Hyland Software's Document Management Blog

ACORD LOMA 2013: Let’s Talk Mobile

// May 8th, 2013 // No Comments » // Document Management, Enterprise content management, Insurance, IT, Mobile // Julie Rees

As day three begins and ACORD LOMA draws to an end here in Las Vegas, it’s hard to believe the conference is almost over. It’s been a great show. We’ve had good traffic at the booth, reconnected with friends and had lively conversations with industry experts.

Perhaps most importantly, the sessions this year were great, too. Charlene Li’s social innovation presenation was particularly interesting, as well as a few others that talked about analytics, e-policy delivery models and emerging technology. But, if there’s one topic at this year’s show that kept coming up in conversations, it was mobile solutions.

We’ve had a focus on mobile ECM strategies for a few years now, and while it interests many in the industry, insurers have been slow to adopt mobile technologies. We asked around to see why something that is so widely discussed among insurers still causes hesitation. It seems that the only thing holding the industry back is a fear of change. On the bright side, during our conversations with analysts, it’s clear that the adoption of mobile solutions will increase because they’re quickly becoming the go-to tools to grow business.

After all, business decisions shouldn’t have to wait until your staff return to the office. Now, decisions can be made in the field so that processes keep moving, quickly. We’re hearing about the impact mobile is having on productivity and profit from our insurance customers who are among the early adopters of mobile technology. By implementing mobile ECM applications to empower their employees in the field, they’re moving at the speed of business – not the other way around.

If you’re attending ACORD and wish to learn more about our mobile apps for field adjusters, new business or life, we’d love to talk to you. Stop by booth #558 to see a live demo and experience the benefits of a mobile ECM strategy.  If you weren’t able to attend the show, feel free to contact me to hear more about our mobile solutions.

More and more, business leaders turning to mobile to stay connected; make decisions

// April 8th, 2013 // No Comments » // Cloud Computing, Document Management, Enterprise content management, Financial Services, Government, Healthcare, Higher Education, Insurance, IT, Mobile // Gabriel Baird

Put mobile in the pocket of your decision makers

What do business leaders and their teenage children have in common? In most cases, it’s not the belief that the greatest singer of all time is Justin Bieber.Both young people and decision makers, however, are together in leading the Internet migration from the desktop to mobile devices.The Washington Post reported recently that a study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found about 25  percent of the nation’s youth connect to the Internet primarily using mobile devices.The study doesn’t provide data on adults. However, social contact manager Gist, which Research in Motion acquired in 2011, has an excellent infographic about “The Mobile Workstyle.” The graphic shows that 87 percent of IT managers have handed out mobile devices and that mobile access climbed 36 percent between 2009 and 2010.The number of workers going mobile continues to climb. That’s obvious in any airport where business travelers are glued to their handheld devices, answering emails and making business decisions from the concourse.

Critical business information needs to get into the hands of the right people at the right time. In today’s global marketplace, the right people are often on the road. This often creates bottlenecks in workflows until those road warriors can take action. Your ECM vendor provides access to documents from anywhere allowing decision makers to – for instance – review, approve or deny requests.

At Hyland, we’ve seen the trend accelerate since leading the ECM industry into the mobile frontier. Hundreds of our customers are using mobile modules for OnBase to access and act on key documents using their Android phones, Blackberries, Windows phones, iPads and iPhones.

“We’re constantly extending OnBase features so our customers can evolve their solutions in lockstep with the latest devices and get even more and better results,” said Bill Filion, vice president of development for Hyland Software.

The Pew report has prompted talking heads on TV to raise concerns about teens connecting to the Internet without adult supervision. Certainly, music snobs are just as concerned about adults using the Internet to watch performances by Bieber.

Top 3 New Year’s Resolutions for Government Agencies

// January 7th, 2013 // No Comments » // Government, IT, Mobile, State and Local Government, Workflow // Terri Jones

For the time being, we have averted the fiscal cliff. However, as local governments return from the holidays, they continue to face the same struggles with budget, smaller staffs and continued expectations from their constituents. As cities and counties face the new year, how can they simplify their approach to IT and feel good about selecting the right trends to follow?

Here are three resolutions that will launch local government onto a path for better constituent service and more efficient government:

1. Go digital: By eliminating paper and moving to electronic forms, document management and workflow automation, you save time associated with filing, printing and copying information – a very good thing if you have had to reduce staff. Paperless processes eliminate lost documents and speed up processes, making constituents happy as well as supporting green initiatives.

Automating paper processes also makes it easier for government to collaborate between departments that may be serving the same constituents, whether it’s a case management approach to permitting inquiries, human services or economic development. Eliminating duplication of efforts and tasks that are simply the burden of paper will immediately increase government efficiency. Now is the time to capture some of those savings!

2. Go mobile: If going digital is transforming the core of traditional government, going mobile is the recognition that having the right IT hardware to do our jobs in government is no longer a luxury. Children are using smartphones and will grow up thinking of them as necessities. As a result, it’s essential for government to harness this extreme mobility. Doing so allows staff to do more work in the field. With the prices of handsets and tablets so low, it’s also cheaper than buying a desktop, not to mention the fact that field staff are seldom in the office to work on that desktop.

The additional time available to field staff by avoiding the drive to the office, collecting and re-filing paper documents and the ability to know about an emergency situation instantly will change the backlog of work and the perception of your service. As you move to a paperless world, going mobile gets easier. As a result, it makes sense to couple your paper elimination with departments who need access to documents in the field so you can increase the impact of these two resolutions by making them work together.

3. Go self-service: Some time ago, I wrote that I believed one of the things we dislike about government is waiting – waiting in line, waiting on the phone, waiting for things to happen. Coupled with the availability of so many self-service options through services like online shopping and banking, pressure has been put on local government to offer the same experience. Self-service opportunities are no longer “nice to have.” The availability of the Internet, the smartphone  and the “always connected citizen” have simply changed the game.

Today, constituents expect everyone to have a website with services – not just static text. The good news for strapped government is that this trend has positive benefits in so many areas that it must be prioritized as you look at your IT investment for the coming year. If your most popular paper-based forms were available online, people could conduct their business at their convenience.

And, if they could see how this process is moving forward by visiting a portal, receiving a text message or an email, they would enjoy this convenience rather than waiting for one of your overworked staff members to answer the phone during business hours. Imagine if this could happen automatically so you didn’t have to worry about an application languishing in a backlog or even getting lost in the mountain of paper on a desk.

The advantage of a self-service government process is that it moves faster, keeps constituents informed AND relieves your staff of tasks AT THE SAME TIME. And it all starts with going paperless and being aware of the tremendous opportunity offered by affordable mobile technologies that are now in the hands of many of our constituents.

Technology is always touting the next big thing, and it can be difficult to select or to risk scarce dollars on a trend you aren’t sure about. However, these trends are proven to save money and time while embracing something that our constituents expect. Going paperless, mobile and self-service are the essence of faster, cheaper, better government and will serve your community well if you resolve to make this your IT road map for the new year.

Financial Services Trends From 2012 That Will Affect 2013: Part 2

// December 18th, 2012 // No Comments » // Credit Unions, Document Management, Enterprise content management, Financial Services, IT, Lending, Mobile // Michelle Harbinak Shapiro

As the year draws to a close, it’s the perfect time to take a look at the most important trends we saw in 2012 that will still affect banks, credit unions and lenders in 2013.

This is an exercise we began in our Part 1, where we focused on how adopting enterprise content management (ECM) allows you to embrace information technology by using electronic documents and information instead of paper.

Today we want to take a look at other trends from 2012 that will continue to affect financial organizations in 2013, including:

• Evolving compliance demands
• Utilizing mobile applications
• Continuing growth of new loan originations
• Increasing need for visibility and transparency

Addressing evolving compliance demands

Regulations are here to stay. And with watchdogs like the Consumer Financial Protection Board already making a big splash, the best way to adhere to new regulations is to take a proactive approach.

By leveraging an ECM solution across your organization, you have the tools to ensure consistent record keeping while guaranteeing the right information is available to the right people. It also gives you the ability to automate document retention in a secure system, provide consistent disposition and immediately respond to legal concerns and audit requests. You control document revisions and instantly track changes to records, making traceability a non-issue. And your systems are secure, auditable and flexible enough to quickly adapt to evolving regulations.

Using mobile solutions to keep everyone connected, regardless of location

Mobile is the future. So it’s time to offer your customers or members the services they want, like the ability to access their accounts and make transactions with their phones. While you may have a really nice lobby, unfortunately, many people no longer want to set foot in it. Don’t take it personally, use it as inspiration to make the leap to mobile.

Mobile ECM solutions also help keep business going when employees are out of the office by giving them the ability to:

• Stay connected to documents and information
• Keep processes moving no matter where people are located
• Access transactions to stay current

Managing increasing loan originations

The good news is auto loans are increasing for banks, total loan balances are increasing for credit unions and the home mortgage industry looks poised for a comeback.

The bad news is you have to be able to handle these spikes in business, or people will look for alternatives. With an ECM solution freeing your employees from paper to make faster and more accurate decisions, you can accommodate growth and continue to focus on providing superior customer or member service. And you can take that speed and accuracy to another level by using electronic document workflow to automatically route documents like loan packages through the approval process.

Increasing need for visibility and transparency

Transparency and visibility shouldn’t just be buzz words. Without them, you don’t know how fast things are moving – or not moving. And you can’t provide a clear picture of your situation to external stakeholders.

ECM gives you increased transparency into documents, information and processes. Executives and managers gain improved visibility with a dashboard that presents an overview of critical information in one easy to read screen, so they see how processes are working in real time. Not only does this increase your ability to share information internally and externally, it also helps identify roadblocks and gauges the effectiveness of processes. By measuring key performance indicators and process statistics, management optimizes processes and creates a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Leveraging technology, focusing on customers and members

Technology is great, but it’s a means to an end. And that end is making sure current and prospective customers or members love doing business with you. By using ECM to decrease your reliance on paper, you increase the speed and accuracy of your processes and make information instantly available.

That makes life easier for your employees, better for your customers and members and will set you up for a great 2013!

Thoughts on the Government IT Roadmap – Three Roads to Consider

// November 27th, 2012 // No Comments » // Document Management, Enterprise content management, Government, IT, Mobile, Software as a Service, Workflow // Terri Jones

In government, we struggle to develop a consistent, multi-year roadmap. Sometimes, we’re too busy, but often, it’s because our mission and initiatives change with every election cycle. One of the things I love about enterprise content management (ECM) solutions is that no matter who’s in office, they support the heart of government – the documents that record and drive our processes.

To be successful, it’s important to analyze your political environment and select a path for your ECM solution that is appropriate and sustainable through multiple elections. Despite political changes, an ECM solution will always improve government. However, since documents are a key component of every department and process, how do you select what to do next? If you are not sure where to start, consider the following ideas to begin the quest for faster, cheaper and better government:

1. Be strategic. Always think of how you can leverage your ECM solution to:

• Increase transparency – Provide constituents and vendors with visibility into transactions to offer insight to decisions. Give staff visibility into processes to see the progress of the work they do.
• Create more self-service options – Reduce pressure on staff to complete these tasks and meet the growing expectation of a connected constituency.
• Share services with other government entities – Share technology licensing, hosting and expertise to save money and provide a way to procure critical solutions, even with a reduced budget.
• Use mobile devices – Not only do constituents expect mobile apps, staff also benefit because mobile devices reduce response times while enhancing their capabilities in the field.

2. Use ECM to develop a roadmap. Things to consider include:

• Adoption and buy-in rates for an investment – If you can pick technology and processes to impact, why not choose the ones that will impact the greatest number of people or processes first?
• Lowering your total cost of ownership (TCO) and enhancing your return on investment (ROI) –What projects will reduce the TCO while enhancing your ROI? In bad budget times, every dollar counts.
• Prioritizing projects and available funding – Some funding streams survive or increase – even today. Perhaps your roadmap should start in a department with available funding. Those investments can then be leveraged over time by other departments.

3. Meet the needs and challenges of your organization. These issues include:

• Reduced staff – Reductions in government rarely come with less work. With ECM, you can manage the same amount of work with less staff.
• Funding cuts – Losing funding may mean that you must change the way you run a program. ECM reduces administrative burdens by eliminating slow, paper-based processes that consume time and budget.
• Constituent demands – The relationship between constituents and government can be a key reason for implementing projects, especially for things like transparency, online services and faster/easier processes.
• Compliance problems – When documents are lost or processes don’t follow required procedures, your agency may perform poorly on audits. If this has happened, a starting point could be an ECM solution – it’s a signal to your auditors that you’ve taken their findings seriously and are addressing their concerns using workflow automation and document management.

In each of these cases, technology like ECM or document management can help government craft a roadmap for upcoming IT projects. And with that roadmap, a new type of government can be created – one that is digital, automated and paperless.

Live@Gartner Symposium: Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management

// October 23rd, 2012 // No Comments » // Cloud Computing, Document Management, Enterprise content management, IT, Mobile, Software as a Service // Lindsay McCune

Today on the ITxpo show floor, Gartner Analyst Kenneth Chin presented the 2012 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management (ECM), which was just released last week (click here for a complimentary copy of the 2012 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management).

Chin started by explaining how to use the Magic Quadrant model. He emphasized that the Magic Quadrant model is meant to be the conversation starter as you look for an IT solution. Viewing it as a starting line rather than a finish line, IT departments should use the Magic Quadrant reports as:

• A snapshot in time of a market and its participants
• A way to narrow down a vendor shortlist
• Stimulus for further discussion
• A tool whose usage is determined by your specific needs and circumstances

Chin then had three big recommendations for IT executives looking to implement, expand or consolidate their ECM strategy. Aligning closely with yesterday’s keynote on the “Nexus of Forces,” they include:

• Look at solutions that offer both cloud and traditional on-premises offerings. Having both options will be an absolute requisite in the next few years as IT departments solidify their cloud strategies. Many ECM solutions will soon be hybrid solutions, with some parts of a solution existing in the cloud and some existing on your own infrastructure.
• Consider tablet and smartphone options, strategies and roadmaps. Chin noted that for every five tablets sold, there is one less PC sold. With smartphones and tablets sales growing and PCs sales declining, your ECM strategy will have to be mobile.
• Make usability and low cost of deployment a priority. ECM solutions continue to improve usability, and new releases scheduled for 2013 will continue to push them in that direction. At the same time, proving return on investment in the same year as you deploy is more important, especially as CFOs become more interested in IT spends and results.

In addition, it’s important to take into account the four different quadrants: Visionary, Niche Player, Challenger and Leader. Chin explained each, noting that Visionaries are often smaller companies and newer to the market. Niche players focus on a specific geographic region, making them an important consideration for companies operating in those areas. Challengers are often executing fairly well, but still lack the market vision to make them Leaders. The Leader quadrant owns 60 percent of the ECM market and the vendors are executing strongly today and are well positioned for tomorrow.

Depending on your needs, your best fit could be in any of the quadrants, and if you use the Magic Quadrant as a starting point as Chin recommends, you’re prepared to make the right ECM choice.

Live@Gartner Symposium: What the Nexus of Forces Means to ECM

// October 22nd, 2012 // No Comments » // Cloud Computing, Document Management, Enterprise content management, IT, Mobile, Software as a Service // Lindsay McCune

Day 2 of Gartner Symposium started off with the Analyst Keynote and Senior Vice President of Research Peter Sondergaard explaining Gartner’s major theme of the 2012 Symposium: The Nexus of Forces. What are the forces? The major movements rapidly propelling IT – cloud, mobile, social and information. These four phenomenon are changing the IT world and the world in general as we know it and will continue to for the foreseeable future.

How do these forces play in the world of enterprise content management? Let’s take them one at a time.

Cloud. According to Sondergaard, this is the “end of the beginning” for the cloud. The cloud is a permanent fixture in the IT world and is just coming into its own. The cost benefits are often the major reason for choosing to deploy in the cloud, but the greater “capacity, parallelism, resilience” will be more and more important as the cloud continues to mature. This is certainly true in the ECM world. More and more customers are moving toward hosting and software-as-a-service models for deploying their ECM solution. Solutions with options for both on-premises and cloud deployments will help bridge the gap as IT departments choose which applications to deploy in the cloud and which to keep onsite.

Mobile. According to Gartner, by 2016, 70 percent of mobile workers will use a tablet to complete their work and by 2020, 30 billion devices will have Internet connectivity 100 percent of the time. Another 70 billion will have connectivity intermittently. “It’s about computing at the right time and the right place,” says Songergaard. Customers and employees are forcing their IT departments to move towards mobile applications, and ECM has to keep up with the demand for mobile applications for retrieval and workflow.

Social. The obvious play for ECM is managing the content created on social networks. However, there’s more to social than social networks – social is about designing IT solutions for how people work. It’s about giving people the information they need, when they need it. For ECM and other enterprise solutions, it means that your information finds you instead of you going out and finding information.

Information. Social, mobile and cloud forces will create massive, unprecedented amounts of data. It will be CIO’s “biggest opportunity and biggest challenge,” says Sondergaard. IT will have to manage “hybrid data – data that is both structured and unstructured” to create the analysis that will drive enterprises forward. While many core line-of-business systems handle structured data, it will be up to technologies like ECM to handle the unstructured. By handling big data well, enterprises will serve their customers and citizens better and create competitive advantage.
 
These forces promise a bright future for IT, albeit difficult. Change and transformation is never easy and there is a lot of work to do and a lot of skill sets to develop before we get to the point where this nexus of forces becomes comfortable, but as Sondergaard noted as he closed the keynote, “May the nexus of forces be with you.”

Seven Signs You Need an ECM Makeover

// October 9th, 2012 // No Comments » // Cloud Computing, Document Management, Enterprise content management, Higher Education, IT, Mobile, Workflow // Tom von Gunden

As we head toward the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference in early November, I’m pondering ways IT organizations can address item #4 on EDUCAUSE’s list of top IT trends for 2012: “Improving the institution’s operational efficiency through information technology.” Why this item? Frankly, I’m honing in on this one because operational efficiencies can be greatly impacted – for better or worse – by the range of capabilities (or lack thereof) provided by one critical component of an IT infrastructure: the enterprise content management (ECM) platform. That’s assuming, of course, there is one in place at your institution.

Unfortunately, many colleges and universities have neither a roadmap nor a solution for getting them to true enterprise-supporting ECM. Instead, the IT landscape is often dotted with departmentally disconnected bits and pieces of basic document imaging and basic workflow routing capabilities. Useful but extremely limited, these are the barest bones of an ECM framework. This non-governed, piecemeal approach blindly ignores a comprehensive ECM strategy – the kind that drives and supports operational efficiencies across a wide and complex range of cross-campus processes and needs.

And, even if an institution has deployed a centrally managed document management system used by various departments, a study of its functional area use and a look under its covers – from a design and administration standpoint – may reveal significant limitations to optimal, efficiency-driving utilization and to cross-enterprise expansion. What can an institution do when it finds itself backed into ECM-stifling corners? In a word, convert. Move to a single, comprehensive system that doesn’t force departments to bump their heads against a low ceiling of capabilities and doesn’t require a heavy reliance on central IT to administer, upgrade and expand.

How do you know when it’s time for a conversion? Look for these tell-tale signs – first from the perspective of functional area users, then from the perspective of IT.

Functional Areas:

1. Workflow – Business process workflows are limited to basic point-to-point document routing, with little or no capability for complex parallel or non-sequential processing. Want to send a notification from one process workflow to a user queue in an entirely different workflow? Want to do a sophisticated call-out to an external service? Forget it.
2. Mobility – Functionality is not available on a variety of (or any) mobile devices – smart phones, iPads and the like. Or, if it is, the functionality is limited to basic document retrieval. Think you can execute workflow actions from a mobile device? Think again.
3. SIS integration – At best, users are able to retrieve documents from student information system (SIS) screens. Wish you could automatically update the SIS document checklist as new documents enter the ECM system? Wish you could automatically update it with decisions users make in process workflows? Wish your document management system could get real-time updates from the SIS when key data values change? And, wish all those updates could occur in real-time, at the database level? Keep wishing.
4. Office applications – Users who are heads down in applications such as MS Office, SharePoint and Outlook can’t easily – if at all – interact with document management tools without leaving those application interfaces. Want to execute a workflow task while working in your Outlook inbox? Want to move SharePoint document libraries and list items to a permanent, secure archive while retaining links to those objects within the SharePoint interface? Yeah, right.

IT:

1. Configuration – Building out and altering business process workflows is a laborious, cumbersome process, characterized by a heavy reliance on scripting and custom coding. Want to hand off configuration tools for functional area technical leads and business analysts to tweak their own departmental workflows? Thinking about mapping and building your next five department workflows without relying on outsourced vendor services? Dream on.
2. Upgrades – The thought of moving to the latest version of the document management software (if there is a new release, which is rare) is an anxiety-inducing nightmare. Wondering how you’re going to unbuckle all those custom-coded workflows, workarounds and bolt-ons and then put it all back together after the version upgrade? Sure you are. But, forget about ease and speed. Instead, prepare yourself for months of head-scratching – and headaches, otherwise known as downtime, delay and user outrage.
3. Deployment options – Essentially, you have none. The document management system is designed for point deployment, department-by-department, and/or it has architectural limitations when it comes to scalability. Worse, your only deployment option is premises-based, on your campus – a campus already overloaded with applications to manage and administer. Hoping you can offload your ECM needs to a secure, proven and stable environment in the cloud? Sorry, but your head is the only thing currently in a cloud – your existing document management system can’t live there.

Face it. You’ve been in this neighborhood too long. It’s time to bring in the moving vans.