Announcing the Fall 2010 Laserfiche Users Exchange!

PLAN TO ATTEND – FREE Laserfiche User

Exchange! Wednesday October 19, 2011

1 – 4 P.M.

Please Register Today!

Seating Limited to 25 Participants!!

• Meet Other Laserfiche Users
• Share How You Use LaserFiche To Save Time And Money
• Guided Tour Of The LaserFiche Support Site – How You Can Use It?
• Get Some Technical “STUFF”, Too!
  • How you can call up Laserfiche documents from other applications!!
  • Electronic Forms – how can they help you to gain efficiency??

WHEN:
Wednesday, October 19, 2011

WHERE:
Airport Holiday Inn – Des Moines
6111 Fleur Drive Des Moines, IA 50321

TIME:
1 PM to 4 PM – Registration Begins at 12:30 PM

HOSTED BY:
Paper Free Technology, Inc.

RSVP BY NOON FRIDAY, October 14, 2011

• Preferred RSVP method: use the below form.
• Other RSVP methods:
• Fax number to register: (515) 253+9251
• Voice: (515) 270-1505
• e-mail: Dr_Sam@paperfreetech.com

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Announcing - Spring 2011

LASERFICHE USER EXCHANGE!

PLAN TO ATTEND – Laserfiche User Exchange!

Wednesday April 13, 2011

9 A.M. – Noon

Please Register Today!

Seating Limited to 50 Participants!!

• Meet your friends, other Laserfiche users
• Can Using Electronic Forms Make Your Enterprise More Efficient?
  – Presentation by Dan O’Leary of Lincware; See how electronic forms work with Laserfiche!!!
• Think with us about how to automate your business process!!!
  A case study will be presented.
• Free; Complimentary Lunch. Talk with other Laserfiche users!

WHEN:
Wednesday, April 13, 2011

WHERE:
Paper Free Technology Offices – Des Moines
4512 Merle Hay Road Des Moines, IA 50310

TIME:
9 P.M. to 12 P.M. – Registration Begins at 8:30 A.M.

HOSTED BY:
Paper Free Technology, Inc.

RSVP BY NOON FRIDAY, April 8, 2011

• Preferred RSVP method: use the below form.
• Fax number to register: (515) 253+9251
• Other RSVP methods: e-mail: Dr_Sam@paperfreetech.com

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Enterprise Government Case Study: Franklin County, PA (PDF 932KB)

Ed Yonker joined the Franklin County IT Department in 2004, after spending many years in the banking industry. “Government is a different world,” he explains, noting that county departments “operate like 52 separate businesses under the same umbrella.” With 26 departments already using Laserfiche, Franklin County recently upgraded to Laserfiche Rio to bring 24 additional departments onto the latest version of Laserfiche. Plans include integrating Laserfiche with the state’s case management system in Court Administration; automating processes including contract management and case management; and integrating Laserfiche with the MUNIS ERP system. “It’s hard to convince all the different departments that they can all use the same system,” says Yonker. “Because of that, we didn’t start out thinking Laserfiche was going to be enterprise technology. But after the enterprise content management seed was planted in one department, suddenly all our departments wanted to know more.”

(From Wikipedia)

Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance or GRC is the umbrella term covering an organization’s approach across these three areas. Being closely related concerns, governance, risk and compliance activities are increasingly being integrated and aligned to some extent in order to avoid conflicts, wasteful overlaps and gaps. While interpreted differently in various organizations, GRC typically encompasses activities such as corporate governance, enterprise risk management (ERM) and corporate compliance with applicable laws and regulations.

Governance describes the overall management approach through which senior executives direct and control the entire organization, using a combination of management information and hierarchical management control structures. Governance activities ensure that critical management information reaching the executive team is sufficiently complete, accurate and timely to enable appropriate management decision making, and provide the control mechanisms to ensure that strategies, directions and instructions from management are carried out systematically and effectively.

Risk management is the set of processes through which management identifies, analyses and where necessary responds appropriately to risks that might adversely affect realization of the organization’s business objectives. The response to risks typically depends on their perceived gravity, and involves controlling, avoiding, accepting or transferring them to a third party. Whereas organizations routinely manage a wide range of risks (e.g. technological risks, commercial/financial risks, information security risks etc.), external legal and regulatory compliance risks are arguably the key issue in GRC.

Compliance means conforming with stated requirements. At an organizational level, it is achieved through management processes which identify the applicable requirements (defined for example in laws, regulations, contracts, strategies and policies), assess the state of compliance, assess the risks and potential costs of non-compliance against the projected expenses to achieve compliance, and hence prioritize, fund and initiate any corrective actions deemed necessary.

Widespread interest in GRC was sparked by the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the need for US listed companies to design and implement suitable governance controls for SOX compliance, but the focus of GRC has since shifted towards adding business value through improving operational decision making and strategic planning. It therefore has relevance beyond the SOX world.

The above from Wikipedia gives a good overview of GRC. Technology has become the foundation for implementing GRC. Since managing information is intrinsic to GRC, ECM is the core of that foundation. ECM extends control to your data while maintaining flexibility. For  more information about GRC and ECM, download this whitepaper titled “GRC: A Framework for Organizational Sustainability.”

Information in this article taken from Wikipedia and from Laserfiche®.

Case Study: Dallas Associated Dermatologists (PDF 323KB)

Dallas Associated Dermatologists had been using the document management module of its billing software, but found that it was difficult to use. After seeing a postcard for last year’s MGMA conference, Bill Duke, the practice’s executive director, began investigating Laserfiche – because he was excited about how Laserfiche’s natural approach wouldn’t make doctors change the way they were used to working. Now, “once transcriptions have been imported into Laserfiche, they’re automatically routed to the Transcriptionist folder where they’re linked to their .wav files. We’re also testing how to automate other paper-intensive processes, such as prescription refill approval, using Workflow,” says Duke. “EMR systems are focused exclusively on patient records, but Laserfiche gives us the infrastructure to streamline operations across the practice.”

ECM Agility for Higher Education (PDF 1.8MB)

To succeed in today’s competitive and rapidly changing educational environment, the ability to be agile, adaptable and responsive is becoming increasingly important at colleges and universities around the world. Institutions that use an agile enterprise content management (ECM) system to standardize their approach to information management increase collaboration and information sharing between departments, automate core business processes and minimize ongoing maintenance demands for IT personnel.

Includes case studies and examples from Laserfiche users including USC, the University of Utah, CSU Los Angeles and more.

Announcing the Fall 2010 Laserfiche Users Exchange!

PLAN TO ATTEND – Laserfiche User

Exchange! Tuesday October 19, 2010

1 – 4 P.M.

Please Register Today!

Seating Limited to 50 Participants!!

• Meet other Laserfiche users
• From the Users Perspective – Presentation by City of Dubuque;
• Hear how they use Quick Fields to save time & $$$$$!!
• Think with us about Backup of your Laserfiche data;
• Spotlight will be on Disaster Recovery!!!
• Free; Complimentary Snack Break to keep you awake!

WHEN:
Tuesday, October 19, 2010

WHERE:
Paper Free Technology Offices – Des Moines
4512 Merle Hay Road Des Moines, IA 50310

TIME:
1 PM to 4 PM – Registration Begins at 12:30 PM
— Snacks available beginning 12:30 PM -

HOSTED BY:
Paper Free Technology, Inc.

RSVP BY NOON FRIDAY, October 15,2010

• Preferred RSVP method: use the below form.
• Fax number to register: (515) 253+9251
• Other RSVP methods: e-mail: Dr_Sam@paperfreetech.com

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As chief probation officer for LaPorte Superior Court No. 4 in Indiana, Steve Eyrick knows a great deal about rehabilitation. Every day, he works with clients who’ve been charged with misdemeanors and Class D felonies, and it’s his job to help them turn their lives around.

Of his probationers, Eyrick says, “They’re just people who make some bad decisions. I try to focus on their issues and their individual dynamics, while at the same time testing them and making sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing.”

In recognition of his commitment and personal dedication to the job, Eyrick received the 2009 “Order of Augustus,” an annual statewide probation officer award named for John Augustus, the father of probation in America.

But Eyrick’s responsibility extends beyond offering assistance to individual offenders: He’s also tasked with developing and coordinating the direction of the probation department as a whole.

For Eyrick, technology plays an important role in shaping departmental strategy. Under his direction, the department recently rolled out a video conferencing system, which has improved security by keeping inmates in jail during their arraignments. The department has also benefitted from the chief probation officer’s decision to implement Laserfiche content management more than seven years ago.

“Prior to implementing Laserfiche,” Eyrick says, “we were storing piles of files that had accumulated over the course of more than twenty years. Organizing everything was a problem, as was finding enough storage room. Laserfiche changed all of that.”

Specific benefits the probation department has realized since implementing Laserfiche include:

• Increased efficiency. Without leaving their desks, employees are now able to instantly locate probationary records within the superbly-organized Laserfiche content repository. Staff members are more productive because they no longer have to waste time searching for client files in cluttered filing rooms.
• Easy integration. Laserfiche provider BOLT Document Management created a useful integration with the probation department’s case management system that allows probation officers instant access to clients’ files while viewing case information in the database.
• Storage savings. Scanning old records into Laserfiche allowed the department to destroy thousands of hardcopy documents and reclaim a large storage room that had been in utter disarray. The Court Clerk, who shares the space, benefits from how neat and organized the room is today.

Eyrick’s success with Laserfiche soon attracted attention outside of his department, and it wasn’t long before Darlene Hale, IT director for the entire county, came calling.

The Tipping Point: From One Department to Many

Charged with delivering the most effective and affordable technology to all LaPorte County offices including the auditor, treasurer, probationer, surveyor, juvenile detention and more, Hale had noticed a few problems with the way content management had been rolled out county-wide. Chief among them was that, in the years before she’d taken the helm, individual departments such as Eyrick’s had been allowed to choose and deploy their own preferred IT systems. As a result, interoperability was lacking, sharing information was difficult and costs were high.

It was time to standardize.

In the course of Hale’s research, she determined that if one of the content management systems already in use could be expanded, the cost of conversion wouldn’t be quite so high. Two systems rose to the top: Laserfiche and Docuware. Ultimately, after talking to Eyrick and his department, comparing features and functionality and considering ROI, Laserfiche won out.

According to Hale, “The biggest thing that sets Laserfiche apart from other content management solutions is the sheer ease of use. The layout is simple and intuitive, so it’s easy for users to pick up, but just as important for IT professionals like me is that it’s also easy to administer. Setting up templates and user licenses, integrating it with other products and external applications: everything is just so easy.”

BOLT helped LaPorte County migrate the content stored in Docuware into Laserfiche by completing the following five steps:

• Examining the document and information structure of the old Docuware repositories.
• Obtaining samples of documents and data from every unique document set.
• Using the samples to determine the logic and structure incorporated in the repositories.
• Creating a unique conversion program for each document set.
• Importing and testing samples from each set in Laserfiche.

Once the testing was successfully completed, the conversion process began—one department at a time.

Each phase of the migration project was carefully defined and scheduled, since departments needed continuous access to stored content even while the process was underway. Employees could look up existing information in Docuware, but to prevent “orphaned” records, staff was not allowed to make any additions or changes. After the process was complete, the converted information was mounted as new volumes to the county’s Laserfiche server. BOLT then installed and configured the Laserfiche client software on department computers and trained each department’s personnel.

Users Love Laserfiche

Although LaPorte County now has centralized control over all of its content (ensuring that information from all departments can easily be shared), Laserfiche grants each department the flexibility to adapt the system to the way they work and manage their files. “Our users love Laserfiche,” Hale explains. “It just has so many more uses and capabilities than what they were using before.”

The county, too, has reaped the benefits of standardizing on Laserfiche. Overhead costs for content management have diminished, and information management throughout county offices has dramatically improved. In addition, all of the advantages that Steve Eyrick’s probation department realized as a result of implementing Laserfiche—increased staff productivity, storage savings and easy integration with mission-critical applications—have now materialized for all of the departments under Hale’s purview.

“Better system, more functionality, lower overhead costs, excellent ROI,” Hale concludes thoughtfully. “What’s not to love?”

Author: Meghan Wooster

Megan Wooster is a research/writer in the Laserfiche marketing department.

Gaston County, NC, is the second largest county, by population, in the Charlotte metropolitan area. In 2007, the County selected Laserfiche as its ECM standard and began to deploy it on a department-by-department basis. To date, Laserfiche has been rolled out within eight departments, and the county has near-term plans to deploy it in three more.

This case study focuses on the County CIO’s selection of Laserfiche as the County ECM standard and includes the CIO’s perspective and overviews of each of the eight departments using Laserfiche ECM. It also includes a detailed implementation timeline and an overview of the County’s future plans – which include deploying to three additional departments in the near term, and eventual deployment to 27 additional County departments. “I knew that ECM would be a major asset, not only in the short term, but also further on down the road. I really anticipate that, within five years, Laserfiche will become as widely-used as e-mail,” says CIO Brandon Jackson.

Gaston County CaseStudy 2010

It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes teamwork to change a city. For Westminster, a city of nearly 100,000 people located in Southern California’s Orange County, the need to change was highlighted when a new Assistant City Clerk—Pat Jacquez-Nares—came onboard.

A transplant from the City of Santa Ana, CA, where she’d been a Laserfiche user for years, Jacquez-Nares was determined to bring greater efficiency to Westminster’s approach to content management. “When I came onboard, the City was using a solution called Alchemy, but it had only been rolled out in one department, the City Clerk’s Office, and it was very difficult to use,” she says.

For example, it was nearly impossible for employees to append pages to scanned documents that were stored in Alchemy; typically, in order to add pages, the whole document needed to be rescanned and resaved.

Jacquez-Nares urged the city to find a more sophisticated, user-friendly solution. It was at this point that a collaborative, inter-departmental team was formed with Jacquez-Nares as the project manager.

All of the City’s departments—City Clerk, City Manager, Community Development, Community Services, Finance, Human Resources, IT, Police and Public Works—came together to define their requirements for the RFP. The selection came down to two choices: Laserfiche and LibertyNET. In the end, the balance tipped in favor of Laserfiche for two reasons:

• Its comprehensive search functionality and easy-to-use Web interface made Laserfiche the most user-friendly choice.
• A formal needs assessment showed that implementing Laserfiche would ultimately save the city $273,200 by freeing up enough office space to create a total of 13 workstations for essential city services such as traffic management.

Westminster purchased the software from Laserfiche reseller ECS Imaging in June 2008. Because Laserfiche is easy to use and Jacquez-Nares already had a lot of experience with it, virtually no formal training was required. By August, the solution had been installed, the City had begun back scanning the Planning Department’s records and by November, all Alchemy files had been migrated into the new system.

Making City Content Accessible in Seconds

As a part of its Laserfiche enterprise content management (ECM) solution, Westminster deployed Laserfiche WebLink, a secure Web content portal, to make content immediately accessible to all 402 city employees.

“In the old days, people in our Community Development department had to visit our offsite storage facility three or four times a week in order to locate planning documents,” says Jacquez-Nares. “When you add up the 15-30 minutes it took to drive there, the time spent looking for relevant documents and then the time it took to drive back to City Hall, you’re talking about 4-5 hours a week. With Laserfiche, it only takes a few seconds to call up all necessary documentation.”

The impact of Laserfiche on the City Clerk’s Office has also been great. “As the lead office for Public Records Act Requests, we receive all records requests and hear directly from the public about their concerns,” says Jacquez-Nares. “With Laserfiche, citizens no longer have concerns about transparency or document integrity because digital records don’t get lost or damaged, and they’re available much faster than their paper-based counterparts.”

All the City’s departmental records are currently scanned into Laserfiche on a day-forward basis by Kelly Lore, the centralized scanning records clerk. Just a few of the different types of content stored in Westminster’s Laserfiche repository include:

• Agendas
• Agreements
• Bids
• Building permits and plans, including large format plans
• Deeds
• Planning Department records
• Staff reports

“All of our departments have access to Laserfiche, and people are always coming up with new ideas for how to use it,” says Jacquez-Nares. “It’s much more useful than Alchemy—and much easier to use!”

IT Support Is a Snap

For a city like Westminster, with an IT department of only five employees, software applications must not only be easy to use, but also easy to maintain and administer. In fact, Laserfiche is so easy to support that Jacquez-Nares serves as system administrator, working with users across the City’s departments to structure the City’s content repository, create index fields for various City forms, and set up Quick Fields sessions to automate information capture.

“IT staff members create a backup when they’re updating the server,” says Jacquez-Nares. “Other than that, they pretty much leave everything to do with Laserfiche up to me.”

Future-Forward

Westminster has exciting plans for Laserfiche moving forward. Incoming City Clerk Robin Roberts recognizes the efficiency that Laserfiche ECM brings to Westminster and seeks to build on the project’s success by promoting city-wide use of Laserfiche through added integrations and training sessions.

With the help of ECS, the team is currently in the process of integrating Laserfiche with the City’s GIS system so that all building plans associated with any given address are accessible from within Westminster’s GIS application, CityGIS. Similarly, the City is also working on integrating its electronic permitting application with both Laserfiche and CityGIS. These integrations will save staff from performing time-consuming research to locate information about various addresses or land parcels.

The City also has plans to upgrade to Laserfiche Avante, which will bring Workflow functionality into Westminster’s arsenal, enabling it to automate standard business processes such as approvals and document routing. According to Jacquez-Nares, Westminster is also contemplating integrating Laserfiche with SharePoint, which the City owns but has not yet rolled out. Using SharePoint as a collaborative portal would, for one, help the City Clerk’s Office generate agenda Council packets in a paperless manner. Combining Laserfiche with SharePoint would bring imaging capabilities to SharePoint and enhance the SharePoint repository.

Even without these system expansions, the City is extremely pleased with the Laserfiche implementation. “Many people had to work together to make this project a success, and it’s wonderful to see just how effective a collaborative management team can be,” concludes Jacquez-Nares. “People are using Laserfiche, and the positive results have been staggering so far.”

Author: Meghan Wooster

Megan Wooster is a research/writer in the Laserfiche marketing department.