Hyland Software's Document Management Blog

What to Do on November 7th – Driving Efficiency in Government

// October 5th, 2012 // No Comments » // Affordable Housing, Document Management, Enterprise content management, Finance & Administration, Government, Health & Human Services, IT, Justice & Public Safety, Mobile, Public Works, Software as a Service, State and Local Government, Uncategorized, Workflow // Terri Jones

During an election year, the phrase “improve government efficiency” is heard and promised, usually with little detail provided. That’s because until you work in an agency, it’s hard to really understand what efficiency is, let alone how it would improve your working environment. At the same time, there is wide acceptance that technology is essential for government transformation. However, at times there is little guidance regarding how technology can drive your government organization toward that misty and often elusive goal of “efficient government.”

As an IT director, what happens when you wake up on November 7^th to face new directors, commissioners, mayors or governors who were elected on a platform of improving government efficiency? When you’re asked to contribute to briefings for newly elected officials and you sense the opportunity to improve your organization and provide some direction, how do you explain efficiency in government?

Here are three ideas to keep in mind:

1. Time to retrieve – Addressing the time it takes to retrieve critical documents and the information they contain is one of the strongest and most basic ways to improve government processes. Consider how long it takes your staff to find the information needed to move the day-to-day tasks forward. How much time is spent searching for documents instead of focusing on more important tasks?
2. Time to process – One of the reasons improving efficiency is common during election years is because of the time it takes to complete government processes. However, current revenue struggles in government have led to even fewer staff members available to complete processes like human service eligibility, plan reviews and public records requests. Typically, it’s the speed – or lack of it – of government processes that lead to candidates running on an “improve government efficiency” ticket. As a result, targeting ways to speed up these processes despite staff cutbacks will be a winning strategy for efficiency-minded officials while also relieving the pressure on your overworked colleagues.
3. Time to take action – Decisions regarding courses of action define government. How can technology make sure these important decision points aren’t lost in the pile of work? When speaking with newly elected officials, it’s important to consider how long it takes your organization to address problems, issues and requests. Despite backlogs, government must address emergencies – such as child welfare and traffic accidents – in a timely manner.

Now, let’s say these ideas really resonate with your incoming elected officials. Next, you’ll be asked to propose ways to drive efficiency using technology. Consider the value an enterprise content management (ECM) solution offers. Typically, government has a split between data in department solutions and the documents that drive and record actions. Government must utilize ECM to contain costs and position itself to be the mobile, transparent and engaged force that constituents demand.

Here are two ways ECM can improve government processes:

1. Integration – An ECM solution connects all of your data systems and the documents that drive government. When you integrate systems, staff instantly access information, reducing the time spent retrieving information from days and hours to seconds. And, with codeless integration tools, government can implement it affordably across all departments as time and budget permit.
2. Automation – With ECM, government can use workflow automation to route critical work, notify staff of important tasks and digitize paper moving through agencies. Not only does this reduce the time needed to complete these processes, it also allows overwhelmed staff to focus on more important tasks like improving constituent services.

So, this election year, when you are asked to drive efficiency, think about how ECM can make government more efficient while also helping newly elected officials propose and support the technology investments government needs today and in the future.

Why the Latest and Greatest is Important – Software, Maintenance and Enhancements

// September 14th, 2012 // No Comments » // Affordable Housing, Cloud Computing, Document Management, Enterprise content management, Federal Government, Finance & Administration, Government, Health & Human Services, IT, Justice & Public Safety, Mobile, Public Works, Software as a Service, State and Local Government // Terri Jones

Next week, I’ll be attending the OnBase Training & Technology Conference (OTTC). During my time in government, I went to many users’ conferences, mostly out of self-defense. I viewed these events as a chance to lobby for the enhancements and improvements I needed for my department. Unfortunately, the process for discussing these needs was often missing or contentious.

When I reflect on these experiences, I realize it’s essential for government to have an avenue for asking software vendors about their processes for product development, enhancements and bug fixes before investing in an IT solution.

Knowing what I know now, here’s what I would ask vendors:

1.       Do you have a users’ conference?

Users’ conferences are essential in order for you to develop an understanding about how much support you’ll receive once the sale is close. At OTTC, for example, users meet with colleagues to discuss trends and best practices. They can also participate in more than 200 sessions focusing on solutions and industry trends.

To ensure your vendor supports your solution after sale, ask these questions:

• If there’s no user conference, how can I network and discuss issues of common concern with other agencies?
• If there is a user conference, does it offer product and technical sessions for new features and functionalities?
• Is there a virtual community for agencies that can’t travel so users can still network?

2.       What is the process for collecting customer-driven enhancements and how do you evaluate them for inclusion?

Enhancements are essential for government solutions, especially for those who have to respond to changing regulatory environments and own solutions connected to state or federal funders. You also need to discuss enhancements that are not regulatory in function to determine if they’re ranked for priority within the user community.

3.       How often do you provide new versions of the solution? Is it included in maintenance?

Asking about the release schedule and the frequency of new versions is important for your future IT budget. Too often, you pay maintenance for technical support and still have to pay for solution upgrades – or both. This could potentially have severe budget implications for government agencies that may be faced with the choice of keeping their solution and cutting other funding, using an outdated system or eliminating the solution entirely. By reviewing the frequency of updates, along with the provider’s research and development investments, you’ll be able to evaluate whether the solution can service your agency today and in the future.

4.       Do you have examples of government trends you’ve responded to in past solution releases?

Even though agencies don’t frequently make large purchases, that doesn’t mean they don’t need cutting-edge tools. Today, agencies are looking for process automation, easy integration of IT systems, mobile solutions, self-service features and web options as well as flexible licensing and cloud, or hosted deployments. Asking vendors this question will help you evaluate whether they can be a partner that helps you spot useful trends and tools or provide expansion options for your investment.

Overall, the latest and greatest IT solutions solve your needs now and in the future. By asking vendors these questions, you’ll learn how they think about their solution and how they’ll respond to your future needs. That, in turn, will help you make the wisest IT choice – one that will serve your agency beyond your current needs.

Capture Isn’t Just a Scanner – Four Capture Strategies for Government

// September 11th, 2012 // No Comments » // Affordable Housing, Document Management, Enterprise content management, Federal Government, Finance & Administration, Government, Health & Human Services, IT, Justice & Public Safety, Mobile, Public Works, State and Local Government, Uncategorized, Workflow // Terri Jones

When I designed my government agency’s document management solution, I gave little thought to my capture strategy. I was busy trying to design workflows, add document types and create eForms. I bought two large scanners to electronically capture documents and that was that.

Now, several years later, government agencies are re-thinking how they capture documents. Technology offers more options and staff reductions have made it critical to eliminate any manual tasks during the capture process. Moreover, several initiatives – such as transparency, mobile document access and self-service – require government to continually expand the type of documents digitized. The capture of documents, once less complicated, is now at the forefront and a critical element of enterprise content management (ECM).

In order for government to respond to new trends and realities, here are four ways to think about capture:

1.       Align your capture strategy with the way staff works – With so many capture options – electronic forms, machine print forms, paperless processes, etc. – the capture strategy will look different depending on the tasks and the particular way staff need to do their job. Choosing tools that fit in seamlessly with existing technology will be easier for staff to learn and can be leveraged in other departments across your enterprise.

2.       Plan for high volume, but don’t forget low volume – In my agency, the scanner was the single point of capture and it was meant to do thousands of pages a day. But what about the daily trickle of information that most staff handles that also needs to be captured in your ECM system? Be mindful of information like vendor invoices and human services eligibility documents that get captured by staff in places convenient to them.

3.       Carefully consider the intake location – When your agency has many locations, efficiently capturing documents adds another wrinkle to your strategy. If documents are received in many places and reviewed/used in other areas, capturing the information as soon as possible is critical. By doing so, you’ll ensure the documents are available to everyone who needs them. Immediately capturing documents also saves time and money that may have been used to ship documents to a central location for filing or scanning.

4.       Other initiatives may drive your capture – Oftentimes, government utilizes ECM for other initiatives, such as meeting public records requests, providing documents online for constituent self-service and field access for employees. By expanding the reach of your document management solution with capture abilities, you can position your agency to move forward on these efforts – all while driving down costs associated with manual filing and paper storage.

Whether you just implemented an ECM solution or have been using one for some time, capturing documents requires more than simply buying a scanner. Considering the points above will lead to a successful flow of tasks that your agency can easily adopt and, with more and more documents being captured, increase efficiencies and support the critical initiatives of a more effective and transparent government.

Faster, Cheaper, Better Government, Part 3 – Top County Trends to Watch

// August 23rd, 2012 // No Comments » // Affordable Housing, Finance & Administration, Government, Health & Human Services, IT, Justice & Public Safety, Mobile, Public Works, State and Local Government, Uncategorized, Workflow // Terri Jones

I just attended an illuminating technology summit hosted by the National Association of Counties (NACo). The group began offering these summits to help elected officials learn about technology showcasing proven examples of how it helps counties better serve their constituents while weathering difficult financial times.

As I listened to the day-long panels, two themes stuck out in my mind – first, the interest in county government moving to paperless processes and second, the broader theme of consolidation that implies simplifying your IT structure. As I listened to these presentations, I was struck by three things that became huge contributors to their “faster, cheaper, better government” efforts:

1.     The role of technology in eliminating low-value tasks
Officials from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, and Leon County, Florida, discussed using enterprise content management (ECM) to eliminate the burdens paper-based processes placed on their staff and constituents. With an investment in ECM, these counties:

• Reclaimed employee time spent filing, printing and photocopying documents
• No longer lose documents
• Instantly retrieve needed information
• Eliminate costs associated with paper documents by electronically routing them

2.     Eliminating redundant and under-used applications (and associated maintenance payments)
County officials also discussed the need to review, assess and eliminate some of the many solutions they purchased over the years. In large counties, supporting and upgrading these applications is complex. Many discovered solutions that were abandoned but still a part of the maintenance burden on IT staff.

To solve this problem, IT staff members developed maps of all their solutions and ranked them by age and usage – a tool that helped them focus on applications that should be eliminated or replaced. Doing so supports the overall effort of counties to consolidate and standardize their IT investments. Many are seeing tremendous time and cost reductions as a result. In fact, San Diego County reported a 25 percent reduction in IT unnecessary applications and saved millions.

3.     Speeding up government with technology
All of the above contribute to this category because less paper results in faster processes in areas like accounts payable and property tax work. By reducing the number of IT solutions your county supports, you’ll be able to deploy needed projects faster – like self-service websites, mobility for field staff and transparency initiatives. The potential for faster IT deployment is one way counties benefit from popular trends like mobile solutions and web-based applications.

As you consider how to create “faster, cheaper, better government,” counties are already leading the way. The foundation for this progress is managing the documents that drive government and revisiting your IT portfolio. So, if you’re looking for a place to begin, start with your core – the documents and your IT infrastructure. If you do, you’ll meet the save budget while repositioning your IT investments to support a simpler, leaner and more nimble outlook.

Faster, Cheaper, Better Government – Part 2: Start with the Basics, 5 Ways to Be Faster

// July 30th, 2012 // No Comments » // Affordable Housing, Back Office, Document Management, Federal Government, Finance & Administration, Government, Health & Human Services, IT, Justice & Public Safety, Mobile, Public Works, State and Local Government, Uncategorized, Workflow // Terri Jones

In Part 1 of this series, I discussed my experiences at the Cityworks conference in the context of the historical and continuous reductions in the number of public sector jobs. Despite these staggering job losses, I believe government leadership can transform this bad moment into a watershed for creating the “faster, cheaper, better government” model.

The topic is both important and broad, so let’s start at the beginning with some examples of “faster” government, including:

Providing quicker responses – Government operates faster when information is easy to retrieve. However, when needed information resides in separate databases or filing cabinets, it takes longer to find answers. Since most government information is split between departments and locations, connecting people with information is essential for faster retrieval.

Reducing backlogs – The unfortunate result of a reduced workforce is that less work is done in a day. The good news is that organizations can cope by changing the way they operate – eliminating tasks like printing, copying and filing. By eliminating manual tasks, staff has more time to provide better, faster service to constituents.

Making faster decisions – Increased and backlogged workloads results in slower decision making. Constituents become very unhappy when delayed decisioning slows down critical progress for things like providing shelter for the homeless, emergency assistance during a crisis and the development of businesses that can help the community’s local economy. You can relieve backlogs and improve the reputation of your government by using technology to track and act quickly on these services.

Here are five ways to get your government operating faster:

1. Easy information access – By connecting documents and data with codeless integration, you put all needed information at your staffs’ fingertips.
2. Focus on exceptions – One way to operate with a reduced staff is to use technology like workflow automation.  Because workflow automates repetitive processes, staff has more time to focus on the human side of work. Not only will it shine a light on the places staff should focus their time, it also highlights problems and bottlenecks in your processes.
3. Eliminate tasks – By implementing technology that automates processes, your staff doesn’t spend time printing, copying and filing paper. They now have to time to focus on more important initiatives and deliver faster responses to constituents.
4. Reduce the number of solutions you support – One way to accelerate the use of technology is to reduce the complexity of your systems. You can accomplish this by implementing solutions that are easier and cheaper to support, and buying enterprise solutions that can be used in other departments and for different processes. By reducing the number of solutions, you also reduce the amount of IT support needed to administer your solutions. It’s like having extra staff that is free to develop additional solutions and realize more benefits, faster.
5. Provide self-service – Let your constituents help themselves! This isn’t bad customer service – it’s government using technology the way constituents want to be served, with 24/7 access to information. Since constituents can help themselves, your staff can address other tasks.

Faster government is critical for surviving the current crisis and meeting the expectations of the next generation of constituents. Technology will get you there by realigning the way your staff uses their time. And when that happens, government will not only be faster, but cheaper and better.

Faster, Cheaper, Better Government – Part 1: Lessons from Cityworks®

// July 12th, 2012 // No Comments » // Affordable Housing, Document Management, Enterprise content management, Finance & Administration, Government, Health & Human Services, IT, Justice & Public Safety, Mobile, Public Works, State and Local Government, Uncategorized // Terri Jones

Sometimes, the scariest moments create an environment for lasting, positive change. And, when the imperative to change is linked to exploding technological options, it can be truly revolutionary. Take the position government finds itself in right now. The public sector lost more than 700,000 jobs since its peak in 2009. The latest economic forecasts suggest that job cuts, especially those in local government, will pick up again in the fall. The dilemma is that while we cut staff, the workload never decreases. And, with budget pressures comes an unprecedented increase in the expectations for constituent service and government transparency.

Although my mantra is “faster, cheaper, better government,” it can seem unattainable in the midst of current economic struggles. However, everything I’m hearing is hopeful because technology makes government workers more productive than ever, producing – what I believe – will be the single greatest period of public sector productivity gain in a long time.

At last week’s Cityworks conference, a number of attendees explained how they are moving forward with technology because they had to. This was a particularly interesting group of attendees because one of the lesser noticed aspects of the real estate boom was the need to expand local infrastructure to service new subdivisions, shopping malls, schools, etc., that sprang up. Since then, there’s been a sharp decline in those activities, their sources of funding are lower, but they are conversely tasked with more community assets to support and preserve.

Their answer? More technology. During the conference, I saw a number of smartphone applications that allowed field staff to access information – making them more productive because of the combination of smartphone familiarity, impressive hardware and affordability. By making information accessible in the field, staff accomplish more without making trips back to the office. They now can cluster tasks geographically to maximize time and reduce gas usage.

In their minds, this results in faster and cheaper government. And, coupled with the latest versions of Cityworks that handle permitting, licensing, asset management and work orders, they use technology more than ever, despite their core work also needing tools, shovels and heavy machinery. When you see a smartphone on a bucket loader you know things are changing.

So, two-thirds of my mantra was covered, but what about the “better government” part? That was the part they were most proud of – the ability to quickly respond to problems using smartphone apps. In this time of constant cutbacks, technology and easy access to information in the field gives government the chance to provide better service to their constituents.

While it may seem counter-intuitive to spend more on technology at this time, the options for faster, cheaper and better government are made possible by things like smartphones, solutions like Cityworks and systems for document management.

In Part 2 of this blog series, we’ll look at “faster, cheaper, better” in some key government processes and how to get it done.

The Hope is in the Process: Collaborate to Speed Up Government

// June 11th, 2012 // No Comments » // Affordable Housing, Document Management, Enterprise content management, Finance & Administration, Government, Health & Human Services, IT, Justice & Public Safety, Mobile, Public Works, Software as a Service, State and Local Government, Workflow // Terri Jones

As government reels from shrinking revenues, you have to question what’s sustaining public sector employees. They’ve seen layoffs, bad economic times and program cutbacks while their workloads stay the same. That’s bad enough but then there are also calls for transparency, demands for services to be delivered in person and over the web, and slow processes that wind up frustrating constituents. For state and local governments, the fight to survive combined with the need for change is a difficult mountain to climb.

While governments try to manage the elements fundamental to its services, like forms, documents and processes, one thing that usually doesn’t make the list is collaboration, especially in larger government entities. It’s a shame because governments must transform documents and the processes that move them to survive the current economic crisis. If we can accomplish this transformation, our government organizations have a better chance of surviving the economic downturn and downsizing.

This is why technology that supports better collaboration is so attractive these days. The power of real-time data, instant information access and central repositories for documents, comments and mark-ups is made possible with recent improvements in enterprise content management (ECM) solutions.

To illustrate this idea, let’s look at two classic government processes that are highly important for communities and influence constituent engagement and satisfaction – the agenda process and planning review.

Citizens may not understand the behind-the-scenes work involved in creating the agendas they see posted outside of council meetings and online. First, submitters from departments throughout an organization send reams of paper to a clerk who must collate, paginate and create meeting packets that must be posted by legally-bound deadlines. During the meeting, the clerk keeps track of motions, attendance and votes and uses the information to create minutes.

Unfortunately, this process is not linear. Revisions and re-submissions take place that slow down the process because paper documents must be circulated for review, revision and approval. With reduced staff, tight deadlines and the requirement of legislative approval to move forward, the pressure to get everything on the agenda in time for posting is intense.

Plan reviews are just as intense and come with their own implications and potential for disaster.  Whether a typical project or a new building, the related plans require multiple reviews by different staff members who review using varied criteria. Somehow, by the end of the review, all comments, changes and required revisions must be re-assembled into a response for the constituent who made the submission.

Typically the process is riddled with challenges stemming from re-submission and missing information that comes from working with different versions of documents. Oftentimes missing information has major legal consequences. A project that doesn’t meet code, for example, may have structural or other issues affecting usability, functionality and safety.

ECM streamlines these processes because it focuses on the concept of a central repository – like a secure digital filing cabinet – that serves as the common meeting place for users and their documents. When you add workflow automation and collaboration tools to this common meeting place your organizational processes speed up.

With dashboard views, easy retrieval of all needed documents and the ability to see your colleagues’ comments and revisions in real time. No more running back and forth to coworkers’ desks in order to collaborate with them on projects. Thanks to workflow, the process is transparent – you can monitor where plan submissions and agenda items are in the process.

An ECM system also records and tracks changes ensuring you’re working with the most current version. That eliminates the possibility of approving wrong versions. Because all versions, comments and markups are visible, you ensure staff has the tools necessary to work more effectively together.

Collaboration – leveraging each other’s expertise and experience – is essential to surviving staff reductions. With an ECM solution, real-time collaboration speeds up government process while increasing transparency and eliminating the likelihood of errors. The hope for better government relies on the processes where technology creates new ways for staff to work together. When government collaborates, it runs smarter and faster.

Finding the Nimble in Government IT

// May 24th, 2012 // No Comments » // Affordable Housing, Cloud Computing, Document Management, Enterprise content management, Finance & Administration, Government, Health & Human Services, IT, Justice & Public Safety, Mobile, Public Works, Software as a Service, State and Local Government, Uncategorized, Workflow // Terri Jones

Last week, I attended the National Association of State CIOs midyear conference. While there were comments about budgets, broadband and mobility initiatives, the conversation took an unexpected turn – people were discussing the speed of new technology deployment.

Given that this is an election year, the challenges associated with new technology investments – from the glimmer of a great idea to going live – has special urgency. Elections mean changes to staff and, more importantly, priorities. The effect of periodic election cycles is often a source for discussion, and CIOs are affected more than other government staff.

Long development and deployment cycles are common with government technology projects, and it seems to be the case now as state agencies prepare for healthcare reform and to replace legacy systems. The problem is there’s often a mismatch between the urgent need for better systems and the length of time needed to design, test and deploy those systems. In the meantime, government suffers as it tries to do the same work with less staff and aging systems.

Government has to be nimble in order to implement key technologies, keep ahead of changing political initiatives and support government work. Consider these principles as you select, design and implement government solutions:

Simplify, standardize, optimize and centralize – Whatever word you use, it’s a call to simplify your organization’s IT architecture, reducing the number of systems to support so you speed up deployment and continue building your expertise on smaller, more manageable applications. Start by reusing and building upon existing systems used by other departments to speed up discovery. This also means looking for solutions with horizontal potential – solutions whose core services many departments. Sharing solutions means building upon the collective development of your organization. In this case, simple means affordable.

Avoid custom-code solutions – Custom coding is the single greatest cost factor and must be carefully explored in current budget conditions, especially given the long usage of systems.

When selecting a solution, ask vendors the hard questions about their software, like:

• How many hours of service are needed?
• What configuration tools are used – especially for workflow automation?
• How long will it take to respond to ever-changing mandates the system must support?

Make sure you also talk with peers and check references beyond those provided by vendors.

Go mobile – Mobile solutions are key to engaging faster with your constituents AND providing better, faster service to them. Your solution must be able to easily support field staff without difficulty and multiple moving parts. As we replace the current generation of solutions, we need to take advantage of mobile capabilities to improve government service.

Cloud – Cloud solutions offer web-based delivery of computing and storage, and may be the answer for ECM challenges that need immediate solutions. This is because the software provider deploys, manages and maintains the solution while you focus on more important initiatives.

Things to ask vendors when considering a cloud-based solution include:

• Is there an available hosted option?
• Is it proven?
• How many deployments have been done?
• What security features are offered?
• Who owns the data?
• If you chose a premise-based solution, what’s the ease of migration?

Government isn’t known for nimble IT, which is understandable given the disparate legacy systems they run. Fortunately, our collective technical know-how is vastly better than it used to be – better code, applications, mobile ability and hardware. So, there is no reason government can’t move faster on IT deployment while surviving political cycles and changing regulatory environments. These ideas are just part of finding the nimble in government IT and making it successful.