missing a current photo ID" without leaving eMembership.

Open architecture, existing investment preserved

The integration preserves Local 600's existing investment in document management software. eMembership's open architecture makes connections like this routine, and the same approach extends to other third-party systems the local may already operate.

A platform that connects to what is already in place

Beyond document management integration, Local 600 uses a range of integrated tools within eMembership:

• Union electronic signatures for membership applications, authorizations, and political action forms
• Bulk email and SMS union communications to targeted member segments
• Custom union administration reports that include document association data
• Union meetings and event management with attendance tracking
• Union surveys for gathering member feedback
• Open architecture for connecting other third-party systems through APIs

Documents in context, and an existing investment preserved

With the integration in place, eMembership functions as a one-stop view for everything related to a member, including the documents that previously lived elsewhere.

• Documents accessible from the member record. Membership applications, dues deduction authorizations, political action forms, photo IDs, and more are reachable directly from the member profile.
• Documents linked to broader entities. Records can be associated with employers, contracts, and grievances, not only members.
• Queryable through reports. Document associations are visible to reports and queries, including identifying members missing specific documents.
• Existing investment preserved. The integration extends the local's existing document management system rather than replacing it.
• Pattern repeatable for other systems. The same open-API approach connects other third-party systems the local may already operate.