Enterprise Content Management. A White Paper. SoluSoft, Inc.

Transcription

1 Enterprise Content Management A White Paper by SoluSoft, Inc. Copyright SoluSoft 2012 Page 1 9/14/2012

2 Date Created: 9/14/2012 Version 1.0 Author: Mike Anthony Contributors: Reviewed by: Date Revised Revision Change Note Copyright SoluSoft 2012 Page 2 9/14/2012

3 Table of Contents 1. Introduction Content Capture Store Manage Preserve Deliver Content and Documents Processes Contact Us Copyright SoluSoft 2012 Page 3 9/14/2012

4 1. Introduction The Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) International, the worldwide association for enterprise content management, has defined the term Enterprise Content Management (ECM) as the strategies, methods and tools used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver content and documents related to organizational processes. ECM covers the management of information within the entire scope of an enterprise whether that information is in the form of a paper document, an electronic file, a database print stream, or even an . Obviously that definition covers a lot of information and not all companies will have the same requirements. That being said I think we can agree that all organizations have information that they need to use to operate and that sharing and saving that information is an essential part of any enterprise. Let s break that definition down into its component parts and we can see how OpenText products and SoluSoft s experience and services can help an organization manage their information in an efficient and organized fashion. It should be mentioned that while a number of different products will be discussed while they can each be used individually to great effect they can also be integrated together into a cohesive system and SoluSoft has already done this for their customers Content Let s start at the beginning and define Content. For our purposes we will define Content as a file containing information that has value to the organization. This could have started as many things; paper, a photograph, microfilm, a report, a database query, or even a record in a larger file. What it started as doesn t really matter. What does matter is that this individual item has some useful purpose to the organization enabling it to conduct its operations and this needs to be stored, indexed and made available to the people or programs that need it. So how do we get it into the system; we Capture it! 1.2. Capture Capture is essentially the input portion of an ECM system which is similar in nature to the capture of a traditional Document Management System except that the definition of document has become so broad that the term Content has been adopted. Capture of a page of paper is done by scanning the page into one of a number of standard formats typically TIFF or PDF. A TIFF image is essentially a black and white rendition of the page and has the advantage of a very small file size. The PDF or Portable Document Format is another popular format that supports many different Copyright SoluSoft 2012 Page 4 9/14/2012

5 features that allow it to more closely resemble much more complex documents and has gained popularity over the years despite is much larger size. Other formats are used typically when features such as color are required that create a storage footprint somewhere in the middle. Recognition technologies are often used to convert image content into machine readable data. This facilitates indexing and is either performed on the entire document or on predefined zones. Zonal recognition is typically performed when the document is of a known format and only portions of the information on the page are required. It might also be used for expediency as recognition requires either a significant amount of either time or computing power to perform. Capture is not just about conversion of paper either, although much of the media being captured was or would be printed on paper if not for its conversion in the capture process. Microfilm was very popular in a number of industries but while it does last a long time it does eventually degrade and it is not very easy to access without specialized equipment and manual operators to man them. is an essential part of doing business buts its unstructured nature makes it difficult to retain the information without some effort. capture is just the thing to solve this issue and is a component part of each of the capture products that comprise the OpenText family of solutions. Once upon a time not so very long ago mainframes used to create mountains of paper and in many places still do, typically for producing reports or invoicing customers for services or products. While this makes it available to mail it to a customer is does not make it easy to present to a service representative who needs to walk the customer through his bill if there is a misunderstanding. Having the exact bill the customer is viewing in front of them makes this process much easier. Some government organizations also require that bills be kept for some number of years for auditing purposes. This does not necessarily require that a duplicate copy of the paper be printed and then scanned back in to the content management system, instead there is COLD. Computer Output to Laser Disc or COLD grew up in the mainframe era as a way of storing the information necessary to reproduce a report page or a bill generated at a specific instant in time. While Laser Disc s are no longer in vogue both mainframes and COLD have not gone away, in fact they have become another component to an organizations ECM strategy. While the acronym is no longer entirely accurate it is still used to refer to the process of converting computer, typically mainframe, print streams into an indexed image representation of the paper. Reports Manager is an OpenText COLD product that captures reports in print stream formats, indexes them and converts them to PDF files on the fly. Reports Manager can stand alone or it can be integrated with document and case management products like Execute360 or Case360. Copyright SoluSoft 2012 Page 5 9/14/2012

6 1.3. Store This seems pretty obvious but once the information has been captured it needs to be stored. Storage gets into the area of the various types of devices such as Magnetic Discs and Storage Arrays of discs and how fast or redundant or reliable but also into the areas of versioning, renditions and retention. So let us leave the hardware for another discussion and move on to these other three areas and discuss how a content item is managed once it has been stored Manage Once the content has been created and initially indexed to describe its meaning to the organization it needs to be managed. Versioning is a simple concept at its core, if a content item is changed then you may want, or be required by law or policy, to keep a copy of the original. Every time an item is changed you will want to know who changed it and you will also want to control who has the right to make such changes. Content security is defined using an Access Control List (ACL) which is used to define the rights a user has to locate, view, and potentially modify or delete a content item. These rights are granted to an organizational role and the user is assigned a role that defines these rights. Every OpenText ECM product or component uses an ACL to manage the rights of individuals or groups to the content within the system. The concept of renditions can be a bit more confusing but shouldn t be, as it is just a variation of the idea of versions. While a version is a potentially changed copy of an original item a rendition is an attempt to convert a version into an exact copy, just in a new file format. For example if a PDF file is too large to quickly present to a user on a web page, this document could be converted into a series of individual image pages as a TIFF or JPG file and presented to the user one page at a time. With the right presentation this would appear to be the entire document as the user can only see the page in front of them but this conversion does not essentially change the document it is merely another rendition of the same document. Our third topic is retention which has a lot of organizations paying attention to this subject but as it applies to the next part of our ECM definition we will move on to preserve and discuss it in that context Preserve Since we have previously defined Content as a thing of value to an organization to only makes sense that we want to preserve it, right? Well the answer is both yes and no. The answer is yes where the item retains some value once it has been processed (we ll discuss that later) and no when Copyright SoluSoft 2012 Page 6 9/14/2012

7 it is either no longer needed or required. It some cases it may actually be undesirable to keep a content item around past some prescribed timeframe and it would be more desirable to destroy it. So when you want to keep or you are required to keep it but are no longer using it, you Archive it. This is a process of moving little used content items to cheaper or less intrusive storage media. It could just be another disc or array that you don t use as much or it could be moved to another medium and moved off-site. While similar in common use the term retention has its own set of implications typically defined by some government organization. Retention, most importantly, comes with a timeframe. This means that after the content has lived its useful life and any regulated span of time has passed you may want to get rid of it. This is the essence of retention, when a content item is stored its creation date is marked and the clock starts ticking. Retention rules are defined for each category of Content, often seven years if regulated, and at the end of that time period an operation is performed to delete the item from long term storage Deliver With the Content captured, indexed and preserved we need to pay attention to the next aspect of Enterprise Content Management and deliver the content item to someone who can use it. Document Management Systems like Execute360 provide a number of integration points and interfaces that allow the Content to be delivered to a user in context with existing systems. With its integrated Workflow system it can also be delivered to a user as the initiation of a transaction and then the data related to the content used to make decisions, update associated systems or process a claim or order. Workflow systems use an inbox metaphor so that when a use logs in they can check their assigned queues for work that needs to be performed. The queues are predefined by indexing metadata related to the Content item and are related to use users defined role within the organization. Each user with that role requests and is delivered a specific item to work on. Since the work is shared amongst users the item is locked to that user so no other user is attempting to work on the same item at the same time. Modern systems like Case360 Case Management System have more advanced locking mechanisms so if desired two users can be allowed to be working on the same item and any conflicts are resolvable by the second user to save their changes. This ability is necessitated by the collaborative nature of case management. In addition to being able to capture, store, and deliver content as well as move work through a predefined series of process queues a case management system like Case360 can be used collaboratively. This enables workers to interact with other users in both a structured and unstructured, or ad hoc manner, depending on what is required for a specific piece of work. It may be that to complete the structured process most work requires that a task needs to be assigned to a worker not typically involved in the activity. The Copyright SoluSoft 2012 Page 7 9/14/2012

8 task can be assigned to a user and a time limit may need to be defined so that the user knows (and is reminded) that the task is time critical. A powerful variation of tasks and time frames is the ability to use related dependencies. Once a task has been initiated it may be desired that a second task be set up to be started upon the completion of the previous task. The timeframe for a task can be defined as a being dependent on the actual completion of the initial task and then needs to be completed in a specific time frame as well. This enables users to be alerted and reminded to the existence of customer services level promises such as that the loan approval process will be completed within 3 days after the initial credit review has been completed. If special processing is required these tasks can be completed quickly and the request can continue through the standard structured process once these tasks have been completed Content and Documents So why do we call an item Content and then refer to a Document Management system or Case Management System or a Enterprise Content Management system. The names are part of the history of the process to better define these valuable objects, which may only exist on a disc or in a computer s memory, so that users can better relate to the item they are working with. Business used to be entirely dependent on paper and these papers were usually grouped into sets that we referred to as Documents and this is a simple concept that everyone can understand. The automation of the work performed by persons needing to see a document to do their work required that the document be moved from desk to desk and then referenced in the computer system to do the work. Once we had the ability to digitized the paper into an image file and present that to the user along with the other information required to perform a task we created Imaging Systems to capture, index and deliver these documents. Storing and retrieval of these images gave rise to Document Management Systems to manage all the items so Imaging Systems became Document Management Systems. Organizing the documents into specific pieces of work requiring the attention of a particular business role or function gave rise to Workflow Systems with its structure processes and work queues or inboxes. The realization that sometime work can t be processed efficiently if it only follows the typical flow gave rise to adaptive process management systems like Case360 Case Management System. And when large organizations needed to put all these systems that have grown up over time into a cohesive whole using not just image documents but video and audio files, electronic forms, a new term was needed and we have Enterprise Content Management systems. Copyright SoluSoft 2012 Page 8 9/14/2012

9 1.8. Processes And then we come to the core of why all these other parts are needed and were invented and refined over time, processes. Business processes describe all the activities a company needs to take to complete a business transaction and essentially do whatever the organization does. In many cases these activities are the same for every transaction that is initiated by a consumer or the organization. In a loan process a form is filled out on paper and scanned or electronically and stored. Once the information has been captured someone need to review the loan and perform a number of other activities. In most cases check the applicant s credit history, request some additional documents from the applicant to show evidence of their ability to pay back the loan and then send it on through to the approval process. The review process could be a simple one where a bank manager examines all the documents and then uses his or her best judgment to approve or deny the loan. If the request is for a substantial sum then the process could be much more complicated with additional levels of review or the inclusion of other organizations interested in funding an approved loan paying the initial party a fee for their part in the process. Structured Workflow systems like Execute360 provide a manner of defining these processes in a map that describes all the activities to be performed including conditional activities dependent on the items metadata and then defining the user roles that will perform these activities. The roles are assigned to queues which are used to further refine the work into departments, divisions, or regions. For example it may make business sense to have all the loan approvers of loans on the East Coast working together in order to make the process more efficient or cost effective. To do this, two separate queues can be defined at the same activity, one for the East Coast and the other for the West Coast. Systems like this can handle hundreds or thousands of transactions a day by presenting a user with another piece of work each time they complete the previous one. As each user is performing essentially the same function over and over they tend to get very efficient at their job and work moves quickly through the system. Adaptive process management software like Case360 recognizes that in some businesses not every piece of work can be handled in the same way and allows for a variety of ways that a company can adapt to the specifics of a particular transaction or changing market trends to be more efficient and successful. Business analytic software such as managerview allows managers and executives to review their process and know how efficient each part of the process is and how well individuals are performing their tasks. Process bottlenecks can be identified and the process further refined or automated to make the system more efficient. Tools like analystview go even further and allow a business to predict the effect change to their processes will have before they ever implement them thus giving them a bit of the crystal ball s look into the future that companies can use to beat their competition and become more successful. Copyright SoluSoft 2012 Page 9 9/14/2012

10 2. Contact Us SoluSoft, Inc. 300 Willow Street South North Andover, MA, USA Tel: (978) Fax: (978) SoluSoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd. A-704/705 Shapath IV, Ahmedabad Gujarat, India. Tel: (91) or (91) Copyright SoluSoft 2012 Page 10 9/14/2012