Turn on the Power with Agile ECM

Robert Frost‘s heart-stirring poem, The Road Less Traveled, expresses the idea that the sometimes seemingly small choices we make in life can truly impact our experience of it. And his tome, in particular, helps us to see that following the path of the “crowds” is not necessarily the best direction to follow. This may be true in life, and definitely is in many instances, but it is a real gamble when you are talking about implementing a department- or enterprise-wide systems change. The risks of failed implementation, or that the system does not live up to its billing, are very real, and they can be very painful.

The City of Norfolk, VA, Department of Human Services faced this decision point with its document management system some years ago. The Human Services Department is tasked with meeting the needs of the city’s thousands of residents with various assistance programs, such as Medicaid, Child Protective Services, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and Workforce Development. As one of the top 2 highest “in-demand” Human Services departments in the Commonwealth of Virginia, they have no shortage of paper and they have stringent program and procedural requirements. Recognizing the need to move to a paperless environment some years ago, they adopted a document management system, EZ Filer, which had been adopted by several other Human Services departments in the Commonwealth. Even though many other Norfolk City departments had very successful implementations of Laserfiche Enterprise Content Management, and the fact that EZ Filer was relatively unknown and unproven, the city selected EZ Filer. Over time, the limitations of the EZ Filer system became apparent to the Norfolk department, and workarounds were created to compensate for some of the key limitations of the system such as: limited storage space, limited search capability, very slow response times and no records management rules. The final decision to move to a more robust enterprise content management system came when the company who developed the EZ Filer document management system filed for bankruptcy. According to Bonnie Spence, Programmer Analyst for the city, “we are no longer able to upgrade or modify the system.”

Norfolk DHS chose UnityECM to partner with to solve their daunting problem. Besides the EZ filer trainwreck, Norfolk identified 9 other key reasons to commission UnityECM to completely overhaul their records management and document management processes and workflows, including: automated scanning and indexing into their system and a records management system that was compliant with the Library of Virginia, and which runs completely in the background with no end-user training curve or intervention. (Get all Top 10 Reasons here)

According to Mark J. Formella, IT Application Development Supervisor for Norfolk, “Successful implementations do not happen by accident or luck. Planning, communication, training, dedication and hard work are all keys to making LaserFiche work for DHS. Everyone who is involved with this project deserves a huge thank you…Change is never easy, but all of our staff who were accustomed to EZ-Filer, made the leap to make LaserFiche work. In the weeks and months to come, we will take advantage of additional LaserFiche tools and implement improvements which will make many tasks easier and faster to accomplish. We will also be bringing other units onboard, so they can too can manage their documentation electronically.”

So thus goes the story. Sometimes, even Robert Frost I’m sure would agree, that the best road is the one that is well-worn for a reason. For more information, contact UnityECM.com today at 888-400-9064.

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“You can pay me now, or you can pay me later®” was the way the old Fram® oil filter commercial went in 1971. Remember that? Whether it was true or not with Fram® (they still seem to be thriving as a company…), the concept is axiomatic. Like getting regular excercise. Or eating a good, healthy, balanced diet. The “today” price of establishing healthy, disciplined habits is much smaller than the “tomorrow” price of terrible health and the dis-ease that stagnation and bad diet engenders. And so it goes with compliance and e-discovery…

It stands to reason that investing some organizational resources now in prevention is definitely better than spending millions of dollars muddling through a non-compliant audit or e-discovery request gone awry later. Kind of like, if your kid sits in the beanbag everyday playing Xbox® and eating HoHo’s® he is going to be fat and out of shape (and possibly get Type II diabetes – but I digress…) No responsible adult would ever allow that to happen if they care about their child. And along the same lines, we know that in today’s litigious society, the registered letter will arrive. Your organization will face a lawsuit. Do you just “hope” that things will work out well? If there is one thing that I have learned in 23 years of business, it is this: “hope” is NOT a strategy. So what do you do?

You don’t focus on the audit or the e-discovery problem. You build the right foundation today, before the issue attacks. And you do that by focusing on getting the right people involved in drafting and adopting the right policies which are managed and enforced transparently (more or less on autopilot) via the right technology; and all done consistently across your enterprise and business processes. And the natural result is proper preparation. No worries. Your framework is in place. Time for a HoHo!

For more information on how to achieve this Information Governance “Nirvana,” visit us today at UnityECM.com.

Don’t you just love “Jack-in-the-box” pricing?! You know, all of those hidden fees that spring up when you buy a home or a car? Or when you get a credit card with “0% annual interest”? Or how about this – when you store your business documents with most of the national brand names? That’s right…easy in the front door, but it’s going to “COST YOU” to ever see them again. Yes, they do tell you in the fine print…there is nothing illegal about it. But do you like the idea of not really knowing what it is going to cost you in the end?

I mean, you know the reasons why you need to store your documents offsite:

• Your office is expensive real estate
• The mountains of boxes can be in the way
• You have better use for the space – so there is a big opportunity cost
• The logistics of access and holding – and retrieval – time, energy and money
• It’s unhealthy  – mites and mold – and bugs love them
• It’s a potential fire hazard
• And many more…

But up until now you had to either settle for some rinky-dink storage shed next to somebody’s old furniture or get into a “we’ll let you in…he he he…but it’s going to cost you to get out!” contract with a large, national “mountain” of a company. But no longer!

Unity Scanning Systems has developed an innovative approach to solve this problem. We call it, Access-Plus Records Storage, giving you for the first time: Predictable storage. Predictable access. And most importantly, predictable budget. Access-Plus Records Storage is an innovative solution designed for organizations who recognize the benefits of moving bulky business records offsite but who are not comfortable committing themselves to risky, hard-to-decode pricing models and records “hostage” fees. Its hallmark is its simple, all-inclusive pricing model. You simply pay one flat monthly fee per box of records stored – regardless of whether you need to access 20% of your files, or none at all. It makes budgeting a breeze.

Visit our Access-Plus Records Storage website today, or contact us and we’ll show you how our innovative solution will save you money and give you the clear-cut budget you deserve.

FROM CMSWIRE.COM

Laserfiche has become the first Microsoft Partner to achieve joint DoD 5015.2 certification for its integration with SharePoint 2010.

SharePoint and DoD Certification

The US Department of Defense Records Management certification — DoD 5015.2 — is a standard used not only by the DoD, but also by many federal, state and local governments. This is why most Enterprise CMS vendors work hard to get the certification.

Microsoft has a bit of history with DoD certification and SharePoint. At one point SharePoint 2007 did have a DoD 5015.2 certification in the form of an Add-On Resource Kit. But that certification lapsed in May of 2009, probably because Microsoft had SharePoint 2010 in the works with much improved Records Management capability.

There are also a few enterprise cms vendors which have integrated solutions with SharePoint that extend DoD 5015.2 certification to the platform, Open Text being one.

But now that SharePoint 2010 is out, organization’s are likely looking for Microsoft to get its own certification and/or for ECM vendors to get certified with the new version.

Laserfiche and SharePoint

Laserfiche is one of these enterprise cms vendors that offer integrated records management capabilities with SharePoint. Built on Microsoft.NET and already tightly integrated with SharePoint 2007, Laserfiche will add the following capabilties to support the 2010 version:

• ADO.NET provider to enable access to Laserfiche data from Business Connectivity Services
• Federated Search
• Records Management document categorization using SharePoint’s BCS

According to Laserfiche, they are the first ECM vendor to partner with Microsoft for a DoD 5015.2 certification for SharePoint 2010. Testing for the integrated solution was completed last week (see the details here) and is the certification is valid through June 22, 2013.

The need for transparency and accountability continues to drive the adoption of DoD 5015.2-certified records management systems across all industries,” said Tom Wayman, vice president of product strategy at Laserfiche. “Our joint, DoD 5015.2-certified solution allows organizations and agencies to leverage the strengths of both Laserfiche and SharePoint Server 2010.”

 

(This is the second of 2 posts taken from an article written June 23, 2010 by Kimberly Samuelson, Director of Government Strategy, Laserfiche. Click Here to read the article in it’s entirety.)

Kimberly Samuelson writes:

Risk Management – From an information management perspective, risk management means identifying the magnitude and impact of non compliance; most often as it relates to record-keeping. As regulators and agencies have increased their scrutiny on organizations, it is more crucial than ever to be sure that information is consistent, reliable and available. A well-vetted records management policy is crucial here.

Remember that records management needs to be deployed from an enterprise perspective across the entire portfolio of information assets. Technology is really effective as it ensures consistency. Ideally, the records management structure can be implemented transparently. This allows business units to work in the most efficient way possible, but the organization’s record-keeping integrity is still intact. Technology also allows you to establish monitoring and auditing processes to ensure proof of compliance and transparency. Look at the risk mitigation effort in a positive light. As crazy as it may sound, regulatory oversight can be a unifying concept for business.

One of the most intrusive risk management situations is the e-discovery process. At its most elementary, e-discovery is enterprise search, production and auditing of information. This is an arduous process that can be somewhat alleviated by an established information governance framework and stringent records management policies. Technology is again helpful as it allows you to cast a wide net and narrow down as needed. The framework you proactively build on the front-end will make this process less painful.

Disparate governance efforts, no matter how well they are implemented, cannot alone promise information governance. Mature organizations rely on organizational structures such as frameworks that are simple, coherent and transparent and that engage both staff and management. If we define successful organizations as those best able to thrive in their current environment, and we consider information the lifeblood of organizations, then an information governance strategy is crucial for all organizations to implement. Agile, adaptable organizations leverage their information as an asset. These organizations have mitigated risk, established standards and, most importantly, leveraged their information into quality decisions.

Visit our website to learn how Agile ECM can transform your organization today!

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Attorneys of the world – rejoice! Today has to be a field day for lawyers the globe over…Twitter announced yesterday that it was releasing its entire database of “tweets” – that’s every single tweet ever, numbering in the billions, to the Library of Congress for public archival. That’s right – anything you EVER tweeted, whether you meant it or not, whether it was good or not, whether you meant it for public digestion or not, will now be an official record in the public domain. Big “Twitter” brother is watching…

What are the implications of this move? I’m not sure we completely understand them quite yet as the “Law of Unintended Consequences” tends to sneak up and surprise us whenever such sweeping and unexpected changes occur. “I’m no Ph.D., but it boggles my mind to think what we might be able to learn about ourselves and the world around us from this wealth of data. And I’m certain we’ll learn things that none of us now can even possibly conceive” says Matt Raymond of the Library of Congress. I can think of a few possible outcomes:

1. We now have incredible opportunity to study trends in concepts, ideas and behaviors, and the ability to capitalize on that historical record, much like Google does with search terms. The big differences here, though, are these: with Google, the data is anonymous, and the search terms are limited. With this Twitter release to the Library, not only is the data tied to a specific person, but 140 characters of information represent a much deeper picture of one’s thoughts and ideas than a 2 or 3 word search term ever could.
2. There now exist tremendous legal liabilities for tweeters and possibly for their organizations – such as the impact of declassifying operational memos might have. Questions like: “does Tweeting while on the job represent the official position of the employer?” become paramount. For example, could certain historical employee “tweets” be correlated with their company’s stock movement and a case for insider trading be established? How would this impact not only the employee and his company, but also everyone who was a “follower” of this employee’s tweets and happened to benefit from the “public” information?

In the past, those responsible for creating content typically knew what would become an organizational record. And the lifecycle of a record was as follows:

Prior to Web 2.0, this process was much easier to manage as the “creation of content” stage was cleared defined and controlled in most organizations. Now, however, with the continual, ongoing (and many times mobile…) conversation that is Twitter, Facebook, etc., Records Managers and Information Governance Advocates are in a tailspin. Their worlds have been completely upended. Everyone in your organization who uses any social platform (or has in the past) has become an unregulated, potentially harmful, record creator. Welcome to the Brave New World!

The new Web 2.0 record lifecycle reality becomes:

Where everyone is now creating organizational (and public) content, it is delivered immediately, preserved indefinitely, and NEVER destroyed. The national motto during World War II, “Loose Lips Sink Ships,” brought to the forefront of ones consciousness the importance of information discretion, and leaking the wrong kind of information was detrimental to the war effort. Could inadvertently “tweeting” the “wrong” kind of information, like a certain customer relationship issue that is not ready for “prime-time,” cause damage to the enterprise? The answer is undoubtedly yes. The question looms, knowing the “new information reality” that we all face, is just how do you address the challenge without stifling the upside opportunities that openness can foster? I believe the key is to “manage” the process before it begins.

There are three critical steps required to achieve this:

1. Create a behavioral policy that defines the “rules of the road” regarding social media for all organizational members

2. Develop an education plan that teaches, creates awareness of, and reinforces the long-term implications of content creation

3. Implement an enterprise-wide content management system to enforce company policies and disciplines, and monitor not only what is being created internally to your organization, but also what is being said about your company in the Web 2.0 space

With these safeguards in place, the record lifecycle now becomes:

For help solving your challenges presented by today’s new “record reality,” contact Unity Business Systems, who has been empowering enterprises to leverage their organizational data assets for over 15 years.

Posted by Paul Neal.