Hyland Software's Document Management Blog

A Tale of Two Content Management Conferences: AIIM/info360 and Gartner PCC

// April 5th, 2011 // No Comments » // Document Management, Enterprise content management // Ken Burns

In the past two weeks, I attended AIIM/info360 in the nation’s capital, immediately followed by a west coast enterprise tech party at the Gartner Portals, Content and Collaboration (PCC) Summit in Los Angeles.

Both events cover a broad range of topics and technologies under the ECM software market umbrella. However, the two conferences have historically offered very different perspectives – each focused on opposing ends of the ECM technology spectrum.

The heart of the AIIM community consists of providers, integrators and end-users of ECM technologies that serve as operational and administrative systems of record (e.g. image and data capture, document-centric BPM and records management). The AIIM organization would like to change that. Under the leadership of John Mancini, AIIM is working, in earnest, with a core group of vendors to persuade its broader communities of interest to recognize the impact and embrace the potential of social and mobile technologies like Facebook, Twitter and the iPhone.

Not surprisingly, the AIIM/info360* conference led with an Enterprise 2.0 (E 2.0) theme, particularly the keynote presentations.

In his own keynote address, Mancini argued that the ECM industry has reached an inflection point. He asserted that ECM vendors and solution providers must bridge the gap that exists between conventional ECM as systems of record and the social and mobile technologies that serve as systems of engagement. According to Mancini, while systems of record for supporting standard operating procedures will continue to play a vital role for the foreseeable future, he predicts that social and mobile technologies will, increasingly, be the driving force behind new sources of innovation, value creation and also, unfortunately, organizational risk.

On the other hand, Gartner PCC has always been more about portals, search and collaboration than process-oriented content management. This year’s event didn’t change my opinion in that regard, despite the fact that ECM analyst, Toby Bell, was the conference chair and his ECM colleagues were well represented on the conference agenda.

Echoing John Mancini’s call to action at AIIM/info360, much was made at PCC about the need to bridge the gap between systems of record and social applications, albeit in a much broader sense. The perspective of the Gartner analysts covering social applications extended well beyond the intersection of social computing and process-oriented ECM solutions (or in Gartner’s vernacular, “composite content applications”). Oddly enough, their primary points of reference with respect to systems of record were not ECM solutions, but data-centric enterprise applications like CRM and ERP software.

We Need Conferences of Engagement

Speakers at both conferences advocated the need to bridge the worlds of systems of record with systems of social engagement. And yet, it seemed to me, too little of either conference’s agenda allowed for proponents of these two distinct worlds of technology to be on stage together to discuss and debate one another’s perspectives.

To me, case-based applications would have been the perfect set of usage scenarios to discuss how to blend applications for supporting standardized procedures with personal computing tools for performing non-routine, but high-value tasks and interaction with people inside and outside an organization. Outside of EMC promoting their xCP platform, there was very little coverage of case-based applications at either conference.

That’s unfortunate, especially as both Gartner and Forrester Research agree that case management is the next frontier for process-oriented ECM solutions. More importantly, case-based applications aren’t the exclusive domain of ECM vendors. BPM, CRM and specialist case management providers are also laying claim to this space.

At PCC, Toby Bell made one statement during his case management presentation (the lone session on case management) that should make end-users cringe: “At this point, the vendors may have you believe that case management is anything you want it to be.” 

If this is indeed a reality, it’s not just bad news for end-users - it hurts us vendors, too! Vague solution positioning means vendors end up sending well-intentioned, but ill-informed sales people into the wrong opportunities. The resulting market confusion makes it harder to earn the trust of prospective buyers, thereby extending our sales cycles and undermining revenue objectives.

Putting Case Management in its Place

The case management discussion I would have loved to have seen at PCC or Info360 will actually take place at the Gartner BPM Summit  later this month. That session will feature a debate as to where case management belongs. Is the domain of ECM, BPM or CRM vendors? Fittingly, the debate will feature a BPM analyst (Janelle Hill), an ECM analyst (Toby Bell) and an insurance analyst who covers CRM, BPM and ECM vendors selling claims case management solutions.

If we want the market to understand the value of case management solutions, they need to understand the different ways ECM, BPM and CRM vendors attack the problem. To do that, we shouldn’t discuss the various technologies (social and transactional) and vendor approaches (ECM, BPM or CRM) that form the continuum of case management solutions in isolation. 

Here’s an idea: If ECM and other markets are converging around case management, end-users will need forums to help them understand how to find solutions that best fit their needs. That requires discussion, debate and the cross pollination of ideas between people from different IT and business backgrounds.

If a conventional conference won’t do, perhaps someone will find a way to get it done via the social Web.

Live From info360: Is ECM Morphing Into the Platypus of Enterprise Software?

// March 24th, 2011 // No Comments » // Document Management, Enterprise content management // Ken Burns

If the session content being presented at the AIIM/info360 conference  over the past two days is any indication, it appears that strong environmental factors (AKA, the market) are driving enterprise content management vendors into a period of significant evolution and adaptation.

Now you may be thinking: “Okay Burnsy, I get the idea that ECM vendors and their products need to evolve. But, c’mon dude, where are you going with the Platypus analogy? What does an egg-laying, venomous, duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed mammal have to do with ECM software?” 

The answer to that lies in the usage scenarios ECM solutions are increasingly expected to address. Most often, ECM solutions are deployed to address “edge” processes and interactions that fall outside the mainline functions of data-centric, lines-of business applications (e.g. ERPs, electronic medical records and claims processing systems).

More and more, these composite content applications, often called case-based applications, demand a hybrid assembly of capabilities most would associate with product segments that are adjacent – rather than core - to ECM.

Here are a few examples:

• Historically used as systems of record, ECM solutions must also become systems of engagement in order to capture and/or analyze the interactions enabled by consumer-oriented, social technologies
• Well-known for managing content and automating well-defined, procedure-oriented processes, transactional ECM systems are now being extended with data-centric and CRM-like application interfaces designed to support more loosely defined practices and collaborative interactions
• The workflow engines of transactional ECM systems are going well beyond automating content-intensive clerical work and stepping into the domain of “human-centric BPM” (e.g. supporting work items related to events and tasks that may or may not include documents)
• Intelligent data capture software is expected to be paired with analytics tools to mine content assets for operational intelligence and identifying patterns of activity

Today, these hybrid capabilities are most often found in separate products which must then be stitched together into a “composite solution” by a systems integrator.

It seems the new expectation will be for these once distinct product capabilities to become an inherent part of the “fabric” (if I may borrow a term from EMC’s Jeetu Patel) of ECM software suites.

Ultimately, this evolution may make it even more difficult to define what ECM is and isn’t. But, like that evolutionary anomaly, the duck-billed platypus, successful ECM systems will have evolved into whatever form will enable them to thrive in their particular competitive environments.

AIIM and info360: Systems of Record vs. Systems of Engagement?

// March 22nd, 2011 // No Comments » // Document Management, Enterprise content management // Ken Burns

I’m spending the next day and a half in Washington, D.C. attending the info360 conference (formerly known as the AIIM Conference & Exhibition).

This has always been the showcase event for all the vendors and technologies that fall under the enterprise content management (ECM) market umbrella. At its core, however, the big focus has been on ECM offerings that support transaction processing and formal record keeping (i.e. systems of record). AIIM/info360 has typically attracted audiences interested in those particular topics and technologies.

Again, this year, enterprise systems of record still largely dominate the conference agenda and the show floor. But, more than ever before, the AIIM organization, Questex (the firm that runs the conference), and certain vendor sponsors are pushing hard to discuss the impact (or potential opportunity) of content generated and used by consumer-oriented social technologies like Facebook and Twitter (i.e. systems of engagement).

I’ll be looking to get a sense of whether the show’s attendees place social technologies at the top of their priority list. No doubt, some will.

But, I suspect I’ll also come across many, many others who deal with those daily operational and administrative matters that make the benefits of minimizing paper-processing to be pretty compelling, critical stuff, too.

Stay tuned.

A lesson in data storage, starring WikiLeaks and pizza

// January 4th, 2011 // No Comments » // Document Management, Enterprise content management // Glenn Gibson

How many scanned electronic documents might represent 5GB of storage space? 

This is the question posed to me last week by New York Times reporter Nelson Schwartz. You can read more about why he wanted to know in his article “Facing Threat From WikiLeaks, Bank Plays Defense” (see page two, paragraph one).

My response? That’s like figuring out how many slices of pizza fit in a large pizza box. The answer depends on how large the slices are. A pizza box could hold 100 little slices or eight large slices.   

Similarly, the size of electronic documents absolutely impacts the answer to the original question.

Before we start calculating, we need to understand that calculations are based on pages, not documents. This is an important distinction. Documents can vary in the number of pages, so we count pages to get an accurate picture.

There are then a number of variables which will profoundly impact the final size of an electronic document. 

1. Page size. Is this 8.5 x 11 letter, 8.5 x 14 legal, or something else?
2. Scan resolution. This is measured in dots per inch (dpi). The number of dots relate to the number of electronic “bits” stored. The higher the resolution, the better quality the image will be and the more space this will consume.
3. Color choice.  Black and white images take up much less space than color images.
4. File type. Most image file types (GIF, TIF, JPEG, etc.) determine how far the image is compressed. A group 4 TIF compresses at 20:1; a JPEG compresses at 100:1. Very high compression ratios such as JPEGs are known as “lossy compression.” This means that you will have the advantage of consuming less space on the disk, but may lose some image quality.

Here’s an industry standard example: An 8.5 x 11 page, scanned at 200 dpi in black and white stored as a TIF file type. We can calculate this document will consume around 22KB of space. With that electronic page size, you can store 238,545 pages in 5 GB*. 

If you wanted to improve the quality of that scanned image by increasing the resolution to 400 dpi, you will end up with a document that consumes 91 KB of space. With that increased resolution, with the same scanned documents, you can store 57,614 pages in 5GB*.

This is just by adjusting resolution. But these calculations change when you change color choice, page size and the compression ratios used. It’s up to an organization to ensure that the choices it makes regarding space consumed by electronic documents will not result in images that are unreadable because of being scanned at a very low resolution with a high compression. 

Let’s talk pizza again. If you purchased 100 slices of pizza for $10 and the pizza shop delivered one box crammed with 100 tiny slices, your friends would probably never come over to watch the Super Bowl at your place ever again. 

However, if your 100 slices arrived in 20 boxes, while the boxes take up more space, everyone would be much happier.

* These are the calculations used to arrive at these figures

Size: 8.5 x 11
Resolution measured in Dots Per Inch (DPI): Example 1 uses 200 DPI, Example 2 uses 400 DPI
Color Choice: Black and White
Compression: Group 4 TIFF (20:1) compression

Example 1 at 200DPI 

1. We calculate the number of electronic bits based on the number of dots that will be scanned.  A dot is equivalent to an electronic bit.
   (8.5 x 200) x (11 x 200) = 3740000 bits stored. 
2. There are 8 Bits in a Byte.
   3740000 / 8 = 467500 Bytes
3. There are 1024 Bytes in a Kilobyte.
   467500 / 1024 = 456.54 KB
4. This is stored as a group 4 TIFF which has 20:1 compression
    456.54 / 20 = 22.87KB

Example 2 at 400DPI 

1. We calculate the number of electronic Bits based on the number of dots that will be scanned.  A dot is equivalent to an electronic Bit.
   (8.5 x 400) x (11 x 400) = 14960000 Bits stored. 
2. There are 8 Bits in a Byte
   14960000 / 8 = 1870000 Bytes
3. There are 1024 Bytes in a Kilobyte
   1870000 / 1024 = 1826.17KB
4. This is stored as a group 4 TIFF which has 20:1 compression
   1826.17 / 20 = 91.3KB

No note, no foreclosure: The records management issue in mortgage lending

// December 21st, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Document Management, Financial Services, Lending // Tom Tennant

It’s a delay tactic that might make George Bailey proud.

Rather than walk away, homeowners facing foreclosure are asking banks to show proof they owe what the bank claims. Some lenders are failing to do so, turning a follow-the-dotted-line process into both a drawn-out court battle and a tangled, twisted paperwork nightmare.

The revelation comes via a recent USAToday article titled “Homeowners use ‘show me the note’ to fight foreclosure.” Struggling borrowers argue lenders’ alleged devil-may-care attitude during the wild days of subprime lending created a document gap that’s muddying proper mortgage ownership.

Read the article and you’ll see courts are listening to homeowners who claim shoddy document management by their mortgage lender. For lenders, that means no note, no foreclosure. Or at the very least, time to rethink that denied loan modification.

But let’s nevermind the foreclosure issue for a moment. Nevermind because it’s Christmas and no one wants to see a family lose their home. Least of all, lenders. (It’s true. I have seen broken-hearted mortgage lenders do whatever they could to keep families in their homes).

Instead, let’s look at the records management issue.

At its core, this is all about customer service – big-time customer service. Smart financial services companies understand that trust is their primary commodity. All that other stuff – free checking, online banking, retirement planning, wealth management – that’s all secondary.

If a bank wants to capture the most share of wallet possible, nurturing customers throughout their financial lifecycle, from the moment they open their first checking account through retirement and generations beyond, it has to establish a trusting relationship with the customer.

How do you do that if – whoops, sorry ­– we can’t locate your loan application, you’ll have to do it again and, geez, I hope you weren’t on any kind of deadline. Or, more realistically, you can’t quickly and securely access information for a customer whose time is limited – and patience even more so. For kicks, make that customer a $10 million commercial client.

See? Scary.

The right document and records management solution can effectively manage all documents associated with mortgage, installment or commercial loan. It can capably administer retention and destruction protocols, helping out with that old friend compliance. And information can be accessed any time, almost anywhere. Maybe even in court.

More importantly, the right enterprise content management solution can help customers like those referred to in the USAToday article by allowing lenders to see a worldview of the customer’s financial situation – and offering solutions like the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP).

Homeowners can apply for HAMP through their mortgage servicer. The lender collects documents (like paychecks, tax returns and so forth) and submits them through its paperless workflow process. This system can expedite the approval process by instantly routing electronic documents to the right decision maker at the right time, regardless of where they are geographically. No fax machines, interoffice mail, or overnight packages.

In the end, peace of mind for the homeowner, efficient record keeping and workflow for the lender – and trust between them both.

Is it me, or did an angel just gets its wings?

Best in KLAS rankings are out: Three trends in healthcare ECM software

// December 16th, 2010 // No Comments » // Document Management, Enterprise content management, Healthcare // Ken Burns

Every year at this time, KLAS, a healthcare IT analyst firm, releases vendor rankings within several technology categories, including what they call “Document Management and Imaging.” The rankings are based on vendor-specific customer feedback.

But every year, when I open it and look at the data points, I wonder “vendor ratings are great, but what does this really mean for the state of healthcare ECM today?” So if you’ll indulge me, here are the three things that that I think stand out in this report:

1. It’s not document management and imaging anymore – it’s enterprise content management (ECM).

This has always been a peeve of mine. While the report calls it “Document Managing and Imaging,” KLAS knows well that, today, ECM isn’t just scan, store and retrieve – it’s routing patient charts, integrating with an electronic medical record (EMR), etc. And, because ECM should be ubiquitous throughout the organization (for example, not just in the back office), it is therefore a long term, strategic investment.

The market verified this in the report. One of the ratings was if the technology was a “part of long term plans.” The leaders in the report had very high marks here, including Hyland’s ranking where 100 percent said it was a part of long term plans (disclosure: I work for Hyland).

2. What’s increasingly becoming the most common point of entry for ECM in healthcare? Integrating with the EMR.

In other industries, most of the paper and process pains are felt in accounts payable and human resources, so these areas often drive ECM strategies. But the customer comments in the report made it clear that, in healthcare, the priorities are elsewhere: the clinical side.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this priority is because of the national push to digitize patient information. Because of this initiative, healthcare organizations are looking at how they manage their clinical content now more than ever. If this doesn’t get them to realize that they need ECM, it’s the actual implementation of an EMR that makes it blatantly obvious.

Many of the customers pointed this out, stating that ECM solutions are most valuable when they integrate well with an EMR.

Another interesting point: They made it clear that an EMR wasn’t enough to manage patient information – they need ECM, too. Without it, content gets stuck in silos – an EMR system here, an HIS system there – making it impossible to access information at the moment it’s needed within the continuum of care.

3. ECM vendors need to be truly enterprise – not just departmental in clinical or administrative areas.

Okay, so this one wasn’t called out in the data points. But it was mentioned often in the comments, making me think it needs to be addressed in the report.

I think the KLAS approach of generating a report solely on customer feedback is really valuable. But what would make the information even more valuable is to see exactly in which departments the customers are actually using their rated ECM products.

See, the problem is that while the report asks customers “Is this product meeting your needs?,” it doesn’t ask what those needs are. Is a solution only being used in accounts payable with the understanding that it can’t go any further? Is it a bolt on piece to an EMR that can then only be used in conjunction with that EMR? Because, if the answers to those questions is “yes,” I’m going to suggest that the report is evaluating the value of ECM all wrong.

To my point in #1, the value of ECM comes when it’s ubiquitous, meaning it can unify an entire organization through document management and process management. This means that the same ECM used to manage patient records should be the same ECM that manages the hiring process.

In other words, how can ECM really be enterprise and provide the most value if it’s just a one-off departmental implementation with no hope to go beyond that?

Again, these are just my observations. But to me, it’s clear that the healthcare industry is crying out for ECM that really lives up to its name – especially when it comes to the “enterprise” part.

KLAS agrees – in fact, they already covered this topic in greater detail, including how ECM solutions are used by department and which are most effective across the enterprise. The report came out in October 2009, and is called “Enterprise DMI: Finding the Right Stepping-Stone to Full EMR.” I encourage you to check out this and other third-party sources on ECM to really get the full picture of an ECM solution’s value in healthcare.

Transactional content management: The rising star in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for ECM, 2010

// November 19th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Document Management, Enterprise content management // Ken Burns

NOTE: Below is my personal view of the report. While my interpretation of the findings is well-informed by frequent dialogue with Gartner ECM analysts, the only people entitled to offer a definitive opinion about vendor placement are the authors of the report. My opinion is not a substitute for speaking to the analysts directly using the inquiry time available to paid subscribers of Gartner’s advisory services.

According to the Gartner Magic Quadrant for ECM, 2010, the ECM market can be divided into four subsets.

1. Transactional content management (TCM) (a system of record for managing process-related documents)
2. Social content management (team collaboration extended by social media tools)
3. Online channel optimization (WCM, digital asset management and social media tools serving as systems of engagement)
4. ECM as infrastructure (domain of IBM, Oracle and Microsoft)

While the MQ graphic continues to represent an aggregate view of the ECM market, vendor placement is now better aligned (not perfectly mind you!) with each vendor’s strengths in one or more sub-segments of the ECM market.

And Hyland? Hyland’s newfound Leader status reflects its longstanding track record in the TCM arena. Pure and simple.

It’s important to note that TCM is not just paper scanning as some would suggest. Solutions in this segment of the market serve as systems of record for content files, specifically when used in the context of transaction and case-driven business processes. Far from being static repositories for scanned images, leading software suites in this space provide sophisticated process automation and case-based applications.

In fact, I would argue that TCM is as much a subset of the business process management (BPM) market as it is a subset of ECM. 

TCM is the most mature segment of ECM. And, it’s the one that demands the deepest functionality and domain expertise for horizontal (e.g. accounts payable invoice automation) and industry-specific processes (e.g. patient chart deficiency management, insurance claims processing, agenda and minutes management). 

That level of depth requires focus, commitment and the ability to demonstrate value relevant to specific audiences. Being a Leader does not make us all things to all people. It recognizes what we do well today and what we’re positioning ourselves to be capable of in the future.

A new kind of “Leader?”: Gartner Magic Quadrant for ECM, 2010

// November 19th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Document Management, Enterprise content management // Ken Burns

NOTE: Below is my personal view of the report. While my interpretation of the findings is well-informed by frequent dialogue with Gartner ECM analysts, the only people entitled to offer a definitive opinion about vendor placement are the authors of the report. My opinion is not a substitute for speaking to the analysts directly using the inquiry time available to paid subscribers to Gartner’s advisory services.

The Gartner Magic Quadrant (MQ) for Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is, at once, the most influential, misunderstood and misrepresented assessment of the ECM marketplace. I know this well because, for the past six years, I’ve had the pleasure of being Hyland’s principle point person for articulating our position in the MQ and other analyst reports to customers, prospects and partners.

To a large degree I owe my role to the sales departments of “BIG ECM:” IBM, EMC, Oracle and Open Text. You see, these vendors are tenured members of the MQ Leader quartile. Hyland Software, on the other hand, retained an exclusive position in the Challenger quadrant for five, consecutive years from 2005 through 2009.

During that time, the members of BIG ECM always made certain to “encourage” prospects to ask Hyland to explain why we weren’t a Leader. With a lot of practice we became pretty darn good at helping buyers understand the nuances and layers of the ECM market, particularly in terms of how it’s framed in the MQ.

Yesterday, Gartner published the 2010 edition of the MQ for ECM. I now find myself in unfamiliar territory. After all these years of defending Hyland Software’s position outside the Leader quartile, this year…WE’RE IN IT!

Soooo, y’know all that…stuff I used to say about not limiting your evaluation of ECM vendors to just those in the Leader quadrant? W-e-e-ll, you just go on and forget all that nonsense.

I’m kidding, of course. This year’s MQ signifies a critical change in the way the ECM market is viewed, both by the analysts and the market. But why?

As I’ve said in my AIIM Roadshow presentations: When it comes to ECM, there is no best. There is only best fits – based on the needs of the organization. This is clearly demonstrated (well, to me at least) in this year’s MQ for ECM.

From 2005 to 2009, Gartner has stipulated that for a vendor to be a Leader in the MQ, it had to offer an integrated suite or collection of products featuring the following six, core ECM component applications:

• Electronic Document Management
• Document Imaging
• Workflow
• Records Management
• Team Collaboration
• Web Content Management

But in this year’s MQ, something clearly changed. Take, for example, Microsoft. It’s positioned in the MQ as the clear and dominant leader. But, Microsoft is there primarily because of the broad adoption of SharePoint as a collaboration platform for an organization’s ECM strategy. It’s also there because of the number of Microsoft ISV partners looking leverage SharePoint as the development platform upon which to develop their own applications.

But perhaps the more glaring example is Hyland.

Since the beginning, Hyland strategically decided not to pursue two of Gartner’s requirements to be a Leader: team collaboration and WCM.

Instead, it stayed focused on this: integrated document imaging, management and workflow capabilities that meet the needs of targeted vertical industries. By forgoing a product strategy that was broad in scope, Hyland was able to concentrate resources on developing breadth and depth of capabilities, as well as industry domain knowledge, to effectively solve a specific set of business problems.

In retrospect, this was probably not a bad decision, given SharePoint’s dominance as a collaboration platform, and its continued expansion into the WCM space. However, doing so meant OnBase did not conform to the MQ’s definition of a complete ECM suite and was a major reason why Hyland was repeatedly excluded from the Leader’s quartile.

So what changed in 2010? Microsoft’s vision didn’t change. Hyland’s vision didn’t change. The market and its evaluation changed.

We may finally be seeing the end of measuring ECM products against an idealized notion of a comprehensive ECM software suite spanning six core technologies. Gartner is wisely moving quickly towards segmenting and aligning vendor product capabilities according to the business problems those products are optimized to solve.