ECM Best Practices – Green Support

Enterprise Content Management Solutions
– Remote and Mobile Employees

Many of today’s business discussions revolve around the fact that providing select employees with the ability to work from home, in a mobile environment, or otherwise more independently, is a positive factor towards fostering conservation and a “GREEN” initiative.  Considering the integrated component benefits of a well conceived and implemented Enterprise Content Management System (ECM), with the right employees selected for a remote work environment, this green initiative can also promote a highly efficient and productive business environment.

Employees that successfully work from home or on the road as much as they do in the office are likely characterized by desirable core competencies.  This is nothing new and these strong employee qualities have always been required of the person working independently from constant co-worker and management relationships and support. 

Successful remote employees are oriented towards achieving results, and as such, as a group they can be described as being self-motivated, self-disciplined, and as self-sufficient as their supporting infrastructure will allow them to be.   “Remote” employees very often maintain a strong client focus and spend a lot of time working at client sites, communicating with clients, and seeking new clients. 

In order to give the successful remote employee the best opportunity to be as productive as they can be, and promote an organization’s green initiative,  that organization can develop the information management and communications infrastructure that fosters collaboration and information self service.  This also prepares an organization to address the current business trend towards more remote employees.  This developed business structure can also support instances where employees are able to work, but have to do that work away from the office due to illness, convalescence, family emergency, transportation problems, etc.

In addition to the infrastructure, it is important to implement a training program so that these resources are known to the remote employees and they are well trained in making the most of them.

The following are among those driving guidelines that support effective mobile and remote employees:

• Digital information and content are increasingly pervasive and require well developed broadband technologies and services.  Remote employees must be provided with required independent information access and research needed for commercial, client, and business awareness.  ECM Benefits contributing towards a green initiative and remote employee support include:
  • ECM – Customer and business information access through web based document and image management
  • ECM – Research and document re-purposing through web based document management
  • ECM – Work and transaction processing continuation through web based workflow processing
• Group and teamwork oriented communications channels are instrumental to effective and collaboration between the remote employee, clients, co-workers, and management, and to providing effective remote presentation resources.  Integration of Collaboration Management and web based meeting services with compatible ECM systems provides a productive team environment contributing to a focused energy and natural resource conservation effort.
• Businesses (and individuals) must effectively communicate on the move and be supported by personal mobile communication technology and web services.  Personal mobile devices now provide a technology that not only communicates between people, but also communicates information to people using compatible web based Enterprise Content Management systems.
• Data submission and resolution tool resources allowing for information communication and independent problem solving must be provided to the remote employee dependent upon business type and objectives.  Digital Forms Processing and Management systems, a major component of many ECM systems, can provide effective solutions.

Neil W. Lindsey
Project Manager / Senior Business Analyst
ImageSource, Inc.

Attend the following GREEN oriented sessions at
NEXUS 2009, November 2nd, 3rd, 2009, Bellevue,
Washington

Finding the PR Value in your Green ECM Technology
Reducing Your Organization’s Cost and Carbon
Footprint Through Inter-Office Scanning
Economical & Environmental Benefits of eForms

What Type of Search is Right for You?

For many functions in the organization the full text “Google” like search capability found in most document management systems may be useful.  For others, it’s not sufficient in providing the business value.  Here’s some situations that may help determine what is right for you.

A business professor once said “There are three core functions to any process… 1. Procurement of Materials 2. Conversion of Materials and 3. Distribution of those Materials.  All other functions only support these three”.  In translation, these three things can map to any function found in business for any department (Sales, HR, Information Technology etc.)  It seems that when analyzing any business process, this old adage always comes back and discussing search in the enterprise is no exception.

When looking at search it’s helpful to see both sides of these functions for document management.  Documents either “drive the process” as a core function, or documents are ”driven by the process” as in a supporting role.  The differences are not all that hard to see.  Document that drive the process are directly related to the three functions above 1. Procurement 2. Conversion and 3. Distribution.  Documents that are driven by the process may be everything else.

Vouchers, Invoices and Checks are all documents that drive Purchasing.  Service Orders and Proof of Delivery are documents that drive Operations.  Purchase Orders and Service Contracts drive sales. 

On the other side, Marketing Literature  is driven by Marketing.  Brochures are driven by Sales.  The company Calendar is driven by HR and Inventory Reports are driven by Operations.  These documents support the functions of their departments.

A less technical way to look at this dichotomy is ”gotta have that document now” and “gee, this looks like what I’m looking for”.  When designing a search architecture, this is one of the basic questions you can ask yourself.

Documents that drive the business process tend to require a discrete index field search.  This is because the user is typically looking for the one document they need, and they need it quick.  A Sales Order for a customer service representative or an Invoice for a purchasing manager.  These documents also typically already have a structured meta-data component already designed for them before the document management system is in place.  A Sales Order Number field is always generated for Sales Orders and an Invoice Number Field always has an Invoice number.  This is true before or after a document management system exists.

Documents that are driven by the process are less structured in nature.  Marketing Literature, Progress Reports and the Employee Vacation schedule to name a few.  The user is typically looking for some information that could be in one, or many of these documents.  Could an employee figure out if Memorial Day is a company holiday by finding the wrong documents to their search?  Like last years vacation schedule?  Probably so.  If this is the case, a full text content search may prove successful.

Documents that “drive the process” answer questions to a search that only that one document can satisfy.  What items were billed for Invoice # 123456?  What date was Employee #78910 hired?  Who signed for Proof of Delivery #34567?  In these cases, a discrete index field search is required.

 

John Moffitt

Systems Engineer

ImageSource, Inc.

http://www.nexusecm.com/index.htm

www.imagesourceinc.com

www.ilinxcapture.com 

  

The Two Faces of Change Management

Enterprise Content Management implementation projects frequently require the formation of plans for, and execution of “Change Management” as a major part of the project components.  But what is Change Management?  In ECM Projects, participants have been known to describe Change Management using two very different definitions:

[1]  “Change Management (People)”- ECM projects sometimes include significant business process changes that require the user community to change the way they work.  This is especially true of solutions that involve transactional processes.  Process change situations can challenge the success of the project if the users are not involved and informed.  If major business process are major or widespread, the support of executive and middle management is crucial and needs to be effectively communicated to those users involved with the changes.

[2]  “Change Management (ITSM)”- Most ECM Projects, no matter how well planned and documented, will usually have situations arise where plan details should change.  Changes to the plan can be requested by the implementation team, the project sponsor, or a key organizational department.  The Project Manager(s) responsible for the success of the project must have a formal process to receive Change Requests, process, and then respond to them in light of their impact on the design, cost, and schedule of the project.

Neil W. Lindsey
ImageSource, Inc.