16 posts tagged “document management”

Virginia Port Authority Selects Laserfiche as its Enterprise Content Management Solution

Nov 6, 2009
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Laserfiche today announced that the Virginia Port Authority has selected Laserfiche to implement an enterprise content management solution that will involve document management, digitizing administrative documents and records and setting up electronic administrative processes. Laserfiche was selected out of 28 vendors that had submitted proposals.

“The Laserfiche solution was selected because of its robust capabilities, which met the stringent requirements of the RFP,” said Carl Long, president and CEO of Unity Business Systems (UBS). UBS is the value-added Laserfiche reseller that submitted the proposal and will implement and oversee the Port project.

“We are pleased to hear that the Port of Virginia has selected document management as its solution for managing its extensive business processes,” said Laserfiche Senior Vice President of Business Development Chris Wacker. “We are confident that Unity Business Systems will implement the document imaging project quickly, smoothly and professionally for this busy Port.”

In 2007, the Port of Virginia handled 2.1 million TEUs (twenty foot equivalent units). The Port Authority, which employees 140 people (85 police members and 55 administrative staff), was established in 1952 as a political subdivision of the Commonwealth of Virginia for the purpose of stimulating commerce in the ports of the Commonwealth, promoting the shipment of goods and cargoes through the ports, improving the navigable tidal waters within the Commonwealth, and in general to perform any act or function which may be useful in developing, improving, or increasing the commerce of the ports of the Commonwealth.

The Authority owns and is responsible for the operations and security of three marine terminals: Norfolk International Terminals (NIT), Portsmouth Marine Terminal (PMT), and Newport News Marine Terminal (NNMT), as well as an inland intermodal facility—the Virginia Inland Port (VIP) located in Front Royal, Virginia. These facilities primarily handle import and export containerized and break-bulk cargoes.

What Is Digital Document Management?

Sep 8, 2009
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Document management, or document imaging, is the practice of digitizing, indexing and archiving both paper and electronic documents for easy storage and retrieval.

Quality electronic document management system helps you:

1.) Transform your paper filing system to enable greater information access.
2.) Promote information sharing enterprise-wide.
3.) Optimize your business processes to increase efficiency and productivity.
4.) Demonstrate regulatory compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA and other laws.
5.) Simplify records retention and destruction procedures.

Thousands of organizations around the world use document imaging every day instead of paper filing systems or a shared file server where folders and files provide the only structure. While the file server might be cost effective for backing up documents, it ignores certain document management needs such as: controlling and monitoring changes in documents, making sure everyone is using the most updated templates, locking certain files, locating documents on the corporate network efficiently.

If you are interested in getting more information about document management and document imaging please visit: www.laserfiche.com.

Canon enters document management

Aug 10, 2009
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According to New Delhi news, Canon India on Tuesday entered the document management system business primarily aimed at the enterprise market. Initially, the company would be partnering its customers to optimize their print management, which would be followed by digitization of hard copies, archival, indexing, retrieval and workflow to provide end to end document imaging solutions.

Addressing a press conference here, Canon India President and CEO Kensaku Konishi said: “The enterprise segment is one of the crucial engagement areas for Canon and we realized that in the slowdown phase, each enterprise would look at saving costs by bringing in operational excellence. One of the major areas to look at it is the print infrastructure. This is the area where Canon is the technology leader and continues to innovate and deliver what it promises to its customers.” Canon India Senior Vice-President Alok Bharadwaj said that through their new division — Document Management Consulting Services — the company would provide corporate houses and enterprises consultancy and solutions ranging from installing printing devices to managing the entire process of printing more effectively.

“We aim to achieve Rs. 50-crore worth of revenue from the division by next year. Our goal is to handle 500 million documents under the service and expects to garner a share of 25 per cent of the estimated Rs. 150 management printing services in India by 2010. Our services will enable corporate houses to save up to 30 per cent of their costs. We will be working on a contractual basis, provide them with printing devices and consultancy services and we shall earn on per print,” he added.

If you would like more information about document imaging, contact a document software specialist today and get more information.

Document Management: Paper-less, Police-more

Jul 14, 2009
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Time was, when an officer from Ontario’s Hamilton Police Service (HPS) responded to investigate a call about an EDP (emotionally disturbed person), they’d have two choices to determine risk factors as they proceeded: Drive back to the station with the EDP to look up past reports - or place a call and wait for a Records Clerk to pull the report and read it to them over the phone. Either way, the officer would be off the street, sometimes for hours, waiting for the necessary information to act on.

These days, however, an officer responding to the same call can pull up reports right in their patrol car, accessing information vital to the safety of the EDP – and the public – using just a name, incident number or other simple keyword.

It’s this kind of progressive approach to information and process management that’s transformed the Hamilton Police Service from a command-and-control police model to a community-based-and-problem-solving service over the last decade. As HPS Records Supervisor Gary Holden puts it, “…document management has allowed us to spend more time in the community and less time travelling back and forth to the station.”

But this progressive approach had to begin somewhere, and it started in 2000 when IT Manager Ross Memmlo began investigating document management to alleviate storage costs and repurpose valuable office space. Franz Gangl of Laserfiche reseller IKON Office Solutions demonstrated Laserfiche’s information management capabilities for Memmolo, IT Administrator Diana Scime, Shari Moore and Holden.

Holden says they chose Laserfiche based on four criteria:

Business Functionality: “It needed to be really user-friendly, no matter how comfortable staff were with computers. Our reseller showed us an example of an agency about our size using a system similar in size and capacity to our proposal.”
System Architecture: “The flexibility and expandability to allow for future development and integration was important.”
Organization/Support Training: “We knew whenever we had a question, all we had to do was make that call to the 1-800 number.”
Project Schedule: “According to our funding cycler, the system needed to be up and running by year’s end.”

In early 2002, the implementation team developed “banner pages” to enable Quick Fields to index various reports, which helped with a massive backlog conversion project that would eventually add 860,000 images to the system. “We were able to scan anything and everything – photographs, willsays, handwritten notes – into folders,” says Holden. By 2004, document imaging repository held over 300,000 active and historical incident reports, DNA records, MVC reports, pardon files and sudden death reports.

“If an officer wants to know more about a rash of Breaking & Enterings where all he knows is a red pick-up that has a unique decal on the side door was involved, he can use document management software search to look up other reports,” he adds. “We can’t possibly index every piece of information within a police report, but OCR and fuzzy search addresses that problem, making it a valuable investigative tool.”

Ultimately, the Hamilton Police Service has realized a significant amount of savings by using Laserfiche to refine its business processes:

$200,000 saved annually, due to downsizing 4 civilian staff in the Records Business Centre, as officers are able to access vital information directly.
Officers spend more time in the community because they no longer need to attend Central Station to view reports.
Clerks save time, because they no longer need to locate reports and read them to officers over the phone.
Valuable floor space has been reclaimed from paper storage.
Redacting documents in Laserfiche saves “a fortune in paper and time,” as Holden puts it, helping staff more easily meet file requests from the Courts and outside agencies.

Document Management in the Wild

Jun 11, 2009
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Sometimes, TV or movie characters can benefit from document management just as much as the rest of us.

While watching the series finale of “ER” last night, which normally wouldn’t make you think of Laserfiche. But as I watched an intern escort a group of medical students around, and as he stopped at the paper chart holder and explained how their paper-based workflow worked (or didn’t, as the case may be), I couldn’t help but think…wouldn’t this be a lot easier with a document imaging system?

And it isn’t just “ER.” Every time I watch the detectives on “Cold Case” sorting through boxes of documents pulled from cold storage, or Melinda on “Ghost Whisperer” visiting the dusty, jam-packed city archives, it’s hard not to see what a benefit document imaging would be to them.

We’ve already seen how detectives are using document management to work toward solving cold cases. City clerks use document management to provide dust-free access to city records - sometimes even over the Web. There are many emergency rooms that use document imaging to streamline billing - and recapture lost revenue.

Unfortunately, I think that a character sitting at a computer and retrieving the information they need with two or three clicks doesn’t quite have the dramatic value or ambience of a dark, underground document archive filled with boxes - and a few ghosts, too. (Although I’d venture a guess that most of the city archives out there aren’t dark, damp or filled with ghosts. Maybe just filled with boxes of paper.)

Have you seen any scenarios “in the wild” of TV or movies where Laserfiche document imaging would help? Or am I the only one that watches “The Dark Knight,” looks at Harvey Dent’s office, and thinks, “Man, he could really benefit from Laserfiche“?

Document Management Technology for Financial Advisors

May 7, 2009
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Document Management Technology takes an in depth look at technology solutions for registered investment advisors (RIAs) in this new era of capital market returns.

Findings conclude that independent investment advisors are quickly becoming the dominant form of advice delivery in the U.S., with more than $2.1 trillion in assets. However, most advisors don’t realize that document management software can help expedite workflow; improve audit, security, and compliance requirements; save money; and even help reduce their carbon footprint.

“RIA advisory firms are seeing declines in revenue from market volatility, along with increased workloads as a result of new client engagements, and added business from disaffected clients of Wall Street firms,” said Tim Welsh, CFP®, President of Nexus Strategy, LLC and Laserfiche financial vertical consultant. “Historically these advisors haven’t invested aggressively in technology; however, today the mandate is clear that in order to stay successful, advisors need to increase their capacity through technology.”

Laserfiche is an advocate for educating advisors to embrace technology and solve their business processing needs. Laserfiche research has found that firms can achieve a 9% reduction in overhead cost through document imaging technology, yet recent industry studies report less than 20% have a system. To bridge this gap, this new report will provide insight and analysis on ways advisors can immediately implement technology to solve their business profitability and growth issues, including:

Solutions are more affordable than most advisors think due to recent enhancements in technology.

Advisors don’t have to be experts—they can rely on local community based solution providers to make training and implementation easy.

There are simple solutions for advisors who are storing documents in a non-compliant manner.

The longer advisors wait to begin with document management technology, the bigger the operational challenge becomes.

This new white paper from Laserfiche provides financial advisors with the key steps they need to take to create a successful financial firm.

Disclaimer: This blog is for information purpose only, and should not be treated a professional advise or price protection guarantee. This blog is mainly used to help our customers blog their information to the readers who may find articles listed on this blog interesting, Intact Info Solutions may also use this blog for commercial purpose or for higher search engine ranking via SEO-search engine optimization or website optimization - web 2.0 search technology. It is advised that readers seek professional consultation in the field of interest for more information.

Document management to the Rescue!

Apr 2, 2009
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Today, more than ever before, document management software is a must for most organizations. The Ontario law enforcement agencies are using a document management process that simplifies e-disclosure and converts homicide case documents into digital format.

The Ontario Homicide Investigators Association (OHIA), which is comprised of a couple dozen local police services and government law enforcement agencies across the province, have standardized on document imaging format to manage and distribute case information to prosecutors, defense attorneys, and other applicable court staff. “The average case can be anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000 pages,” Ian Grant, detective inspector with the Ontario Provincial Police’s (O.P.P.) organized crime enforcement bureau, said. Hard copy documents can be difficult to cart into court and also take a lot of staff time, effort, and money to compile. Document imaging helps a great deal in moving toward a completely electronic system where no paper is required. Anything seized in paper format are scanned to allow officers to tag photographs, attach had written notes, black out sensitive, privacy-protected information in the document imaging.

While many casesare still using paper documents, document management is growing at a rapid pace. The courts have made it an acceptable method to carry out case management as long as it’s organized, contained in one spot, easy to use for the officers and legal professionals involved and, most importantly, readily searchable. Law enforcement agencies, have found that document management creates a much more efficient and effective work environment.

Disclaimer: This blog is for information purpose only, and should not be treated a professional advise or price protection guarantee. This blog is mainly used to help our customers blog their information to the readers who may find articles listed on this blog interesting, Intact Info Solutions may also use this blog for commercial purpose or for higher search engine ranking via SEO-search engine optimization or website optimization - web 2.0 search technology. It is advised that readers seek professional consultation in the field of interest for more information.

Little Enterprise on the Prairie

Mar 7, 2009
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Win-win situations are not good enough for information technology staff in Marshall, part of Minnesota’s Lyon County. They’ve got to have win-win, win-win. That’s because the Marshall school district, its city hall, municipal utility department and the Lyon County government all have built their IT infrastructures around document management with Laserfiche. So when one part of the quartet undertakes improvements to Laserfiche, everybody benefits—and it seems that document images software improvements aren’t stopping any time soon.

“That’s the thing about document management solutions,” says Todd Pickthorn, an IT expert with the Marshall School District. “Once you’ve completed one project with Laserfiche, your eyes open up to the new projects that are possible. That’s been the case with all the agencies we’re working with. When one makes an improvement, everybody reaps the rewards.”

In a world where government bureaucracy is the norm, the Marshall collaboration’s streamlined operations are a remarkable accomplishment which is earning national acclaim—and in an arguably unexpected part of the world.

Marshall, a quiet prairie town, is 40 miles from the nearest interstate and 200 miles from Minneapolis. Yet in the late 1990s, a forward thinking group of residents and elected officials calling themselves “Prairie Net” vowed the information superhighway was going pass a lot closer than Interstate 29 in South Dakota. Monthly meetings were held, resolutions were passed, grants were received and bonds were issued. And with official commitment clear and money in hand, Marshall soon had ISP providers waiting to wire up the community. It took a few years but eventually a brand new fiber optic cable stretched some 75 miles from Sioux Falls, SD, down every street in Marshall.Next step was deciding what to do with that cable. Prairie Net knew it was crucial to provide Web access to serve the whole community, including residents, government and businesses alike. And they knew Laserfiche was going to play a large part in it, they just weren’t sure how to go about it. That’s where planning came in.

“It’s all about planning and having the group meetings where we all talk about our road map for this system and how to plan on using Laserfiche down the road,” Pickthorn says. “We knew that having that new fiber optic cable in place opened a lot of opportunities to us.”

It was in those meetings that the idea surfaced to have a shared document management system connected by the new cable. Prairie Net recognized that different government agencies were responsible for similar tasks in their respective offices—and that duplication of effort would be eliminated by having all their records maintained in a single location.

“In a big city it would be very difficult to get something like this done, simply due to the politics involved,” says Clayton Baer, software designer for Marshall’s Laserfiche reseller Crabtree Companies.

Not to say that there hasn’t been opposition, including intervention by the courts when one judge questioned the legality of the collaboration, says Marshall’s City Director Harry Weilage. However, the system’s success has won over most of the skeptics.

“The last departments in the various agencies that wanted to get into this technology were the financial departments,” Pickthorn says. “Now, it’s staff in those departments who use Laserfiche the most.”

“The initial investment is one-quarter of the price,” says Baer. “That was probably the biggest selling point when it came to getting grants. Why would we build four separate infrastructures when we could just build one? They all serve the same taxpayers.”

Right now, Marshall is in the most ambitious phase of its IT infrastructure project. The Marshall Portal, as it’s being called, is a multi-media interactive website with links to every organization and agency in town. Prairie Net now wants to upload the various Laserfiche repositories onto that portal, so town employees will be able to access their work documents from home and students and taxpayers alike will be able to research public records.

Since, moving forward with Laserfiche, The Marshall Portal has been able to offer a one-stop access to information. The value of moving ahead with this technology has given a quick return on investment, the opportunity to gain experience and level of comfort with document imaging.

For more information of document management software, please visit: www.laserfiche.com

Disclaimer: This blog is for information purpose only, and should not be treated a professional advise or price protection guarantee. This blog is mainly used to help our customers blog their information to the readers who may find articles listed on this blog interesting, Intact Info Solutions may also use this blog for commercial purpose or for higher search engine ranking via SEO-search engine optimization or website optimization - web 2.0 search technology. It is advised that readers seek professional consultation in the field of interest for more information.

Little Enterprise on the Prairie

Mar 6, 2009
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