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.

Life after OTTC: Post Conference Best Practices

// October 2nd, 2012 // No Comments » // Document Management, Enterprise content management, Financial Services, IT, Uncategorized // Lori Dellinger

You spent a week in Orlando, networked until your head was spinning (or that could have been The Hulk ride), and crammed so much new info into your brain that you don’t think you could retain one more piece of knowledge.

Now what? Before you go and start answering the several hundred work emails queued up; do these three things to ensure that you maximize your time spent at OTTC.

1. Organize your business cards received and make a formal connection
Nothing is worse than digging through your work drawers, finding your prior year OTTC lanyard stuffed with business cards. These are valuable contacts! Peer networking is one of the best ways that you can further your solution and implement process improvements. What I suggest is sending a short email or LinkedIn invite that is personalized with how you met and that you look forward to further discussing how to share best practices with them.

2. Organize your notes from the conference
Whether you scribbled down your ideas on a notepad or an iPad – now is the time to put these down in a simple matrix for further reference

I categorize mine as Tip/Trick, Enhancement or New:

Tip/Trick – something I learned that can help me/my team right away without much involvement
Enhancement – something that we can implement somewhat easily, but with other resources help
New – totally new process or module to research

I also add a follow up column for notes and resource column if there’s someone else I need to involve. It’s a simple way to keep track of your ideas and identify what you are able to implement or improve as a result of attending the conference.

3. Be a Hero and share your knowledge
Others in your company use OnBase, but you were sent to the conference. Don’t keep that knowledge to yourself. Schedule out some time on your calendar for next week after you’ve been able to access the presentations that are most relevant to the line of business. Schedule some short meetings with your manager, peers and team. Tailor your meetings to what is most relevant to them (i.e. Tips and Tricks for your team, Enhancements and New ideas for your peers and manager).

Tip: Before the meeting with your manager, be prepared to discuss what the investment might be and how you see a return on investment. If you don’t have the information, keep your meeting brief and let them know what research you are undertaking and who you are working with. Involve your OnBase Solution Provider and/or point of contact at work who acts as a liaison within your institution.

By doing these things, you can maximize the time and money spent for you to attend the conference. This will make it much easier to show the value add you are providing your organization by attending OTTC. This will secure your ability to get approval to attend OTTC in 2013. You don’t want to miss the Mandalay Bay Beach Party, do you?

As a certified OnBase System Administrator for Citizens Republic Bancorp, Lori Dellinger is a guest blogger for Hyland Software, citing her best practices as an attendee at OTTC. Contact Hyland or your authorized OnBase provider for more information on expanding your OnBase functionality, talk through uses cases and explore ROI options.

Building a Core of Internal Champions for Your ECM Project

// September 27th, 2012 // No Comments » // Back Office, Credit Unions, Document Management, Enterprise content management, Financial Services, IT, Lending, Uncategorized // Michelle Harbinak Shapiro

Your organization is buried in paper. And if it’s not negatively impacting the service you provide your customers or members, it will be soon. But you’ve come up with a solution: use enterprise content management (ECM) to electronically capture documents and the important information that surrounds them.

Not only will it decrease your reliance on paper and speed up your processes with instant access to information, it also saves money on shipping and storing all that paper. Plus, it gives you the ability to proactively comply with regulations. You can even integrate your ECM platform with the systems you rely on every day so information is accessible from the applications your employees use every day.

With a quick return on investment, it should be an easy sell, right?

Now comes the tricky part: getting other people in your organization on board. Here are my top five best practices to help share your vision with other decision makers.

1. Start with paper-intensive processes that affect customer and member service
The best places to start looking for internal champions are where paper-based processes affect service. For example, many financial institutions store information like IDs and signature cards at the branch where customers or members originally signed up. When they visit a different branch, they’re forced to wait while their information is faxed over. Do you really want to make them wait hours or even days for paperwork?

Providing exceptional customer or member service is a great way to differentiate your organization, so this is a great area to look for champions. People who interact with customers and members will understand how immediate access to information is a huge benefit, both internally and externally.

2. Identify your core of internal champions
The higher up you go in the organization to find evangelists, the greater influence those people will have with the executive team. Show these people how capturing documents and information electronically gives them increased visibility into processes and empowers them with real-time information.

Find experts who can help others understand how inefficient, paper-based processes can be optimized and how the solution can be expanded across the organization to share information to further increase speed and accuracy. Be sure to find out what return on investment these individuals expect. The more questions you can anticipate and answer, the more likely you’ll be able to give the ultimate decision makers the answers they’re looking for.

3. Develop your core of internal champions
Find out what pains your influencers are experiencing and schedule a short session to teach them how an ECM solution can quickly solve their issues. Show your advocates how capturing and storing documents and information electronically lets employees instantly access them, so they take care of customers or members immediately, instead of making them wait.

Demonstrate how ECM takes their cumbersome day to day processes and automates them – minimizing their workload, increasing their efficiency and providing consistency. Once your champions see the positive changes an ECM solution brings, you’ll have a team full of believers.

4. Respect that change is challenging
Manage your project with the knowledge that many people like paper because it’s tangible – they can hold it in their hands and feel connected to the information on it. Gently remind them that paper isn’t secure. It can be lost, accidentally thrown away and it’s always going to be susceptible to disasters like fires or floods.

Focus on the impact on what ECM does for them. The more you help them understand how an ECM solution helps change their daily life for the better, the more likely they’ll be to jump on board.

5. Engage your champions to evangelize to the entire organization
Effective internal communication about an ECM project can build momentum and have a positive effect on morale and culture. Set up training classes for the “new, better way” to do things. Come up with a way to make the proposed changes a positive push, instead of a negative adjustment. The more people talk about making information available with the click of a mouse, the more the idea will seem like a no-brainer.

Unite people to make your project a reality
People will have an easier time joining your cause when you show them how decreasing your dependency on paper increases speed and accuracy, cuts costs and helps provide superior service. Then you can move on to show them how you’ll be able to proactively comply with regulations like Dodd-Frank and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s new Loan Estimate and Closing Disclosure forms.

Going into the process with these tips in mind, you’ll set yourself – and your organization – up for success. The trick is unleashing your most important assets: people. The more people you can get on board and the higher up you reach, the easier it will be to initiate an ECM project that everyone will thank you for. Just not on paper.

Increase Your Transparency, Increase Your Profits with ECM

// September 13th, 2012 // No Comments » // Credit Unions, Document Management, Enterprise content management, Financial Services, IT, Lending, Uncategorized, Workflow // Michelle Harbinak Shapiro

“Transparency and governance go hand in hand,” says Barbara Rehm in American Banker. “A bank has to be able to put its figurative hands on data to have a fighting chance of managing its risks. Too many firms haven’t comprehensively integrated information systems, especially after acquisitions.”

I agree. Transparency shouldn’t be just a buzz word. Without it, you don’t know how fast things are moving – or not moving. And you may not even be aware of upcoming roadblocks. Not only is it difficult to manage business processes, it also makes it challenging to comply with local, state and federal regulations – especially if important systems can’t communicate with each other.

That’s where enterprise content management (ECM) solutions help. ECM gives organizations increased transparency into documents, information and processes. Executives and managers gain improved visibility using a dashboard that presents an overview of critical information in one easy-to-read screen so they see how processes work in real time. Not only does it 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, creating a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

With ECM, you capture and store documents and the important information that surrounds them as digital images that are immediately available for viewing. Electronic document workflow then automatically routes that documentation through processes, notifying key stakeholders along the way. For example, when you route loan packages through the process, you make decisions faster than your competition, making you an easy choice for consumers.

By automating time-consuming manual tasks, you shorten process times and make them more cost effective. With faster and more accurate processes that grant visibility into exactly what’s happening now - including audit trails that document when and why activities occurred – employees spend minimal time looking for what they need and are free to focus on profit-increasing activities like generating new business.

Further affecting the bottom line, by using ECM to automate processes, you reduce your reliance on paper, saving money on storage and shipping costs. And by using an ECM solution to integrate the systems you use every day – like your core banking platform, loan origination system or almost any other software – you 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.

Using an ECM solution to manage documents and information provides:

• Increased transparency of documents, information and processes
• Improved availability of accurate information 
• Enhanced communication between systems through integration

Not only does the right ECM solution enable faster access to information, but it also guarantees consistent and timely management and disposition of documents and information. With increased visibility and automated document management, you streamline your compliance efforts, making them a natural extension of business processes. When you proactively comply with regulations, you reduce the risk of incurring fines, work stoppages or bad press.

“Clearly, data that is pulled from a consistent source, has a high degree of integrity, and is readily available, benefits [banks] on a number of fronts,” says Rehm. “There is increased transparency within the firm as to business performance, a higher degree of confidence in decisions made, management and board reports with greater accuracy and over time a greater degree of trust by the investment community in the company’s numbers.”

When you use ECM to securely manage documents and information, you give your bank a central, secure repository – exactly the consistent source with a high degree of integrity that Rehm calls for. You also increase your transparency internally and externally – making you a best-case scenario for regulators and an easy choice for consumers.

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.

Access Information Wherever You Are: How to Use Mobile Solutions to Stay Connected

// August 16th, 2012 // No Comments » // Credit Unions, Document Management, Enterprise content management, Financial Services, IT, Lending, Mobile, Uncategorized, Workflow // Michelle Harbinak Shapiro

If your customers and members can use their cell phones to track the location of their friends, upload embarrassing pictures to Facebook or download and listen to music, why do your employees have to leave information behind when they’re on the road or working from home? Shouldn’t they be able to stay as connected as their average customer or member?

Now they can.

Many key decision makers spend a lot of time on the road or out of the office. They need access to real-time information from their mobile phone, so they can make informed decisions wherever they are. And we’re not just talking about access to emails or the Internet. They need to interact with their work processes, and to do that, they need to view documents and all the pertinent information that surrounds them.

Today’s leading enterprise content management (ECM) applications are capable of extending their solutions to mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, so managers can make important decisions outside of the office with all the information they need at their fingertips. By simply extending your ECM solution, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel, you just take it with you.

Here’s how mobile ECM solutions help keep business going when you’re not there:

1. Staying connected to documents and information
2. Keeping processes moving, quickly and accurately
3. Accessing transactions to stay current

By giving employees access to their daily processes wherever they are, you’re able to keep key processes like loan approvals, account maintenance requests and customer/member inquiries moving forward. As a result, your institution isn’t at risk of losing them to a competitor who answers questions quicker. And with mobile access to transactions, everyone stays in the loop. Processes continue to move forward even when key personnel are out of the office. Business continues to run as efficiently as possible, regardless of where you or your employees are.

Of course, not all mobile ECM solutions are the same. Here are a few things to look for to ensure you get the most value along with the business benefits your employees need to get work done faster and more accurately:

• Applications built specifically for each individual device so users have a good experience – no matter what device they use.
• Seamless integration with mission-critical workflow processes, giving users direct access to their step in processes.
• Convenient search capabilities to access documents from anywhere so employees can quickly and easily find what they need and keep processes moving forward.
• User friendly and easy-to-use applications that let users immediately see the information they need and act upon it quickly so processes keep moving quickly and accurately.

As mobile banking applications continue to play a larger role in the financial services industry, using them makes your employees more productive, resulting in higher levels of customer and member satisfaction. Mobile applications are no longer a “nice to have.” Your customers and members are demanding them. And your employees need them.

Five Ways to Serve Students by Increasing Transparency

// August 10th, 2012 // No Comments » // Admissions, Back Office, Document Management, Enterprise content management, Higher Education, IT, Uncategorized // Tom von Gunden

Recognizing the need to help more students stay on track to degree completion, various stakeholders across higher education are looking for ways to give students clearer roadmaps to the end goal. One such effort comes from the U.S. Department of Education. Recently, the department unveiled the Shopping Sheet, a standardized financial aid award document that includes tools for calculating the cost of the student’s educational path. While institutions’ use of the sheet is voluntary, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent a letter to college presidents urging them to adopt it. In that letter, Duncan states, “Our goal is that more students will arrive at school each fall less worried about how they will pay for college and more focused on how they will complete college.”

While I’m not convinced the Shopping Sheet will be in wide use by the kickoff year of 2013-14 (see the lukewarm initial feedback from some financial aid officers), I applaud any effort intended to help students keep their eyes on the prize. And, I see financial aid as just one of several areas in which students would benefit from a clearer picture of what it will take – academically and financially as well as in terms of time. Others include enrollment services more broadly defined to include admissions, registration, advising and billing.

So, to echo the service-minded intentions of the Shopping Sheet, I offer five additional ways to help increase student visibility into the processes and steps critical to successfully navigating the path to degree completion. These processes and steps are mostly on the administrative side, where students are best served when views of the machinery and organizational complexity behind the scenes are kept at a minimum, yet views into financial and academic status are easily and intuitively accessible.

1. Share document tracking checklists (showing documents required, received, not yet submitted) on a student-facing portal. Don’t make students wonder about documents you’ll need for admissions processing, financial aid verification, transfer credit evaluation, course registration, and so on. Work to keep those lists current – updating them in real-time, if possible.

2. Update your student information system (SIS) with receipt of required documents and the status of pending decisions in a timely fashion – again, in real-time, if possible. Also, be sure your document management system allows for instant retrieval of received documents directly from SIS screens. When a student calls any of the enrollment-side offices to check on the receipt of a submitted document or the status of a decision, you’ll want staff to answer questions quickly and accurately on the first call.

3. Move forward with “one-stop shop” and student self-service initiatives. Make sure that staff working your one-stop counters has secure, electronic access to cross-department documents. You’ll want to stop relying on campus mail, photocopying and office-to-office phone searches to share or track down documents. And, you’ll want version control of documents available to staff at one-stop counters.

4. Present bills online. A complement to the Shopping Sheet, which guides students’ understanding of how they’ll pay for their education, online billing provides a convenient way for them to stay on top of what they owe and when they’ll need to pay it to stay enrolled.

5. Arm advisors and registration staff with accurate, up-to-date degree audit information. To keep students on track to an on-time graduation (and not waste financial aid dollars on the wrong or redundant courses), make sure the view of certificate or program completion is crystal clear. I describe this in more detail in a post specifically focused on superior advising.

Like cost calculators such as the Shopping Sheet, the five service-oriented recommendations I’ve outlined above will help your institution provide students with fast, accurate answers in convenient, highly visible ways. As Secretary Duncan states, in describing the need to provide students and parents with clearer insight into education costs, “It starts with transparency.”