Hyland Software's Document Management Blog

Keeping Your Credit Union Ahead of the Tech Curve

// March 23rd, 2012 // No Comments » // Cloud Computing, Document Management, Enterprise content management, Financial Services, IT // Michelle Shapiro

“One of the biggest barriers credit unions face in improving internal efficiency and member service is integrating different technologies into a seamless experience,” says Credit Union Magazine.

That’s important, because credit union members are quickly embracing all the latest high-tech gadgets and enjoying the speed and freedom they offer. Chances are they’re wondering why they can’t use all those wonderful tools to do business with you.

That’s why you need to figure out an integration strategy. Now. Because if you don’t have a centrally located and secure place to store, manage and route all your current information, regardless of file type, pushing it out via high-tech gadgets is meaningless. You need to go beyond your core banking solution, because you don’t just handle banking documents.

There are two key ways to ensure you successfully integrate your technologies. One, it needs to be easy. And two, it needs to be non-interruptive, so your employees continue to focus on providing superior member service while you improve your internal systems by decreasing your dependency on paper and manual processes.

To make that solution easy, focus on an integration strategy that can be handled without custom coding. That way, as your credit union grows and evolves, your technologies can, too – without paying solution providers tens of thousands of dollars to write custom code for you every time you want to make a change.

Being non-interruptive will come naturally if the solution is easy to implement. That’s why you should do your homework when researching vendors. Remember, too, that it’s all about tying your systems together so they communicate, giving your employees access to member information at their fingertips, without leaving the applications they’re familiar with.

What does a successful integration look like? It looks like one that most employees don’t even realize is there. All they care about is that they can get the information they’re looking for quickly – without putting a member on hold while they search for it in an unfamiliar system.

Not giving your members – and the millions of people now looking into credit unions for the first time – the options they’re looking for means they’ll look elsewhere. And they’re looking. According to Callahan & Associates, the credit union industry added a record 1.8 million new checking accounts in 2011 and 440,000 new members in the fourth quarter of 2011 alone.

So don’t wait. Now is the time to increase your member service by offering the latest tools. And the first step is integrating your technologies, so real-time information is flowing through them.

The Future of ECM: History with a Modern Twist

// March 14th, 2012 // 1 Comment » // Back Office, Document Management, Enterprise content management, IT // Lindsay McCune

Sure, social, mobility and user experience are the hot topics at Gartner Portals, Content and Collaboration (PCC). But on day one of PCC, Gartner’s ECM analysts were not shy about reminding attendees that strategy is key.

After all, you can learn about portals, cloud, content, social and video, but if you don’t have a strategy and corresponding goals in place … Well, have fun navigating the world of buzzwords.

After four meetings with Gartner enterprise content management (ECM) analysts and attending three sessions on the Content and Information Management track Monday, it was apparent that PCC is that world of buzzwords. I can imagine a lot of attendees felt lost and overwhelmed. Not sure where we’re going? Join the crowd.

But, fear not! It’s not all unchartered territory, says esteemed analyst Ken Chin, but rather history with a modern twist. That’s the overall theme he shared during his presentation, “The Future of ECM.”

Refresh Your Strategy to Stay Competitive
According to Chin, the volume of created content is increasing by 50 percent year-over-year, and 80 percent of that content is unstructured (word processing documents, PDF files, e-mail messages, blogs and web pages) and 90 percent of that is unmanaged (Well, hello, compliance and imaging problem!). How are you going to manage all of that new content in your organization? What is the cost of doing nothing?

Imaging and capture technology has been around for more than a score, and you may even have a strategy built around that technology. But according to Chin’s presentation, the initiatives in organizations continue to strengthen and are being driven by not only the addition of all of that content, but also new compliance and regulations.

The takeaway: Refresh that imaging and capture strategy to stay competitive!

Beat the Competition by Understanding Your Needs
While all of that newly created content is daunting, consider this: combining the content you are capturing and storing in your ECM solution, you can use the workflow capabilities inherent in your ECM software to maximize value. Chin alluded to optimizing investments by understanding your organization’s needs and the level of desired ECM maturity that will be achieved.

The future of ECM consists of new delivery models, mobility, hybrid models, and so forth. While it may seem perplexing and messy, there is certainly opportunity for your organization to thrive, get organized and be more competitive. If your content is not captured and stored, it will be difficult to take advantage of new trends. But, when history repeats itself again, you will be prepared and ready to take on the new, cutting edge developments that will set your organization ahead of the competition.

What ECM initiatives are being refreshed in your organization? What does the future of ECM strategy look like for you? Stay tuned for more from Gartner PCC and be a part of the conversation on Twitter at #GartnerPCC.

Manual Labor and Capture: The Thorn in the Side of ECM

// March 12th, 2012 // No Comments » // Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Admissions, Back Office, Document Management, Enterprise content management, Financial Services, Food and Beverage, Government, Healthcare, Higher Education, Human Resources, Insurance, IT, Lending // Glenn Gibson

“Every rose has its thorn.” So croons Bret Michaels in the famous Poison song of the same name.

When it comes to relationships, he has a point. But is it also true of your enterprise content management (ECM) solution? If ECM is the beautiful rose, what is its thorn? 

Two simple – and expensive – words: manual labor.

Yes, after we settle in to enjoy the beautiful return on investment (ROI) of our ECM solution, we soon realize that the labor involved with manually typing document index values (names, addresses, account numbers and so forth) into our ECM system takes a lot of time and effort. It begins to feel, well, thorny. 

Even the study materials for the industry-recognized ECM certification CDIA+ tell us that manual labor associated with scanning and indexing can be the most expensive part of an ECM project.

Why?  Because manual data entry is slow, tedious and error-prone.

And those keyed-in errors can be very costly.

Costly errors in many locations

Much akin to someone misfiling a paper document, badly indexed electronic documents make your information difficult to find later on. This dramatically increases business process costs and can even lead to wrong decisions made due to incomplete information.

Now consider that your ECM system is only one of the places that this information is manually entered.  Duplicate data is often typed into several business systems, often by a variety of people across your organization.  Every time the same information is manually inputted, your risk of error increases.

And that just leads to added costs. Many organizations spend a ton of money on manual labor associated with indexing, but then turn around and spend more money on QA processes to make sure that the information is entered accurately.

So is there any way to extract this thorn from the side of ECM?  Yes, and it’s easy – stop doing manual data entry. It’s just painful.

Option 1:  Add ‘Advanced Capture’ technology to your ECM solution

People are not the only ones who can read and write, you know. Technological advancements allow computers to recognize relevant characters from a page, either typed or hand written, translate these into words, verify that they are correct, and fill in data fields for you.  What’s amazing is that this information can then be used to update ALL your other systems, simultaneously. 

Option 2: Outsource your scanning and indexing.

This option takes the manual labor associated with scanning and indexing off your hands altogether!  Instead of buying and maintaining scanners, and employing people to load them with paper and manually type in the index values, you can simply pay a fee for an organization with a Imaging Services department to do this for you.

Through this process, you send your documents to a central location where the scanning and indexing can be done for you, allowing you to instantly upload the documents and relevant data into your ECM and other relevant systems. 

This option can be a very cost effective approach for converting all those dusty boxes of documents into clean, easily accessible digital images.

So there you have it, there really is no reason to feel the pain of manual labor with your ECM system.  Depending on your business needs, you have two very good options to choose from.

In the end, it seems that Bret Michaels was actually wrong.  When penning those famous words in 1988, he had obviously never heard of the quite beautiful and thorn-less Lady Banks Rose. 

It’s likely that he hadn’t heard of Advanced Capture technologies out-sourced scanning providers either.

Transparency and Open Government? But, How?

// February 20th, 2012 // No Comments » // Cloud Computing, Document Management, Enterprise content management, Government, IT, Mobile, Software as a Service, State and Local Government // Terri Jones

In light of recent federal reform to modernize records management government-wide, a new chapter opens promoting transparency and accountability of information at the state, city and local levels. In fact, this sentiment was echoed recently at county and city events in discussions about transparency and open government becoming more than just a hot button topic. Now it’s a requirement.

As public officials begin to move towards transparency, staff is already stretched thin due to the current economic climate. It’s a struggle to figure out where to even begin. More importantly, how can they afford it with reduced staffing.

As counties and cities consider their options, we already know some things that hinder the journey to transparency:

• Lots of paper that hasn’t been organized for the public to easily view, despite legal requirements around public records access in all jurisdictions.
• Costs of staff time vs. new solution investment seems daunting. To meet records requests and be proactive, it’s not surprising that counties and cities limp along using the same manual methods even though they have less staff than ever.
• Evolving constituent expectations force government to keep the pace of evolving with the speed of technology. Even if traditional ways of meeting requests were sustainable, constituents are asking why they can’t just surf to a website or their phones to review records.

So, how can you increase transparency using enterprise content management (ECM)?

Offer self-service by putting documents on the web

Foster internal transparency by giving staff easy access to documents using an ECM solution. Now they answer constituent concerns by linking documents to a website, allowing the public to search and view documents, 24/7 from their homes. Your transparency has increased without requiring constituents to travel to your office, and with less staff time required to find, photocopy and provide these documents. Set up a storefront or kiosk to sell documents, preserving a revenue stream with a self-service delivery system.

Manage your agendas and offer them online efficiently with ECM

Documents necessarily drive our government, but decision-making is what constituents really want to understand and that means insight into deliberations and decision-making. You could print hard copy agenda packets, but these are large, expensive and time-consuming to produce. ECM saves time and money by automating agenda packet creation and approval while satisfying open-meeting requirements. So, by you can provide sustainable transparency by publishing agendas to the web and you’ll improve and simplify work processes at the same time.

Provide records in a timely and still protect confidential data

Another challenge with public records requests is collecting the documents and packaging them to the requestor in a timely fashion. With less staff to manage the growing number of requests, constituent service is hampered. Adding to the challenge is the potential for accidental release of confidential information. Confidential information requires redaction so that account numbers, social security numbers, etc. are not released to the public. ECM offers process automation that finds confidential data automatically creates a redacted version that can be released by the public.

Whether it is 24/7 access to documents, constituent self-service, better agenda management or faster public records requests, the important thing is to move away from paper and step into the transparent world of ECM because “digital opens doors.”

To Do More With Less, Banks Should Consider Lean IT

// January 6th, 2012 // No Comments » // Document Management, Enterprise content management, Financial Services, IT // Michelle Shapiro

Is your bank lean? What does that even mean?

Being lean is all about creating as much value for the customer as possible by eliminating processes that consume time, resources and space. In a word: efficiency.

The concept is usually associated with manufacturing, but your bank can be a lean operation as well. And the best place to start is in your IT department. “On average, financial institutions spend more on IT than other industries do, but the value of their investment is often unrealized,” reports McKinsey Quarterly, the business journal of management consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

After all,every day, the IT function is becoming more and more important as a driver to deliver value to the customer. A more efficient – and more lean – IT department only increases that value.

Obviously, buying software without a master plan to integrate it into existing processes isn’t the way to go. Financial institutions need to “draw on lean operating principles [to] build the more efficient models that banks need today,” McKinsey counsels.

One way many financial institutions are realizing lean value in IT is through enterprise content management (ECM). ECM solutions, like document management and workflow, provide organizations with sophisticated process automation and case-based applications. It allows you to manage content according to your organization’s business rules and gauge the health of those processes in real-time, adjusting as necessary, growing leaner with each modification.

.Not only that, but by utilizing ECM to automate processes, you can reduce your reliance on paper, saving money on storage and shipping costs. And by using an ECM solution to integrate the core systems you use every day, you can increase the value of technology investments by giving them the ability to communicate with each other. You may even be able to replace wasteful legacy IT systems.

First step toward lean banking

When you begin any automation project, the most important step is the first one: streamlining processes. Otherwise, you might automate a messy process and end up with an automated messy process. That’s how the value of an IT investment goes unrealized.

The trick is figuring out how you handle your core operations. Think about your accounting and human resource functions. In those two departments alone, you have numerous opportunities to gain efficiencies by replacing inefficient paper-based processes with electronic documentation that can be automatically routed through processes from start to finish.

Procurement, fixed asset management, AR, AP, payroll, expenses, budgeting, recruiting, onboarding, performance and promotion management, policy and procedure administration – all these processes depend on documentation. Wouldn’t you rather have all of it centrally located and available to anyone who needs it with a simple mouse click instead of storing it in file cabinets or file shares?

By initiating lean concepts where important information is stored and shared – the IT department – here’s what your bank can accomplish with ECM:

• Streamline operations and improve collaboration among employees
• Reduce the time and cost of performing important business functions
• Tie together the technologies you use every day and give them the ability to communicate
• Improve the ability of the entire enterprise to share and act on corporate information assets
• Help comply with existing and pending regulations

Mobile ECM: Well Within Your Grasp

// December 5th, 2011 // No Comments » // Back Office, Document Management, Enterprise content management, Healthcare, Higher Education, Insurance, IT, Mobile // Lindsay McCune

Put mobile ECM into your employees' pockets

The concerns people have about ‘The Future of Work,’ with regard to mobile technologies, was top of mind for Vice President and Principal Analyst Ted Schadler. Schadler was speaking to Fortune 2000 organizations at Forrester’s Content and Collaboration Forum. Questions came pouring in:

• How are professionals using mobile devices?
• What about bring your own (BYO) versus corporate provisioning?
• What kinds of applications are available? Are they task-specific? Role-specific?
• How do I know which vendors are spending time on security and efficiency around development?
• How do I manage licensing?
• What about security?

To my surprise, some organizations anticipate it will take five years to get comfortable with mobile devices and all that goes into managing them. And while mobile will mature over the next few years, you shouldn’t stand still and try to catch up later.

It’s time for organizations to take small steps, and move out from under the blanket of consumer mobile enablement. It’s time to empower the worker. They have valuable needs that can be addressed today.

Enable your workforce

It is all about enablement – not just about devices or applications, but rather overall empowerment. Sure there are lots to things to consider – security and licensing, for example – but you don’t have to eat the whole apple. Just bite off what you can chew.

Start with roles or departments, like human resources or managers, rather than the diverse enterprise. Baby steps! Consider your goals and which employees would benefit most.

Maybe you are thinking you have much bigger fish to fry and that mobile business solutions are low on your priority list. I would argue that bringing your mobile devices into play with even your most basic business processes will reap immediate rewards and have a dramatic impact on your business.

How about an example

So, let’s imagine you are a human resources manager hiring new employees. Let’s also imagine you are on vacation in Hawaii. Your company is competitive and needs to act quickly to get offer letters and other documentation to your soon-to-be colleagues. But you are hanging out by the ocean and won’t be back for a week. Those irreplaceable new hires now take the offer of your competitor. Think of the now wasted time spent interviewing, completing reference checks and all.

Now, imagine you are in Hawaii and getting ready for the day, checking the weather on your smartphone and you notice that you also have notifications from your mobile enterprise content management (ECM) application to approve. Through your mobile device, you can push these offer letters through workflow. With a few taps, you’re done.

It’s time to look beyond mobile’s soft consumer side and empower the devices to make your organization more efficient and more competitive. Are you ready?

Let the race begin: Final ACO rules announced

// November 2nd, 2011 // No Comments » // Document Management, Healthcare, IT // Jared Blankenship

Well, there you have it. The CMS recently released the final rules for Medicare’s accountable care organizations (ACOs). HIStalk did a fine job of summing up the differences between the final and preliminary versions:

• Quality measures reduced from 65 to 33
• Use of an EHR is not a requirement to participate
• Introduction of a savings-only track without financial risk during the initial contract period
• CHCs and rural health clinics now have an option to lead ACOs
• A longer phase-in for reporting and performance measures
• Multiple start dates established
• CMS will provide approved marketing guidelines and language (so ACOs don’t have to wait for CMS approval, as was stated in preliminary rules)

According to the CMS, the preliminary elicited more than 1,200 comments, which helped shape the final iteration we now see. Great to see the healthcare community so vocal and active. Even better that the CMS listened.

But now that we have the final rules, it’s time to get to work. Sure, additional rules are likely to follow. Also, as real-world lessons bubble to the surface, there will be changes, adaptations and modifications. Nothing is likely to remain static for very long. More than a little reminiscent of how Meaningful Use unfolded – and continues to unfold. Nevertheless, with clear guidelines in place, those of you in technology-oriented roles will find even more complexity working its way into your daily lives. As if you needed any more…

InformationWeek recently highlighted an interesting report – “Preparing for Accountable Care: The Role of Health IT in Building Capability” (full version available here). There’s one message resonating with crystalline clarity throughout the report: Information technology has a critical role to play in the ACO model.

All right, that seems obvious. But technology doesn’t operate in a vacuum. It’s up to those of you who understand IT’s potential and limitations to share your insight and knowledge. Because the ACO model implies (and demands) such deep organizational changes, many people in your specific organization will find themselves involved. Amidst all the ensuing politics and confusion, the strategic planning and trial-and-error, it’s easy for the rational-minded soul to lose patience and succumb to frustration.

Don’t let that happen. Make sure everyone understands your position and that IT’s role is not misunderstood, overstated or ignored. Daunting, I know, but the stakes are high. Assumptions made in your absence today will only drop a mountain of pain on your desk tomorrow.

Keeping Up With Technology: Award Winner Demonstrates Best Practices for Credit Unions

// November 1st, 2011 // No Comments » // Document Management, Enterprise content management, Financial Services, IT // Michelle Shapiro

Technology makes huge leaps forward every day. Just like any other business, your credit union needs to keep pace with all those technological changes so it can lower costs and increase efficiencies. If you can’t manage this process, you’re going to have a difficult time staying relevant in the industry.

To support innovative approaches to solving everyday business challenges through the use of technology, the CUNA Technology Council recognizes three credit unions annually for their efforts in this area. The Council recently recognized Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union of Minnesota with its “Best Practices Award” for its creation and implementation of an e-contract workflow process. The process allows for business contracts to be easily located, accessed, stored and routed.

How did they do that? And how can you emulate the process?

To achieve its goal, Affinity used a document management solution to capture contracts electronically, making them available from one central location. The credit union then automated the process that takes them from start-to-finish. Now Affinity shares information across departments and the entire company with a few clicks.

By automating time-consuming repetitive tasks, like looking for paper contracts that used to be stored in file cabinets, the credit union has more time to accomplish its goals. Examples include improving member service and empowering those members with the knowledge of how their money is being managed, furthering their trust in Affinity’s ability to do so successfully.

Affinity is looked at as a pioneer in the credit union movement. That innovative spirit is what drove it to take a slow process that used to rely on tons of paperwork and make it simple and fast by using the technology it already owned. That’s the power of a document management solution that easily integrates with any technology.

Your challenge, then, is to mirror Affinity’s efforts, turn them into best practices and start making your own credit union more efficient and effective. Not only for your employees, but for your members as well. And you can do that the same way Affinity did it:

• Improving member service by utilizing document management
• Realizing efficiencies and cost savings departmentally
• Adding more departments and rolling solutions out to the entire company

Creating ways to do business faster and more effectively lets Affinity focus on helping members achieve their goals. Affinity’s proven and repeatable solutions, utilizing the technology it already owns, is why the credit union is looked at as a leader in the industry. You can be too.