A Closer Look at Document Management and TAM

Transcription

1 Applied Systems Client Network SEMINAR HANDOUT A Closer Look at Document Management and TAM

2 Prepared for ASCnet Applied Systems Client Network 801 Douglas Avenue #205 Altamonte Springs, FL Phone: Fax: Copyright 2008 by Applied Systems Client Network, Inc. (ASCnet), 801 Douglas Avenue #205, Altamonte Springs, FL Protection claimed in all forms and matters of copyrightable material and information now allowed by law or hereafter granted including both electronic and conventional distribution of herein products. Reproduction or transmission unless authorized by ASCnet is prohibited. All rights reserved. Specific product information regarding Applied Systems The Agency Manager and Vision, as well as other products copyrighted and mentioned within (ex: Microsoft, Excel, etc.) are the product of the individual company and no endorsement or ownership of product should be implied by its mention and use. All workflows are suggested and common workflows. Users of this material agree that ASCnet cannot be held liable for any omissions or errors within the guide. Original Author: Sandy Oliver, AIS Technology Tracy Ustinov, Applied Systems Contributing Authors: Steve Booth, DHNT Insurance Presented by: Name Where From Contact Info September,

3 Objective: To define scanning terminology, provide direction for designing a scanning workflow in an agency, and demonstrate the technology available in TAM for a scanning agency. Assumptions: This seminar is based on the following: TAM Version 9.0 Table of Contents Terms Defined... 4 Considerations for developing your agency s paperless process... 5 When are you going to scan?... 5 Who is going to scan?... 5 Where are you going to scan?... 5 What are you going to scan?... 5 What are you going to scan into?... 5 Document Management Workflows introduced in TAM Where do I begin?... 6 Attachment Definitions... 6 Attachment Security... 6 How well is TAM suited for efiling?... 9 TAM Workflows for Attaching from Homebase Attaching from the Entity Sending and Attaching in a single operation TAM Workflows for Images and Files Attaching from Utility Manager Attaching from Homebase/Efiling Printing a Barcode Image Scan/Batch Attach Scanning Guidelines Hardware Requirements Applied On-Line Changes Bar coding Recommendations References TAM Helpfile Webinars ASCnet Newsgroups September,

4 Terms Defined Front End Scanning Scanning of the paper is performed BEFORE it is distributed for work to be performed. Back End Scanning Scanning of the paper is performed AFTER the work has been performed. Desktop Scanning The majority of the scanning is performed via scan devices on each desktop. Bar Coding The process of generating a bar code from TAM similar to a UPC code on most products purchased at a store. This bar code allows a mass scanning process to occur. Each bar code is unique to the document to which it is generated for. This bar code is read by TAM and automatically attaches the document to the correct client with the correct category codes. Duplex Scanning The ability to scan the front and back of a piece of paper in a single pass. DPI Dots Per Inch. The measure of the print s quality. Standard is between 300 and 600. The bigger the number the better the quality of the image. PPM Pages Per Minute. The number of pages your scanner can process per minute. Workflow audit don t forget that efiling creates a need to assure that the staff is follow procedures similar to t-filing. Documents that are scanned must be stored for a short term until an audit can be performed and validate that all documents were processed per written procedure. Attachment Category This field in TAM allows an agency to identify the type of document that is attached. There is a sub-category field as well. The attachment field is totally controlled through Security. September,

5 Considerations for developing your agency s paperless process When are you going to scan? Are you going to scan paper when it comes into the agency, or as it passes through the staff or in a batch process at a scheduled time each day? Who is going to scan? Will there be a dedicated person who scans all agency work? Perhaps departmental scanning is a better fit. Will each person scan their own work? Where are you going to scan? Are you going to scan on individual desks, in departments or in an agency wide standard location? What are you going to scan? Which pieces of paper need to be scanned and saved? THIS IS A VERY DIFFICULT QUESTION and the most important consideration to make!!! Not every piece of paper needs to be saved in the agency if you think through it. Be sure to keep State retention requirements in mind as well as E&O concerns. It may take you six to nine months to create the necessary workflows for all paper or images - that enter your agency. With more and more carriers going paperless, there is far less paper to scan, but now decisions must be made on who stores your dec pages you or the insurance carrier? What are you going to scan into? Are you going to scan into TAM or perhaps a third party solution? We are going to look at TAM s ability to store and retrieve many types of electronic files and your controls over these attachments. September,

6 Document Management Workflows introduced in TAM 8.0 The concept of document management truly began with the release of TAM 7.1 Previous versions of TAM handled your s, formletters, proposals, spreadsheets and images as separate pieces. Document Management was difficult to achieve if you had to access different lists to get the entire picture. The consolidation of all these items became what we know today as Attachments. We will discuss the various workflows available in TAM, as well as discuss how the Batch Scanning feature can augment your current process. Where do I begin? The most difficult part of planning for your agency is done once you ve answered all the questions earlier in this document. Now it s time to put your plan into action! A few more important decisions need to be before configuring TAM. Attachment Definitions The next step would be to determine Attachment Categories. How you define those categories is very critical since TAM uses these categories for security access. TAM does provide a predefined list, but this list can be modified by your agency to fit your needs. Where do you define Attachment Categories, Attachment Subcategories and Attachment Descriptions? From Utility Manager, select Field Defaults, Define Attachment Categories, Attachment Subcategories or Attachment Descriptions Attachment Security Who will have rights to attachments? What rights (Add, View, Revise or Delete) will those individuals have? Will those rights be unique to the entity type? Will rights be based on file types? What is the easiest way to control those rights through Security? September,

7 There have been many agencies who have rushed into creation and management of Categories and now have an untamed beast at their desktop. If you will take the time to think through the fact that Categories are tied directly to Security, then you may get a better grasp on this area. There are many users in the ASCnet Newsgroups who are more than willing to discuss or share their office strategies in Categories. You may want to consider a Category as what the item is , document, dec page, photo, proposal, draft, application, ect and utilize the Sub-Categories for extra sorting. With the categories in place, you now need to define security access. For each entity type in TAM customer, prospect, company - you will define the rights for each category. This will allow you to define who has access per function and category for each entity. It is considered a better procedure to create Security Groups to control access to attachments. A group can be setup to provide only one level of Category access. It makes it easier for E&O purposes to look at members of a group to see who has rights to certain Categories based on what is provided by the groups they belong to. September,

8 As you can see, the Security Group HIPPA contains only references to accessibility to the Benefits attachments. We can see that the user CATS has been granted rights associated with the HIPPA group. Lastly, determine what file types you prohibit from being attached in TAM. From Homebase, select Tools, System Setup, Efiling. You may want to get assistance from your IT department on some of the bad type of electronic files that exist. You will want to add these to your Prohibited list. September,

9 How well is TAM suited for efiling? You are now ready to begin attaching in TAM. There are numerous places within TAM to accommodate your workflows. Routing attachments can be done from the Homebase, Utility Manager or the Attachment List - depending on the type of file to attach. Lets also consider a very important fact. TAM now has the flexibility to handle all three workflows for document and efile management front end, desktop and batch. And just because you may have begun your strategy using one method, you are not precluded from changing to a new workflow method that better suits your staff and needs. Front End would create a truly paperless office since almost all paper that enters the office is first scanned, then placed in a users mailbox to process. You may need to work with your IT staff to create folders and mapping for the ease of the users. Here is an example of a front end mailbox system. Notice the daily mail can be easily filed by user and day. Don t forget that in this process, it is almost necessary for users to have dual monitors for processing images on one screen and TAM on the other. Also consider that due to advances in technology and the cost of paper and printing, carriers are moving rapid to deliver policies to you and their clients electronically. We are communicating more often with and paperless fax than old standards. So we must think of what ways we will be using scanners and efiles in the future. Can TAM provide all the storage flexibility and security that you will need, or will you need another solution? Let s breakdown the workflows in TAM by some attachment types. September,

10 TAM Workflows for Attaching from Homebase From Homebase, you can process s received from your native mail Inbox. Use the buttons or right click on the you wish to process. If selecting to Attach to Client, you will be presented with the Attach Detail screen to select the entity, policy/claim, define the Attachment detail and generate the activity. Under Options, notice the option to Save Attached Files and Delete from Inbox? This will allow any attachments for that to be saved when the is attached. NOTE: If your format is Rich Text and the attached item is pasted into the (e.g. a picture, screen shot), this is not considered an attachment because it lacks a file extension. If you ve selected to delete from the inbox, this is removing the from your mail client s inbox. Attaching from the Entity Attaching from the entity level after reading is probably more common. To do this feature, you must have the MAPI option checked in System Setup. When you select the Attachment List/Add/Attach an , the Outlook inbox is presented in an odd sort order. If you have as many s in your inbox as I do, I need a faster way to find the in the list. You may want to consider adding a folder in Outlook to drag the s that you plan to attach this makes it much fast to find the s that you wanted to attach. Remember to make sure to delete these once you have attached. September,

11 Sending and Attaching in a single operation Through the System Setup, you can create s and attach as you send. Of course this also means an Activity get created good workflow concept don t you think? This integrated will also allow you to attach files from entity attachments or outside of TAM as well as address from Contact areas. Select both the Mailto option and the Integrated option from System Setup from Homebase and you can create s from many areas of the system then have them automatically attach when you send. Don t forget that it is good procedure to include signatures on your s that you send. So be sure to create a signature for your outgoing s. Access this through Homebase User Setup. September,

12 TAM Workflows for Images and Files Attaching from Utility Manager From this menu, the Image Router is available. Image Router is the same option as Acquire and Attach an Image from the Entity Level. The image router will also allow you to pull images from a scanner through the Acquire feature. You must have a scanner that operates on a Twain interface (at this time). Attaching from Homebase/Efiling When working on a large number of files that need to be attached to multiple entities, the File Router allows you to pull any electronic file from local or network drives and attach them to any entities. In Clients, you can also associate these attachments to policies or claims. This is also the same as Attach an Existing File from the entity level which prefills some fields from the associated area. This utility is what you will use when processing image files in a Front End document management workflow. After the paper has been sorted then scanned, it will be filed for processing by users in a mailbox concept (system folders). Here is an example of how you may organize your scanned images in an easily managed mailbox system. You IT staff should be able to establish mappings to the user s base folder. (Not available in TOL.) It s important to note that when dealing with attachments, the red paperclip you see throughout TAM denotes an associated attachment. So, when on a policy or claim detail screen that s been assigned to a specific attachment, you will see a paperclip in the right hand corner. This is also true when on the attachment list. An attachment that contains grouped attachments such as s containing documents or images you have grouped together. September,

13 Printing a Barcode In TAM, you will see a new option Print a Barcode in the following areas: Homebase, Utility Manager, the Entity list, Policy list and Claim list screens. Depending where you activate this option determines what is generated for that barcode. This is the Back End or Batch document management process. It is best to have a printer at every workstation for optimum efficiency, but it is not necessary. It also requires you to print paper to get rid of paper always an interesting concept to me in becoming paperless. But the actual scanning process can be done by a low skilled staff person while the attachment detail is created by the staff that has the proper document knowledge. Define your attachment and activity details on this screen. Default Activity category is ATCH, but can be modified to an agency specific code. The resulting activity that files will allow you to drilldown to the actual attachment. The barcode page that prints will contain enough information so that if printed to a network printer, you will be able to distribute to the correct person. September,

14 The use of the barcode works well for an agency that is back-end scanning and where the scanning is taking place in a single location. Mail is distributed Work has been performed Work is collected Work is scanned in system Item is attached to Entity With the print barcode option, the barcode would serve as identification for the entity s paper. The entity s printed barcode should be the first page for that entity s scan job and when the work is collected and scanned into the system, the last step of attaching to an Entity is no longer necessary. In this workflow, you should also understand that the document and it s associated activity are not created until the batch scanning process is completed. If this is done at the end of the day, then you daily work is not seen until probably the next day. If a problem occurs and the batch processing does not take place, there may be issues with the barcode date stamp being outdated.. If you elect to use the barcode feature, you will need to ensure that you scan all paper in that same day you generated the barcode. Your agency has to decide if the manual routing of attachments is more efficient than the batch attaching to client. September,

15 Image Scan/Batch Attach This option allows batches of images to be scanned as a single job. The images are then automatically attached when the batch is scanned. The images attach to the entity (policy and/or claim if applicable) that is held in each corresponding barcode. The attachments are filed with the information that was entered on the Barcode Printer screen. The activity that is created when the image is attached to the entity is filed with the activity code and description that was selected from the Barcode Printer screen. As with all attachment detail, activity drilldown is available from the activity list to the attached item if you work from the Activity list versus the Attachment list. Scanning Guidelines As can be expected with new features, there are often some requirements and recommendations that you will want to implement in order to reap the benefits. This feature was designed to be of minimal costs to our customers. If you have a printer, a compatible scanner and the personnel, you are truly ready to hit the ground running. But you can stumble quickly if you do not thoughtfully plan your paperless workflow. Hardware Requirements What are the scanner requirements for TAM Batch Scanning? The scanner must have the following attributes: 1. TWAIN Compliant 2. Scanning software must support and be set to 200, 300 or 600 DPI. 3. Scan job must be in Black and White Will I need to purchase dual monitors? We recognize the many benefits that dual monitors offer, but they are not necessary to successfully use TAM 8.0 changes. While several 3 rd document management solutions recommend dual monitors, we aimed at keeping our solution much simpler. The only cost your agency could expect to have is the cost of a multi-page feed scanner if you don t already have one in your office. Does everyone need a scanner to benefit from these changes? No, the purpose of this feature is to provide a low cost solution for your agency. Every workstation in your office does not need a printer or a scanner. The barcode page can be sent to a network printer. That page is marked with the account information and operator id of the person who printed the page so it can be retrieved by or distributed to the right person who can add to their scan batch. Applied On-Line Changes How does this work in the TAM On-Line environment? September,

16 The Acquire button now allows a TOL user to acquire and process more than a single scan job. For example, a policy on one customer can be scanned in with the policy from another client as long as the barcode has been placed between the individual jobs. Prior to this change, you could only acquire a single job and route before scanning in the next job. Do I still need to use the Applied On-Line Upload Center? The Upload Center is still necessary for files that you do not wish to scan and want to attach to the entity in TAM that is on your local drive. Bar coding Recommendations Test the barcode generated from your printer first. With the various printers on the market, and all the possible settings for that printer, you can expect the barcode output to vary by printer. Before you batch together all the day s work and attempt to scan the entire batch in, decide which printers will be used to generate barcodes. Print a barcode and scan it in. Can it be read by the system? If not, some tweaking might be necessary. This is also true of your scanning software. Be prepared and be patient! Good things come to those who wait. The reuse of barcodes is strongly discouraged. Once a batch has been processed, the barcode is no longer valid and should not be reused with a new batch. Reusing barcodes will generate errors and interrupt the process of the batch. References TAM Helpfile Search Keywords: Print Barcode, Image Scan/Attach Batch, TAM Integrated , Attachments Webinars There are recorded webinars on the ASI website that cover some of the material discussed in this documentation. Visit ASCnet Newsgroups This unbelievable resource is available to all ASCnet members and it truly reflects or motto Users Helping Users With specialized areas for assistance, such as imaging, and thousands of users who have been there and done that, you will get wonderful information and support. Go to the ASCnet.org wesite for more information on accessing the Newsgroups September,