What Is Federated Search?

Federated search is “a technique for searching multiple text collections simultaneously.” Think of it as a tool that searches a collection of sites, drives or other databases that the creator of the system chooses.

With a customizable scope, federated searches can provide a unique combination of sources for a particular user, community or organization.

Below are four key benefits of using federated search:

Convenience

Federated search is a convenient way to browse a variety of sources at the same time. With one search, users can see results from:
  • Network drives
  • Intranets
  • Repositories
  • Websites

Figure 1: Use Federated search to gather results from multiple sources simultaneously.

Users can search these sources all at once and see the results in a consistent, centralized interface.

This is especially useful for opening up siloed resources across different departments. For example, imagine you’re a city clerk and the public works department has its own set of databases, repositories and websites. Federated search would allow you to search those resources in addition to your own, while staying in your familiar search portal.

Security

Another key benefit of federated search is that it can query secure, gated sources. In addition to sending search queries to each source, a federated search can also send user credentials,2 allowing users to see results that wouldn’t otherwise appear in, say, a typical web search.

For instance, colleges and other academic institutions can use federated search to provide students easier access to academic journals and other subscription-based resources. Instead of having to log into each system and search separately, students can view results from a variety of authoritative sources as a combined list.

In addition, if the user of the federated search engine doesn’t have access to a particular source, those results simply won’t appear. This means that two users can search using the same interface, while having different results depending on their levels of access.

Figure 2: Federated search can pass user credentials, allowing for collected results from subscription-based resources.

Flexibility

Have you ever done a web search and felt you could have prioritized the results better than the search engine did? If you’re an expert in a field and find that a web search isn’t quite hitting the mark, it can be frustrating.

Federated search addresses this issue by giving you the ability to weigh sources depending on how relevant or visible you want them to be in your searches. This ability to tweak results gives the flexibility to prioritize searchable information in a way that works best for your organization or a particular user’s needs.

Figure 3: Users can weigh results as they see fit using federated search.

Many wealth management firms have compliance policies that employees need to know about. To keep important compliance information and documents accessible, a federated search could be set up to weigh the location of these materials above others. Users could then always see these documents prominently in searches, encouraging further awareness of the policies and procedures essential to business operations.

Reach

A versatile tool, federated search can be used to extend the reach of your searches and explore the depths of the web. It provides a reasonable solution for users who have difficulty searching the deep web, or parts of the internet ignored by search engines.

Not truly as scary as it sounds, the deep web is mostly comprised of content that a standard web crawler (a tool to scour pages and gather their information) either can’t or doesn’t find it worth the time to explore. This content includes:
  • Pages running on a slow server
  • Sites that request a user login or particular credentials
  • Areas of websites prohibited by the robot exclusion protocol
  • Documents that are not linked to from anywhere else
  • Dynamic pages that update too frequently

The deep web includes many useful public resources, such as the US National Library of Medicine’s PubMed service—which harbors a wide array of scientific and biomedical articles dating back to the 1950s, as well as the US Census Bureau’s insights and population statistics. This part of the internet also includes sites for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the US Copyright Office, whose core contents are not listed without the use of their own interfaces.

Research organizations, science labs, attorney’s offices or government agencies that want to view information from these resources (or a collection of services like them) can use federated search to find the information they are looking for and further their goals.

Want to learn about more document management features that can help your organization excel? Click here to download the Document Management Buyer’s Guide.

What Are Business Rules?

Business process automation is often a core initiative in organizations’ digital transformation strategies. As part of those efforts, organizations should take advantage of business rule-modeling capabilities and refrain from directly hard-coding business rules as part of their implementation designs.

Business rules can apply to many aspects of an organization and can be expressed in a variety of ways. In general, business rules define specific instructions or constraints on how certain day-to-day actions should be performed.

For example, business rules can include:
  • A decision-making approval structure for invoice processing where only certain managers can sign off on invoices totaling a specific amount
  • Calculations in which a formula may be used to calculate revenue or expenses
  • Policies where an organization requires its employees to work with a preferred list of vendors

When business rules are designed separately from process implementations, they provide a powerful and flexible approach to help organizations move more quickly in meeting their goals and better respond to changing business needs.  

How Business Rules Support Process Automation

In practice, business rules may not always be formally documented, but as many organizations undergo digital transformation, defining and automating business rules can help organizations more effectively reach their goals.

Traditional automation methods often involve hard-coding business rules directly within process workflows. However, these rigid process designs may restrict an organization’s ability to quickly make updates. Given that business logic is likely to change over time, it can be disruptive to find all the affected implementations and make time-sensitive updates to custom code or process designs, especially if multiple processes call on the same rules. There is also the potential risk of the same rule being implemented slightly differently, leading to inconsistent outcomes. Furthermore, how quickly design changes can be made often depends on the availability of technical staff or the IT department.

To help organizations remain responsive and agile, some process automation software offers the capability to model business rules independently from automated processes. This allows organizations to separate their business logic from their process logic. In other words, staff do not need to go one-by-one through each process and change each implementation of the rule manually.

Furthermore, business rules are made available in an easy-to-read format for the domain experts who manage the company’s business policies and likely do not having programming skills. This allows them to make updates to processes without involving developers or impacting the core infrastructure in place. With this approach, organizations are effectively able to maintain flexibility while saving valuable staff time spent updating organizational policies.

Common Types of Business Rules

To account for different types of policies and decisions, business rules can be modeled in multiple ways. Two common types of business rules are formula rules and decision table rules.

A formula rule allows employees to maintain calculations in a no-code format, similar to creating formulas in Microsoft Excel. Once a formula is defined, it can be reused as appropriate in multiple process designs. If the formula needs to be updated, only the formula itself needs to be changed without requiring an end user to manipulate code or individually adjust each applicable process. Many standard formulas are already built into the software, such as determining an average, sum, date, and maximum, among many others.

A decision table rule is a powerful feature that lets non-developers represent related conditional decisions or “if-then” logic in a concise manner as a spreadsheet style-table. Decision tables use columns as the conditions, while rows specify the appropriate outcomes. Approvals, application acceptance criteria, and loan eligibility checks are all general examples where decision tables can be applied and owned by the domain experts themselves.

In traditional approaches, these decisions can be hard-coded directly as part of process designs, leading to complex implementations that require developers to make manual updates as they arise. When complex logic is modeled as a table, it provides a much more relatable and visual format that is easier to maintain for both business and IT.

How Business Rules Simplify Automation Design

Consider a generic invoice approval flow as an example business process that an organization can automate. These types of processes can involve complex approval structures encompassing multiple cost centers and decision-makers that vary based on the type of invoice and invoice amounts.

When changes need to be made, it can be time-consuming to make updates if the business logic is implemented directly within the processes themselves. The diagram below represents a simplified design for how an invoice approval process may be implemented.
Diagram showing an invoice approval process.

In practice, the conditional decision logic that determines which manager level should approve an invoice of a certain amount can be hard-coded into the process design. However, if a manager ends up changing roles or the invoice threshold amount needs to be adjusted, this would require a technical employee to manually make the changes directly within the process implementation. This is not a trivial task—especially with complex systems where valuable technical staff could better utilize their talents on higher value projects.

Instead of building out the approval logic structure directly within the automated process, the decision logic can be modeled separately as a business rule, simplifying design and increasing flexibility. In this example, the decision logic can be best modeled as a decision table as shown below.
Chart defining logic that decides approver for an invoice based on invoice amount.

Based on the invoice value input amount, the decision table can automatically determine the appropriate approving party as the output. The output is made available for the underlying workflow design to move forward with.

This decision table provides an accessible format for a domain expert to easily update, test, and deploy as necessary without disrupting the underlying process implementation or depending on IT to perform updates. With the decision table in place, the above process implementation can now be simplified to the below.
Outline of process to approve and pay an invoice.

As many business processes include complex conditional logic, incorporating decision tables can greatly simplify process designs. Furthermore, the management of decision tables can be made available to the business, while IT or systems admins could be more involved with the advanced aspects of the solution design.

Benefits of Business Rules

Using business rules as part of a process automation software platform provides a number of advantages. These include:
  • Efficiency: Domain experts can centrally define and implement changes to policy logic themselves. Updates can be immediately applied to relevant processes without waiting for a technical resource to become available.
  • Increased productivity: With employees spending less time on tedious updates, they can focus more on value-add activities.
  • Consistency: If a business rule is updated, all processes referencing that rule will be changed accordingly.
  • Improved compliance: Organizations can effectively show how certain outcomes were reached when business rules are explicitly defined and decisions tracked.
  • Reduced Complexity: Business rules are represented in simplified formats that do not require coding skills, such as tables and diagrams, and can be re-used as necessary on appropriate processes.

With the many advantages business rules provide, they should be an important part of an organizations’ business process automation strategies. By placing business rules front and center in an understandable format, business and IT can better align on moving the organization forward.

Business rules enable gains in productivity, efficiency, and agility. As part of a robust process automation platform, they help organizations become more future-proof. For three decades, Laserfiche’s process automation and content services capabilities have helped enable digital transformation for organizations worldwide. Business rules further expand Laserfiche’s powerful feature set, where the domain experts are empowered to implement policy and rule updates on their own, while consistency and compliance remains intact across business operations.

If you want to get started quickly with business rules, be sure to check out the Laserfiche Solution Marketplace, with pre-built workflows for accounts payable, expense reimubursements and more!

To learn more about how business process automation tools can improve productivity and efficiency for your business, read our Process Automation Buyer’s Guide.
 
Download the Process Automation Buyer's Guide.

Paperless Office Transformation — What Are the Benefits?

What is a Paperless Office?

A paperless office, also called a paper-free office, is a work environment which uses minimal physical paper and instead uses primarily digital documents. A paperless employee is a worker who has eliminated or greatly reduced the use of paper in the workplace. The process of converting paper files into electronic files is known as digitization.

The idea of an entirely paperless office has existed since personal computers became the basis of the modern workplace. Despite the prevalence of electronic documents and email, most organizations still rely on paper documents. There are many benefits to going paperless, from saving resources to boosting security. Yet from handouts at meetings and HR onboarding documents to receipts, many business processes still revolve around paper.

Benefits of Going Paperless

Saves Time

Time spent filing, organizing, and searching for paper documents is time that could be spent on more productive tasks. Digitized documents are stored in a central repository, which is basically a well-organized digital filing cabinet where all of your documents live.

Using a digital document management system, you’ll get to harness the same powerful search abilities that you’re used to using on Google. This means employees can find files at the click of a button, much more quickly than the laborious, manual process of searching for a specific file in a buried folder. Employees are able to use this extra time on revenue-generating projects.

Saves Space

Paper takes up a lot of space – as do filing cabinets and space to store those filing cabinets. Books and bookshelves are bulky, too. What’s worse, paper keeps piling up, oftentimes accumulating more quickly than it can be sorted and organized. This is particularly true of industries that have long mandatory retention periods for paperwork like the financial industry.

Digitizing files allows you to store all documents either on an on-premises server or in the cloud. Digital file folders in a repository require much less space than a physical records archive.

Saves Money

Going digital improves process efficiency, saving you money. Paperless offices can process a much larger volume of paperwork compared to traditional offices in the same amount of time.

Further, digitization reduces money spent on paper, printers, ink, postage, office space for files and employee time to manage paperwork. The savings on employee time become especially valuable in regards to regulatory audits and repetitive, high-volume tasks like expense reimbursements.

Eases Transfer of Information

Document management software offers a simple process for saving documents. The software easily compiles digital documents using scanners, mobile capture using a camera on a phone or tablet or importing any file type (.docx, .pdf, image files). Many commonly used applications, like Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat, integrate with document management systems and have native plugins which allow you to file your document into your content management system with just one click.

Promotes the Environment

Manufacturing paper products produce greenhouse gases, causing deforestation and global warming. Recycling can offset some of the environmental impact, but not by much. Most paper eventually ends up in a landfill. Further, ink and toners contain volatile compounds and non-renewable substances which are damaging to the environment. It is much more sustainable to simply reduce paper use altogether by switching to a paperless office.

Boosts Security

Physical documents are hard to track – reams of paper can get lost, misfiled or destroyed without anyone noticing. It can also be difficult to monitor the access, printing and copying of sensitive files. Document management software has advanced security capabilities that can tackle these challenges. System administrators can set-up granular access rights, which assign permissions at the document level (e.g. settings based on the type of document), user level (e.g. settings based on person’s job function), or system level (e.g. overarching security for all data in the system).

The security benefits of a paperless workplace go beyond access rights. Implementing document management software also allows organizations to leverage electronic signatures, redact confidential information, create audit trails and more.

Digitizing Paper-Based Processes

Technology has so seamlessly replaced paper processes that it’s difficult to remember how things used to be done. In nearly all cases, the evolution from paper-based items to their electronic counterparts is profoundly more efficient.
ThenNow
 

 

Paper Documents

  • Tediously shuffle paper between individuals and departments
  • Difficult to track changes when collaborating on a document
 

 

Digital Documents

  • Seamless electronic transfer between individuals and departments
  • Easy to track changes and records comments using “Track Changes” feature
 

 

Mail & Faxes

  • Constant maintenance required to organize and find documents, especially really old ones
  • Access based on location of documents
  • Easily misplaced or damaged
 

 

Email

  • Easily searchable based on content and metadata
  • Access from phone or browser
  • Archived forever. Even in the event of a deletion, can potentially be recovered
 

 

Encyclopedias & Dictionaries

  • Slow process to look up words and topics one by one
  • All data remains inside volumes of book
  • Access from wherever the book is at the time
 

 

Internet

  • Instantaneous access to information using search
  • Ability to save, copy and bookmark data to reference
  • Access from anywhere with Internet
Newspapers, Books & Magazines

 

  • News quickly becomes outdated
  • Message constrained by word space and page count
  • Slow redaction time and news cycle
  • Each new book takes up more space
 

 

Media Websites & eBooks

  • Immediate access to content
  • Message not constrained by space
  • Real-time updates and amendments and 24-hour news cycle
  • Compact e-reader holds multiple books and magazines

 

 

 

Printed Maps

  • No way to factor in traffic, road closures and other barriers
  • Gets worn out, cumbersome to use while driving
  • Becomes out-of-date

 

Waze, Google Maps & Navigation Devices

 

  • Reacts to traffic to maximize route efficiency and gives an accurate estimate of arrival time
  • Lives within a mobile device
  • Updated regularly to ensure accurate navigation
Business Cards & Rolodexes

 

  • Business cards pile up and get lost
  • Rolodex must be manually updated
 

 

Contacts Synced

  • Contacts live within email program and mobile phone app
  • Updates to contact information automatically synced across devices

The Path to Digital Transformation

Deciding to make the move from paper to paperless is part of a larger process called digital transformation.

Laserfiche has identified five key steps to completely digitize your workplace:
  1. Digitize: convert all documents from paper to digital
  2. Organize: categorize documents in a central electronic filing cabinet
  3. Automate: digitize business processes using forms and workflow
  4. Streamline: take a high-level view of business processes to identify bottlenecks and opportunities for more efficiency
  5. Transform: use advanced analytics to turn data into insights on how to make your company even more efficient

Document management software is a crucial tool to this road to digital transformation. Beyond the immediate benefits of going paperless, digitizing is the first step to transforming your workplace and ultimately driving business forward.

If you choose to deploy a Laserfiche solution as part of your paperless transformation, be sure to check out the Laserfiche Solution Marketplace, with pre-built workflows for processing contracts, permits and more!

For even more info about the benefits of going paperless, download the Ultimate Guide to Document Scanning:
Get the eBook: How to Improve Document Storage and Imaging Across Your Organization.

Migrating to a New Content Management System: What Documents Should You Keep?

How do you make a smart decision on what content stays and what goes when you transition to a new content management system?

Whether you are implementing a content management system for the first time or changing from one system to another, you will be making many decisions about which documents and files to move.

As part of the overall document management system implementation project, keep in mind the project’s goals and records retention requirements when deciding what to move and what not to move. Be sure that you and your project team understand the project’s desired outcome before deciding what content to move.

Defining Project Goals

Why is the new system for content management being implemented? What problems will this new system solve within your organization?

Possible goals may include things like:

  • Easier access to documents and simplified searching
  • Improved organization efficiency
  • Reduced cycle time for business processes
  • Enhanced protection of information, including compliance with laws and regulations

Decisions about how the new system is implemented should support these project goals.

New Systems Provide New Opportunities

Most organizations want to do things in smarter, more efficient ways. But, people and organizations are resistant to change, therefore unlikely to make the effort without some kind of catalyst. Implementing a new content management system is a golden opportunity to take a long, hard look at how things are being done, question the value of doing things the same way and investigate how business processes can be improved.

Most people within your organization probably have ideas about ways to improve your processes. The need to roll out a new system is a perfect time to ask for their input. Offer employees a structured arena, such as a facilitated team brainstorming session, in which to share ideas. Take the best ideas and develop them further.

Reviewing business processes, and deciding how a new system can support those changes, will make your project more meaningful, useful and – in the long run – successful. Your organization is devoting a lot of resources – time, work hours, budgets – to this project. After all, if you simply copy over your existing way of doing business into your new system, all of those resources will not be providing good value.

For example, in many organizations, there are no requirements for wet-ink signatures. Electronic signature technology is fully developed and can be easily incorporated into new system requirements. Use of electronic signatures enables the use of automated workflows, which can automate business processes, significantly reducing cycle time and making staff more efficient.

Build the New System to Support Go-Forward Processes

Why focus effort and resources on old ways of doing things? When you know how you want to operate, you should incorporate those goals into the system requirements, and build the new system to enable what you want to do from now on.

Evaluating what to do with existing files and documents should not begin until your desired way of operating has been defined and set up in the new system.

Identify Repositories and Sources of Documents

Before making decisions about what to move, make sure you have identified where the existing files and documents are located.

Typical locations may include:

  • Shared drives
  • Personal drives
  • Workstation desktops
  • Old imaging systems
  • Enterprise systems that will be retired (regardless of whether internal or external)

It is also important to understand where new content will come from in the future, and set up your system to appropriately deal with these. This may include evaluating which system should hold a document and how other systems that need access to it can link to that single document.

Why Not Move Everything into the New System?

You may be tempted to simply move everything over to the new system and defer evaluating the information until later.

Why isn’t that a good approach?

First, because if you don’t do it now, it probably won’t happen.

More importantly, all documents do not have equal value. Systems – and documents – consume an organization’s resources, including:

  • Storage space
  • Staff time
  • Search time
  • Backup services

Low-value information interferes with the efficiency of business activities because it can quickly accumulate into a mass of excess data. That irrelevant information must be combed to find pertinent information, which bogs down routine processes. Additionally, keeping documents that have already met their retention requirements can create additional risks. Your goal should be to make it easier to find the right information when it is needed.

Deciding What to Move

Who should make decisions about what is high-value information and what should move to the new system? It should be a team decision. Assigning this decision solely to the department that owns the documents risks an inadequate review. Despite the fact that the department probably has the best understanding of what is in those documents, they are not fully informed on other factors such as risk and impact to resources or the enterprise as a whole.

The review team typically consists of representatives from:

  • Information Technology
  • Records Management
  • Risk Management
  • Legal
  • Subject Matter Expert

Factors to consider during the review and evaluation should include:

  • Is the document needed for business decisions?
  • Do multiple departments need the information?
  • Can it be found elsewhere?
  • Is it a duplicate?
  • Is it a “record” (i.e., does it document a position or activity of the organization)?
  • Have retention requirements already been met?
  • Is the information necessary to support current and ongoing activities?
  • Is the file type appropriate (e.g., .docx, .xlsx) or is it a file type that should not be there (e.g., .exe, .gif)?
  • Is it relevant to or part of an investigation, audit or litigation?

Some decisions will be easy, such as eliminating file types that should not be retained. Other decisions will need deeper analysis. The expertise to do this analysis may only be there during the short time that this new system project is going on, so make good use of it while it’s available.

Get Rid of What Isn’t Being Moved

Holding on to documents, files and information whose useful life has passed can become a liability to the organization. Once you have determined that a document isn’t useful or needed in the new system, steps should be taken to properly dispose of it.

  • Retire (decommission) old systems, including whatever is left in their repositories
  • Delete duplicate files
  • Eliminate out-of-date reference materials
  • Purge temporary or trivial information
  • Eliminate personal files – photos, music, videos – that consume large amounts of storage space

Building a document management solution that meets the organization’s current and future needs is a difficult but worthwhile endeavor. Ensuring that the documents and files moved to that system are of value will help to streamline operations and meet the goals of the organization. Put in the time to do it right the first time!

To learn more about how a content management system can help you automate key processes, save time spent locating documents and be better prepared to meet compliance requirements, check out our enterprise content management software buyer’s guide.

What Are Content Services?

In 2017, the analyst firm Gartner redefined what enterprise content management could be by coining a new term: content services.

Fundamentally, content services are a collection of platforms, applications, and components intended to solve a variety of unique business challenges.

Providers of content services platforms may use the term “enterprise content management” to describe their offerings, given its familiarity with customers. Still, most modern offerings are considered “content services”, even if a particular vendor chooses a different term.

What’s the Difference Between Content Services and ECM?

The fundamental difference between what was traditionally known as ECM and what is now content services is based on the concept of “composition.”

This concept formed out of the need for different, specialized user experiences based on roles. For example, the HR department has different demands on their enterprise software than the IT department – or to put it another way, help desk tickets and job applications aren’t necessarily processed the same way.

Even with a robust process automation platform, you may want a specialized solution for that last mile towards an end-to-end user experience. Although traditional ECM could create unique views for different job roles, it was a separate destination. These solutions thus largely relied on importing content from external applications, rather than exchanging information with them dynamically.

With cloud solutions for specialized software offering low operating costs, and the increased popularity of integrations and APIs, a content services approach with the goal of including specialized content experiences becomes more attractive.

Composition, essentially, is the creation of a unique user experience through a combination of platforms, services and tools connected through APIs and other integrations. These unique experiences are thus a sum of the parts that compose them.

According to Gartner, these parts come in three main categories:
  • Content services platforms (CSPs): These platforms provide basic services, such as content storage, and can also act as a central hub that integrates and sends information between the other parts of a composition.
  • Content services applications (CSAs): These applications provide specialized services for a particular role, such as recruiting or IT.
  • Content services components (CSCs): These components provide a specific functionality, such as digital signatures or document imaging and are primarily designed to be integrated.
To learn more about composing experiences, we recommend reading the following report from Gartner: Future of Applications: Delivering the Composable Enterprise.

How Can Organizations Benefit from Content Services?

Organizations like yours can put content services into action by taking a proactive approach to integrating content with enterprise solutions you already have. Exploring opportunities to connect applications through APIs and other integration tools can save time and money while producing lasting operational benefits.
Integrating CSPs, applications and components is key to composing specialized experiences for different roles or departments.

Here are three examples of how software integrations can increase efficiency:

Contract management: Easily extract contact information from a CRM system into a CSP using workflow automation software, populate the information into a contract, and gather client signatures using a digital signature tool.

HR management: Quickly access all employee information from a single interface by integrating an ECM system or CSP with HR automation software.

Accounting and finance: Easily generate invoices by using process automation software to pull information from emails, PDFs or paper documents and send it to an accounting application.
Platforms like Laserfiche can play a key role in composing your HR department’s experience, by routing employment applications for review and approval.

Combining different CSPs, applications and components allows organizations to take advantage of what each solution does best.

For example, while an ECM system or CSP can excel for reviewing, marking up and protecting content, a CSA such as a student information system is already specialized to manage and process student data. Combining the advantages of both can make for a more seamless and efficient process.

Same Goals, Different Approach

Ultimately, traditional ECM systems and CSPs seek to achieve the same goals, but they each take a different approach in doing so.

While CSPs and modern ECM systems are aimed to integrate with other tools to create composed experiences, ECM solutions were historically designed for most or all content interactions to occur within a single system.

Whether your organization uses the content services to compose experiences, or prefers a centralized experience of a traditional ECM system, it can gain valuable perspective by taking each of these solutions into account.

If you’re in the market for a content services platform and want to compare top vendors, we recommend taking a look at the Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’: Content Services Platforms Report, which you can download here.

4 Ways Document Management Software Saves Time and Money

The inefficiencies of pushing paper and using manual processes in today’s office can add up. With the demand for information—contracts, forms, approvals, invoices—to be both accessible and secure, the old business practice of manually filing documents and creating paper trails severely limits an organization’s ability to compete.

Document management solutions exist to make the most of business’s most critical resources: time and money.

By implementing document management solutions, organizations can:

1. Automate Tasks and Increase Process Efficiency

Document management software can help employees work more quickly with instant access to information. This type of software also enables organizations to set up workflow automation that speed reviews and approvals, keeping business processes moving.

Further, a document management system can help organizations:

  • Use intelligent search methods that support searching with any criteria
  • Streamline document distribution with automated workflow routing and notification, improving accountability
  • Reduce labor and clerical mistakes with automated optical character recognition and indexing
  • Better manage organizational archives from a desktop computer
  • Minimize lost documents
  • Create copies and distribute documents as simply as sending an email

To streamline staff requisitions, St. Louis Public School District recently digitized its archives and active paper storage, and quickly automated new hiring. The district has 47,000 employees and maintains over 4.5 million documents.

According to Clarissa Buckley, HR Information System Coordinator for the district, staffing requisitions are now completed in three hours instead of three weeks. This increase in efficiency allows the district to invest their resources in new endeavors and explore new opportunities.

2. Improve Communication between Departments and throughout the Organization

Document management systems make it easy to share documents electronically with colleagues and clients, whether you’re at the office or on the go. A quality document management solution can:

  • Be accessed remotely or online, allowing documents to be viewed and retrieved anywhere you have access to the internet.
  • Integrate seamlessly with your website, presenting a consistent face to customers and allowing you to securely share read-only documents with the public
  • Balance accessibility with security, retaining strict control over which documents are available to staff and the public
  • Work from virtually anywhere: web browsers, smartphones, tablets, operating systems and hardware

Oakland County, MI, has more than 60 cities, villages and townships with over 1.2 million people living within its borders. By digitizing information and automating processes, the county aims to empower government employees to streamline operations and improve citizen services. “We want to make processes more efficient, more automatic and better for the public,” says Bill Jobes, Program Manager at Oakland County.

They’re now able to increase access to information for authorized government employees and to citizens through online portals. The county has enhanced transparency of processes, to keep citizens informed. “In order to grow, we have to innovate,” says Jobes.

3. Shift Time from Filing Documents to Focus on Business-Critical Objectives

By implementing a document management solution, an organization make better use of time to:

  • Retrieve documents and essential information without employees leaving their workstation
  • Keep track of documents that must be viewed and signed by other personnel
  • Meet with clients and close deals
  • Instantaneously answer information requests from auditors and clients to eliminate call-backs and phone tag
  • Respond more quickly to customer queries
  • Provide quality customer service, which ultimately leads to more business

Halquist Stone, one of the largest stone quarries in the Midwest, generates sales orders that require the cooperation of several departments, across seven facilities. According to Wade Balson, CFO of Halquist Stone, the supervisors “were spending two to three hours a day manually inputting data.”

Supervisors now enter orders on iPads, and information is automatically routed to the relevant departments to be processed. “Now we’re automating processes.” said Balson. “That just increases my return exponentially.”

4. Increase Bottom-Line Benefits by Minimizing Costs of Paper Storage, Office Space and Additional Hiring

Implementing a document management system requires upfront costs. That said, various market studies and case studies have shown that it does lead to long-term savings. Organizations can save money in the long-term by:

  • Eliminating the filing, duplication and retrieval costs of off-site storage
  • Reducing organization downtime in the case of disasters like floods, fires or theft
  • Replacing paper storage space with more workstations or other productive revenue-generating activities

For instance, to ensure workplace safety for 3 million citizens each year, the Arkansas Department of Labor recently upgraded their manual system to enterprise content management. Staff created an electronic form enabling any citizen to submit wage claims online. The claims are stored in a digital repository and easily accessed by inspectors.

The department can complete wage claims in about a quarter of the time, saving the department $60,000 annually, producing significant ROI for the use of taxpayer dollars. Their investment in technology will continue to benefit citizens long after the initial implementation.

Bottom Line

Document management software is a tool that can completely overhaul manual processes. Digitizing documents and controlling electronic documents allows organizations to eliminate paper storage, streamline operations, and improve communication. Organizations will reap the benefits of this boost in efficiency by shifting resources from clerical tasks towards revenue-producing tasks.

For an overview of how document management can help your organization streamline operations, watch our webinar, ECM 101: An Introduction to Document Management Features.

Discover everything you need to know to find the right document management software for your office.

Implementing Electronic Records Management? Here Are 4 Things to Consider

A records management strategy is vital to the life cycle of your organization’s information. At an organizational level, a records management strategy governs how information is created, stored, shared, tracked and protected.

Electronic records management (ERM) software simplifies the application of this strategy, helping to manage the life cycle of business records without interfering with your line of business. A records management application supports the automatic enforcement of consistent, organization-wide records policies, simplifying compliance with federal, state and industry regulations.

What are some best practices for managing electronic records?

Once you’ve decided to make the switch to an ERM system, there are four important points to consider.
1. Develop an information governance strategy

Before switching to electronic records, it is essential to design a comprehensive information governance strategy. An information governance strategy explores the breadth of content an organization manages, how content is organized and who should have access to it.

A good governance structure:
  • Enables staff to work in the most efficient and effective way possible by giving them access to information when they need it.
  • Outlines which user groups have access to which record types, simplifying the actual application of appropriate security within the ERM system.
  • Takes into account any state or regulatory requirements for record access or retention.

“Records management is a critical component in information governance, and organizations need information professionals who can incorporate records retention and management principles into all storage media architectures, automated systems and emerging technologies,” says Allen Podraza, Director of Records Management & Archives for the American Medical Association.
2. Evaluate certified records management systems

When switching to an ERM system, you may want to look at systems that are certified, particularly those certified to meet a set of requirements outlined in the Department of Defense (DoD) 5015.2 standard. The Department of Defense has rigorous requirements for ensuring that records are properly organized and managed. The DoD 5015.2 standard outlines requirements for managing classified records and includes requirements to support the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Privacy Act and interoperability.

Unless an organization provides services to the United States Department of Defense or one of its components, it is not typically required to meet the DoD 5015.2 certification. However, an ERM system that has been certified to meet stringent requirements for organizing file structures — and reliably preserving data — likely offers some of of the best tools available for properly maintaining records.
3. Ensure the electronic document can be legally presented as an official record

Before you switch to an electronic system, you must ensure that the electronic document can be legally presented as the official record. To meet state regulations, it is often important that the ERM software is compatible with a wide range of hardware components, such as optical, tape and magnetic-based WORM (write once, read many) storage.

Depending on where you live, the requirements may differ. For example, state agencies in California are required to maintain records “created or stored as an official record” using a trusted system.

A trusted system must:
  • Utilize both hardware and media storage methodologies to prevent unauthorized additions, modifications or deletions during the approved life cycle of the stored information.
  • Be verifiable through independent audit processes ensuring that there is no plausible way for electronically stored information to be modified, altered, or deleted during the approved information life cycle.
  • Write at least one copy of the electronic document or record into electronic media that does not permit unauthorized additions, deletions, or changes to the original document and that is to be stored and maintained in a safe and separate location.
4. Track the actions taken on the document

To form a complete record of organization-wide activity, the ERM system should track every action taken on each document throughout its life cycle, including what information was added and deleted. These reports should not only track each action, but also when and by whom it was performed.

These reports can be run regularly or on an as-needed basis. This whole process can also be automated and reports emailed to the appropriate people on a schedule.
A log of actions performed on a record.
An ERM system can generate system-wide reports on user logins, audit activity, document modifications and more.

Continue Your Journey

Fast track your digital transformation with the Laserfiche Solution Marketplace

Looking to make Laserfiche your records management solution? Customers can get started streamlining regulatory processes, such as building permit applications and inspections, quicker than ever with the pre-built workflows offered through the Laserfiche Solution Marketplace.

Compare top enterprise content management (ECM) vendors on G2

Laserfiche offers records management features as part of a robust enterprise content management (ECM) system. Check out the G2 Grid® for Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and compare top vendors on the market.
G2 Grid® for Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Systems

Get the ultimate records management guide

Learn more about selecting an electronic records management system for your organization by downloading the Ultimate Guide to Records Management.
Download the eBook: The Ultimate Guide to Records Management.

How to Securely Email Documents with ECM

What does your organization do to prevent its emails from being hacked?

With massive email security breaches fresh in mind, many organizations share concerns that confidential email attachments can fall into the wrong hands. Here are three tips for using enterprise content management (ECM) software to securely email documents.

Emailing Documents Inside Your Organization

Email attachments can be vulnerable to theft or eavesdropping. If you need to share information with someone inside your organization, emailing a link to the document or folder in Laserfiche is a safe alternative to emailing a physical attachment. This ensures that the information being sent in the email can only be viewed by users with access to the repository.

workflow_subscriber1
Emailing a link to a document in Laserfiche allows organizations to share information while protecting it from unauthorized access.

For example, if an HR department needs to share six different employee onboarding documents with a new staff member, it could email the recipient a link to a repository folder that contains all of the required documents. This method is faster and more secure than sending all of the attachments in a single email.

Emailing Documents Outside Your Organization

If you’re sharing sensitive information with someone outside of your organization, you can rest assured of its confidentiality by emailing the recipient a read-only document link.

With a password-protected public portal, organizations can protect their core ECM repositories by sharing a link to a non-editable version of a document. This method ensures that the recipient is able to view only the information in the repository that he is authorized to see.

For example, if a financial advisory firm needs to share nine different new account opening documents with a client, it can:

  • Publish read-only versions of the documents to a secure public portal
  • Create a password-protected login to the portal that allows the client to only view those nine documents
  • Email the client a link to the public portal, and provide the login credentials in a separate form of correspondence

Emailing Documents that Need to Be Signed

For organizations that need to securely email and collect a signature for a document, integrating ECM with digital signature software can be a reliable method.

Many digital signature tools use screening methods to verify the identity of the person signing the document. For example, Laserfiche integrates with ARX—a digital signature tool that:

  • Validates the integrity of documents by using a digital certificate to verify who is signing the document, what organization the signer is from and when the document was signed
  • Verifies that the recipient has the authority to sign the document by integrating with user directories—such as Microsoft Active Directory—to access a list of approved signers
  • Protects against unauthorized document tampering by storing the digital signature in a centralized and secure hardware device

laserfiche-2_signing
Integrating ECM with a digital signature tool helps organizations easily collect signed documents while ensuring the signing party is the person he claims to be.

By combining ECM with these digital signature authentication features, organizations can protect sensitive documents and verify that the signing party is the person he claims to be.

To learn more about how ECM can help you automate key processes, save time spent locating documents and be better prepared to meet compliance requirements, check out our ECM software buyer’s guide.

How to Make HR Records Management Way Easier

Here on the ECM Blog, we talk a lot about the roles and responsibilities of records managers—but not all organizations actually have records managers. In the case of human resources (HR), maintaining employee records often falls on the HR department itself.

HR professionals shouldn’t spend too much time acting as records managers, yet it’s crucial to comply with government and company policies regarding employee files. How can HR professionals balance compliance with the core responsibilities of HR? The key lies in three words: Transparent Records Management.

Here’s why managing employee records is difficult and how Transparent Records Management can be used in organizations without a dedicated records manager.

The Challenge of HR Records Management

Records management is the practice of filing, retaining and destroying company records in accordance with government and industry regulations.

The challenge is that most employees aren’t thinking in terms of records management when they create and use documents. Regular employees organize documents based on their daily needs, not the rules of retention and destruction set forth by the IRS, state governments and so on.

For example, an HR professional might prefer to organize her files by employee name. She creates a new folder for each new employee and keeps it in a file cabinet. But within each employee’s file is a mixture of documents—each with different records management requirements. Imagine how time-consuming it would be to search through every employee file for W4s during tax season or manually locate records that are ready for disposition.

A first step toward better records management is implementing enterprise content management (ECM) software, which allows organizations to store records in an electronic repository. This solves the problem of manually sifting through cabinets of employee files, but it does not change the way an HR professional organizes employee files—arranging them by employee name is still the most logical approach for an HR professional. Fortunately, there’s a way to retain this file structure and still make records management easier for HR.

Transparent Records Management to the Rescue

Transparent Records Management allows the same ECM repository to be viewed in two different ways. For HR, one view can display employee records by employee name while a second view displays employee records by record type: applications, insurance documents, tax documents and so forth.
“Records management” view on the left; “regular” view on the right.

This ability to arrange the same repository of employee files in two different ways is key to efficient HR records management. Regular HR employees can access a folder structure relevant to their jobs while a designated HR administrator sees a folder structure designed for records management.

The important thing to remember here is that transparent records management provides two views of the same repository, not two separate repositories. The “regular” view actually contains shortcuts to the original documents. This means that if a document is edited in the “regular” view of the HR repository, that change is reflected in the “records management” view as well—sort of like The Matrix. This function of transparent records management prevents unnecessary duplication of documents and ensures information consistency.

If you’re interested in learning how HR processes can be automated, check out our free eBook on HR automation.
The Ultimate Guide to HR Automation by Laserfiche

What’s the difference between wet, digital and electronic signatures?

What do you imagine when you hear the word “signature?” 50 years ago we might all have had the same answer, but today, “ink on paper” isn’t the only option for authorizing a document or transaction.

Here’s what you need to know about the three main signature categories (wet, digital and electronic signatures) and how they facilitate (or impede) business processes.

What is a wet signature?

A wet signature is created when a person physically marks a document. In some cultures this is done by writing a name in a stylized, cursive format (or even a simple “X”) on a piece of paper. Other cultures use name seals to the same effect. In both cases, the word “wet” implies that the signature requires time to dry, as it was made with ink or wax.
Various written signatures.

What is an electronic signature?

Various legal definitions exist for electronic signatures, but the term most generally refers to the acknowledgement or adoption of an electronic message, transaction or document. Some examples include:
  • A typed name at the end of an email
  • A typed name on an electronic form or document
  • An image of a handwritten signature on a transmitted fax
  • A personal identification number (PIN) entered into a bank ATM
  • Clicking “agree” or “disagree” on an electronic “terms and agreements” contract
  • A handwritten but digitally captured signature made on a touch device, such as a tablet or smartphone (sometimes referred to as a “dynamic signature”)
  • A digital signature gathered by an eSign application like Adobe Sign.

What is a digital signature?

Sometimes referred to as a cryptographic signature, a digital signature is considered the most “secure” type of electronic signature. It includes a certificate of authority, such as a Windows certificate, to ensure the validity of the signatory (the signature’s author and owner).

The parties on either side of a digital signature can also detect whether the signed document was altered or changed in any way that would invalidate it. In addition, electronic messages are signed with the sender’s private decryption key and verified by anyone who can access the sender’s public encryption key; this further ensures that both parties are who they say they are and that the content of the message has not been changed or intercepted.
Image showing how private keys can digitally sign messages that can then be read using public key.

Digital and electronic signatures are often used synonymously, but most types of electronic signatures do not have the security features of true digital signatures.

Some common uses for digital signatures include electronic tax forms, applications for business permits and online college applications.

Are different signatures required for different purposes?

The use of wet, electronic or digital signatures is left to the discretion of each party. Since the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (ESIGN) went into effect in 2000, digital and electronic signatures have held the same legal standing as wet signatures. Nevertheless, some organizations and individuals still prefer handwritten signatures.

The ESIGN act does preserve the right of a party to use or accept wet signatures even if the documentation in question is electronic. It is up to each organization to create its own policy around signatures.

How does each type of signature affect business processes?

Many document-based business processes require signatures, such as the approval of contracts, invoices and employee evaluation forms. Wet signatures tend to slow these processes down because of their dependence on the physical exchange of paper, but even electronic signatures can become impediments when someone fails to sign a document in a timely manner.

Organizations operate at peak efficiency when electronic signatures are incorporated into an automated business process. For example, as the following video shows, if a manager forgets to sign an invoice, an automated system can send her an email reminder after a period of time has passed.

 
One of the fastest ways to get started with incorporating digital signatures into your automated business processes is to use a solution marketplace. These marketplaces offer an extensive range of pre-built solutions, templates and integrations for users of a particular platform. For example, Laserfiche offers an Adobe Sign integration on its marketplace.

Learn how digital and electronic signatures can be incorporated into your contract management process. Download the free guide!
Download the guide to automating contract review and approvals.