Less than three months before the start of fiscal 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has finally released its final rule on “meaningful use,” which will drive the health IT industry’s installation of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) under last year’s HITECH Act.
(To the right, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius, from the department’s Web site.)
The release was done at a Webcast and included Donald Berwick, now director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
A summary of the rule has also been published at the New England Journal of Medicine, but the main change from the initial proposal, released in December, is that requirements have been split between a “core” group of required objectives and a “menu set” of procedures so clinics can get partial credit.
The first vendor press release on the new rules came from Allscripts, whose CEO, Glen Tullman, was an Obama adviser on health care in 2008 and served on the advisory committee that helped come up with the rule. More reaction is expected to follow, and we will cover it at ZDNet.
Along with the meaningful use rule a final rule on certification of systems was also published. The companies which will do the certifying have yet to be chosen, after which vendors will have to line up to assure customers of stimulus cash.
Now that the rules for getting that cash are in place, vendors and customers are in a race against time. The first set of deadlines will be based on six months of use during fiscal 2011, which means software or gear needs to be in place by next April 1 to meet the deadline.
And we don’t even know who will certify whether the gear meets requirements. But at least we know the rules under which both certification and use will be measured.
Source: - http://www.zdnet.com/blog/healthcare/final-rule-on-meaningful-use-finally-released/3814
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
CMS: We'll publish our 'Meaningful Use' final rule by July 14
CMS: We'll publish our 'Meaningful Use' final rule by July 14
July 1, 2010 — 12:49pm ET | By Wendy Johnson
Many dates have been thrown around regarding when CMS plans to publish its final rule for meaningful use. This highly anticipated regulation, of course, will spell out how providers and organizations can become eligible for HITECH's electronic health record incentive payments.
Some news outlets have reported that July 13 is the magic date. That sounds about right, give or take a few days. FierceEMR spoke with a CMS official directly involved in writing and publishing the final regulation, and she assures us that although there's no "official" publication date (CMS missed its own self-imposed June 30 deadline), "I would be very surprised if it's published any later than July 14."
"We hoped to have it out by the end of June, but it's looking more like mid-July," the official told us this week. "There are so many moving parts and so many people are involved. This is a long regulation." No doubt! The proposed rule was thicker than many novels. We expect nothing less from the final reg.
CMS also plans to unveil its plan for aligning its Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) with the EHR incentive program in mid-July. "We propose to include many ARRA core clinical quality measures in the PQRI program, to demonstrate meaningful use of EHR and quality of care furnished to individuals," CMS states in an advanced copy of the proposed reg, CMIO magazine reports. "We propose the selection of these measures to meet the requirements of planning the integration of PQRI and EHR reporting."
Source: - http://www.fierceemr.com/story/cms-well-publish-our-meaningful-use-final-rule-july-14/2010-07-01?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal
July 1, 2010 — 12:49pm ET | By Wendy Johnson
Many dates have been thrown around regarding when CMS plans to publish its final rule for meaningful use. This highly anticipated regulation, of course, will spell out how providers and organizations can become eligible for HITECH's electronic health record incentive payments.
Some news outlets have reported that July 13 is the magic date. That sounds about right, give or take a few days. FierceEMR spoke with a CMS official directly involved in writing and publishing the final regulation, and she assures us that although there's no "official" publication date (CMS missed its own self-imposed June 30 deadline), "I would be very surprised if it's published any later than July 14."
"We hoped to have it out by the end of June, but it's looking more like mid-July," the official told us this week. "There are so many moving parts and so many people are involved. This is a long regulation." No doubt! The proposed rule was thicker than many novels. We expect nothing less from the final reg.
CMS also plans to unveil its plan for aligning its Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) with the EHR incentive program in mid-July. "We propose to include many ARRA core clinical quality measures in the PQRI program, to demonstrate meaningful use of EHR and quality of care furnished to individuals," CMS states in an advanced copy of the proposed reg, CMIO magazine reports. "We propose the selection of these measures to meet the requirements of planning the integration of PQRI and EHR reporting."
Source: - http://www.fierceemr.com/story/cms-well-publish-our-meaningful-use-final-rule-july-14/2010-07-01?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Document Management Systems make your paper work very fast
Doctors are always looking for an intelligent way with the burdensome administrative process and to focus on the health of their patients. You want to keep track on the medical history of their patients, not juggling documents. document management software provides this service to collect, store and assimilate to financial and other scanned documents are instantly and easily accessible by simple click.
document management software has some specialties. It is designed in a user mode and allows a person to arrange graphic according to their practices. The user can simply create folders and store documents with names, then he can find. The software is also considered for the efficient and proper functioning. The burden of proof to the fax storage and stacks of bills to reduce considerably, because the trial made by automation and other applications, including EMR.
The document management software is now strongly preferred by the pros. It reduces stress and keeps a good track of important data that can be viewed later without any problem. Doctors consider the software as one of the fastest document management solutions in the health care profession. The software allows users to draw online and offline by storing the maps on a local server that makes it safer to believe it can be seen both offline and online. The image storage reduces the risk of data loss. The software also provides the condition to find a simple and fast.
The software also allows premium users to share and gather information easily and at the drop of a hat. The user can also send, print and e-mail scanned documents as required (hospitals, doctors, colleagues, pharmacies), adding simple.
Document storage is easy as pie. Collect one or more cards and analyzed using a scanner. That is, it suffices to say that the document management system, it includes the patient and it will automatically save. The document management software also allowed to import Adobe PDF and an impressive number of different types of documents in a single click.
UK based Whiz Solutions is very excellent in services like Document Storage London & Graphics Designer Middlesex
Source: - http://articleresource.org/computers-and-technology/software/document-management-systems-make-your-paper-work-very-fast-30752
document management software has some specialties. It is designed in a user mode and allows a person to arrange graphic according to their practices. The user can simply create folders and store documents with names, then he can find. The software is also considered for the efficient and proper functioning. The burden of proof to the fax storage and stacks of bills to reduce considerably, because the trial made by automation and other applications, including EMR.
The document management software is now strongly preferred by the pros. It reduces stress and keeps a good track of important data that can be viewed later without any problem. Doctors consider the software as one of the fastest document management solutions in the health care profession. The software allows users to draw online and offline by storing the maps on a local server that makes it safer to believe it can be seen both offline and online. The image storage reduces the risk of data loss. The software also provides the condition to find a simple and fast.
The software also allows premium users to share and gather information easily and at the drop of a hat. The user can also send, print and e-mail scanned documents as required (hospitals, doctors, colleagues, pharmacies), adding simple.
Document storage is easy as pie. Collect one or more cards and analyzed using a scanner. That is, it suffices to say that the document management system, it includes the patient and it will automatically save. The document management software also allowed to import Adobe PDF and an impressive number of different types of documents in a single click.
UK based Whiz Solutions is very excellent in services like Document Storage London & Graphics Designer Middlesex
Source: - http://articleresource.org/computers-and-technology/software/document-management-systems-make-your-paper-work-very-fast-30752
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Document Management Roll-up: Google Adds Docs Functionality, Oracle Updates BPM Suite 11g
This week, with the general release of Office 2010, Google challenges with updates to Docs, and gets some added support from other companies like OpenDrop. On the BPM front, Oracle followed its ECM Suite 11g release with an upgraded BPM 11g.
Google Adds Docs Functionality
Who would ever have thought it! The day before Microsoft (news, site) puts Office 2010 out on general release, Google adds new functionality to Google Docs.
According to the Google Docs official blog their new documents and spreadsheets editors have been released making both easier to use and manipulate, as well as adding some more sauce to draw users away from Office 2010 and its online version, Web Apps.
As of this week, all new documents will be created using the new documents editor. According to the blog, the new editor was built for faster real-time collaboration, better imports and more control over document’s layout.
Since the preview, they have also added new features including a table of contents, a special characters dialog, a dictionary, search as-you-type and re-sizable images.
A new version of spreadsheets is also available as the default to everyone starting this week too. New features here include formula highlighting, sheet dragging, sheet menu, faster scrolling, an editable formula bar, autocomplete in cells, copy sheet from one spreadsheet to another and range sorting.
These new editors will become the default editors for Google Apps users too. Google will begin activating the new editor for documents on June 21 and for spreadsheets on June 30.
Office 2010 Finally Available For All
And because you can’t have Google Docs without Microsoft Office a short word to say Office 2010 is finally on general release as of later today so that all those that haven’t been able to access it in work will finally be able to see what all the fuss is about.
There has been a lot of talk about Office 2010 here over the past few months so the features are probably familiar to most.
And the recommended pricing has also been released. Office Home and Student 2010, the most basic bundle of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, will cost US $150 and can be installed on as many as three computers.
A US $280 version includes the Outlook e-mail program while a US $500 bundle adds Publisher and Access. Along with the Office 2010 suite, users can now purchase Visio 2010 and Project 2010 both in stores and at the official Microsoft store online.
Computers will now be shipped pre-loaded with Office 2010 within the next 12 months. These pre-loaded Office 2010 suites can be activated by purchasing a product key card at a retail outlet or online.
OfficeDrop Puts Pressure On Microsoft
However, competition for Microsoft and Office 2010 is going to be stiff as other companies start getting in on the Google Docs act.
This week, for example, online document management company OfficeDrop has just launched a new product feature that will allow customers to automatically get their paper scanned and into Google Docs as text-searchable PDFs.
Using the new service, users can send paper documents to OfficeDrop in pre-paid envelopes and boxes. OfficeDrop then scans and uploads the files to a secure online document management portal that is both a search engine and organizational tool for paper and digital files.
When OfficeDrop folders or files are linked to Google Docs, the documents are automatically uploaded to Google Docs as text searchable PDFs.
This is a powerful collaboration tool for offices that struggle with the location and exchange of information, especially since the OfficeDrop system makes everything searchable by adding OCR (optical character recognition) to any document uploaded to the OfficeDrop document management system.
Currently, Google Docs does not provide OCR for non-text rich files, but OfficeDrop makes files text searchable, so any documents sent to Google Docs from OfficeDrop can then be searched effectively.
If you want to sign up for OfficeDrop you can do so through the Google Apps Marketplace or on OfficeDrop's website.
SAP Extends Open Text Agreement
An extended agreement between Open Text (news, site) and SAP (news, site) means that SAP is to start selling Open Text’s information management solution that includes file managements capabilities for personnel records and effectively streamlines their human resources operations.
This is not the first time the two have gotten together. SAP already sells Open Text solutions for document management including access and archiving as well as digital asset management.
This latest agreement will see Open Text’s solution for human resources management sold as SAP Employee File Management application by Open Text and will enable companies to create and complete digital records of all personnel-related documents natively integrated with the SAP ERP Human Capital Management platform.
The result is that all paper and electronic documents can be pulled from digital files relating to employees cutting the amount of time needed to administer human resources related tasks.
Oracle BPM Upgrade Follows Suite Upgrade
Last week Oracle (news, site) announced a major upgrade to its enterprise content management suite. This week it has announced it is upgrading its Business Process Management suite.
As a part of Oracle’s Fusion Middleware 11g, the new BPM Suite 11g is said to support all kinds of processes with a new process foundation, user-centric design, as well as new social BPM abilities.
Oracle Business Process Management Suite 11g includes a native implementation of BPMN 2.0 with new components including:
•Oracle UCM for document-centric processes
•Unified management and monitoring of business processes
•Role-based modeling and design using BPM studio
•Process Composer: for web-based process modeling and deployment.
•Business visibility, process status and operational reporting through business reporting
The new social abilities also enable enhanced collaboration by including wikis and blogs as well as customized team spaces through all phases of the business lifecycle.
Source: - http://www.cmswire.com/cms/document-management/document-management-rollup-google-adds-docs-functionality-oracle-updates-bpm-suite-11g-007811.php
Google Adds Docs Functionality
Who would ever have thought it! The day before Microsoft (news, site) puts Office 2010 out on general release, Google adds new functionality to Google Docs.
According to the Google Docs official blog their new documents and spreadsheets editors have been released making both easier to use and manipulate, as well as adding some more sauce to draw users away from Office 2010 and its online version, Web Apps.
As of this week, all new documents will be created using the new documents editor. According to the blog, the new editor was built for faster real-time collaboration, better imports and more control over document’s layout.
Since the preview, they have also added new features including a table of contents, a special characters dialog, a dictionary, search as-you-type and re-sizable images.
A new version of spreadsheets is also available as the default to everyone starting this week too. New features here include formula highlighting, sheet dragging, sheet menu, faster scrolling, an editable formula bar, autocomplete in cells, copy sheet from one spreadsheet to another and range sorting.
These new editors will become the default editors for Google Apps users too. Google will begin activating the new editor for documents on June 21 and for spreadsheets on June 30.
Office 2010 Finally Available For All
And because you can’t have Google Docs without Microsoft Office a short word to say Office 2010 is finally on general release as of later today so that all those that haven’t been able to access it in work will finally be able to see what all the fuss is about.
There has been a lot of talk about Office 2010 here over the past few months so the features are probably familiar to most.
And the recommended pricing has also been released. Office Home and Student 2010, the most basic bundle of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, will cost US $150 and can be installed on as many as three computers.
A US $280 version includes the Outlook e-mail program while a US $500 bundle adds Publisher and Access. Along with the Office 2010 suite, users can now purchase Visio 2010 and Project 2010 both in stores and at the official Microsoft store online.
Computers will now be shipped pre-loaded with Office 2010 within the next 12 months. These pre-loaded Office 2010 suites can be activated by purchasing a product key card at a retail outlet or online.
OfficeDrop Puts Pressure On Microsoft
However, competition for Microsoft and Office 2010 is going to be stiff as other companies start getting in on the Google Docs act.
This week, for example, online document management company OfficeDrop has just launched a new product feature that will allow customers to automatically get their paper scanned and into Google Docs as text-searchable PDFs.
Using the new service, users can send paper documents to OfficeDrop in pre-paid envelopes and boxes. OfficeDrop then scans and uploads the files to a secure online document management portal that is both a search engine and organizational tool for paper and digital files.
When OfficeDrop folders or files are linked to Google Docs, the documents are automatically uploaded to Google Docs as text searchable PDFs.
This is a powerful collaboration tool for offices that struggle with the location and exchange of information, especially since the OfficeDrop system makes everything searchable by adding OCR (optical character recognition) to any document uploaded to the OfficeDrop document management system.
Currently, Google Docs does not provide OCR for non-text rich files, but OfficeDrop makes files text searchable, so any documents sent to Google Docs from OfficeDrop can then be searched effectively.
If you want to sign up for OfficeDrop you can do so through the Google Apps Marketplace or on OfficeDrop's website.
SAP Extends Open Text Agreement
An extended agreement between Open Text (news, site) and SAP (news, site) means that SAP is to start selling Open Text’s information management solution that includes file managements capabilities for personnel records and effectively streamlines their human resources operations.
This is not the first time the two have gotten together. SAP already sells Open Text solutions for document management including access and archiving as well as digital asset management.
This latest agreement will see Open Text’s solution for human resources management sold as SAP Employee File Management application by Open Text and will enable companies to create and complete digital records of all personnel-related documents natively integrated with the SAP ERP Human Capital Management platform.
The result is that all paper and electronic documents can be pulled from digital files relating to employees cutting the amount of time needed to administer human resources related tasks.
Oracle BPM Upgrade Follows Suite Upgrade
Last week Oracle (news, site) announced a major upgrade to its enterprise content management suite. This week it has announced it is upgrading its Business Process Management suite.
As a part of Oracle’s Fusion Middleware 11g, the new BPM Suite 11g is said to support all kinds of processes with a new process foundation, user-centric design, as well as new social BPM abilities.
Oracle Business Process Management Suite 11g includes a native implementation of BPMN 2.0 with new components including:
•Oracle UCM for document-centric processes
•Unified management and monitoring of business processes
•Role-based modeling and design using BPM studio
•Process Composer: for web-based process modeling and deployment.
•Business visibility, process status and operational reporting through business reporting
The new social abilities also enable enhanced collaboration by including wikis and blogs as well as customized team spaces through all phases of the business lifecycle.
Source: - http://www.cmswire.com/cms/document-management/document-management-rollup-google-adds-docs-functionality-oracle-updates-bpm-suite-11g-007811.php
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
The Rise of "Intelligent" Enterprise Content Management
Despite the pessimism from some corners, the impending death of Enterprise Content Management is overstated. Rather, from what I see, the intelligent content race is on.
The Commoditization of Content Management
One of the things that you hear quite a bit in the Content Management circles these days is how the management and storage of content is becoming a commodity. With the rapid spread of SharePoint and the emergence of cloud-based document sharing services like Box.net, Google Docs and Dropbox, it is a trend that is becoming hard to ignore.
While the basic storage and sharing of content slowly becomes a commodity out in the mystical cloud and in the depths of SharePoint sites, the vendors have been leaning on the advanced features that they offer in their platforms today. The challenge is that the "commodity" systems can easily see those needs and add them to their platforms. As this occurs, the reach of the commodity factor extends.
Why We Need Intelligent Content Management
At the recent EMC World in Boston, Alexandra Larsson of the Swedish Armed Forces discussed how their system uses TIBCO’s Spotfire to stream actions occurring within the Documentum repository live to a screen. The tool is used to spot trends among users, allowing HQ staff to respond to situations more quickly and efficiently. This example generated quite a lot of buzz from attendees and those remote participants tracking the show via Twitter and the blogosphere.
In most organizations, content never stands alone. It may be part of a transaction, an employee record, a website, a creative project, a medical case, or any number of things. The ability to bring the content and all of the information (context) that went into the creation and use of that content is becoming more critical as organizations realize that simple access to content is simply not enough.
Governments want to know who might have ever looked at, or searched for, one particular file out of millions. Web managers need to know which pieces of content are driving traffic. Customer service reps need all relevant content and data for every client available and readily digested. The need to know how content is used extends across all industries.
Thus enters Intelligent Content Management.
Three Forms of Enterprise CMS Intelligence
The concept of Intelligent Content Management is the idea of deriving more value from existing Content Management systems. There are a few ways that the vendors are looking to deliver that value to their customers.
1. Content Analytics
The first part of the story is Content Analytics. The proposition behind Content Analytics is to mine the content already resident in the repository and identify trends and exceptions.
The search engines that are being embedded are offering improved algorithms and allowing the display of results in ways that go beyond the simple list. Faceted search capabilities are allowing users to look at their results from different angles, providing instant filtering on several dimensions of your content.
2. Business Intelligence Tools
The second effort at enhancing the value of existing information is focused on the application of Business Intelligence tools to better visualize what is happening at any given moment. This goes beyond just placing all of the metadata into a data warehouse for analysis — it involves constant monitoring of key components within the repositories themselves. The value, potential, and interest for this capability was evident in the response to the Swedish Military system.
This is likely, and hopefully, part of the logic behind the new partnership between EMC and Informatica. While it appears on the surface to be a resale agreement, you get the sense talking to the EMC people that they want to build solutions using tools from Informatica that will allow users to access more precise information from their repositories, not just the hoards of data that they can get today.
As always, the devil/implementation is in the details. IBM and Oracle already own BI tools, so they can also have the potential to provide a one-stop-shop for this functionality.
The blending of all that metadata, audit logs, and Content Analytics should offer people a new way of looking at their content. Context is the key here, and this is just the beginning.
3. Content Management Interoperability (CMIS)
Most content is not just content. Starting with documents which contain “unstructured” information, you then add metadata and presentation, creating content. When you provide that content in context, it becomes information.
This is where integration and federation comes into play. With CMIS, the ability to pull content into other applications is much easier, but the information also needs to flow in reverse. The most successful systems that I have seen have information from all systems come into a single, purpose-built dashboard.
The ability to talk to other systems is going to become more important to the Content Management vendors. Historically, they have worked hard to integrate with systems, but integration only works within an organization. The necessary context for content is becoming more likely to reside outside of the control of IT, where those old integration efforts fail.
Being able to interact with the same piece of content from within both SalesForce and SharePoint, while sharing it with external partners, is becoming the common scenario and not the exception.
Moving into the Future
There are a lot of things that will make this all easier, and those are hurdles that the Enterprise CMS vendors must master in order to bring their vision of Intelligent Content to fruition.
The key will be to create an approach that unifies the traditional business intelligence field with the next generation of content management systems. Once that happens, we won’t need Intelligent Content Management because we’ll have true Information Management
Source: - http://www.cmswire.com/cms/enterprise-cms/the-rise-of-intelligent-enterprise-content-management-007682.php
The Commoditization of Content Management
One of the things that you hear quite a bit in the Content Management circles these days is how the management and storage of content is becoming a commodity. With the rapid spread of SharePoint and the emergence of cloud-based document sharing services like Box.net, Google Docs and Dropbox, it is a trend that is becoming hard to ignore.
While the basic storage and sharing of content slowly becomes a commodity out in the mystical cloud and in the depths of SharePoint sites, the vendors have been leaning on the advanced features that they offer in their platforms today. The challenge is that the "commodity" systems can easily see those needs and add them to their platforms. As this occurs, the reach of the commodity factor extends.
Why We Need Intelligent Content Management
At the recent EMC World in Boston, Alexandra Larsson of the Swedish Armed Forces discussed how their system uses TIBCO’s Spotfire to stream actions occurring within the Documentum repository live to a screen. The tool is used to spot trends among users, allowing HQ staff to respond to situations more quickly and efficiently. This example generated quite a lot of buzz from attendees and those remote participants tracking the show via Twitter and the blogosphere.
In most organizations, content never stands alone. It may be part of a transaction, an employee record, a website, a creative project, a medical case, or any number of things. The ability to bring the content and all of the information (context) that went into the creation and use of that content is becoming more critical as organizations realize that simple access to content is simply not enough.
Governments want to know who might have ever looked at, or searched for, one particular file out of millions. Web managers need to know which pieces of content are driving traffic. Customer service reps need all relevant content and data for every client available and readily digested. The need to know how content is used extends across all industries.
Thus enters Intelligent Content Management.
Three Forms of Enterprise CMS Intelligence
The concept of Intelligent Content Management is the idea of deriving more value from existing Content Management systems. There are a few ways that the vendors are looking to deliver that value to their customers.
1. Content Analytics
The first part of the story is Content Analytics. The proposition behind Content Analytics is to mine the content already resident in the repository and identify trends and exceptions.
The search engines that are being embedded are offering improved algorithms and allowing the display of results in ways that go beyond the simple list. Faceted search capabilities are allowing users to look at their results from different angles, providing instant filtering on several dimensions of your content.
2. Business Intelligence Tools
The second effort at enhancing the value of existing information is focused on the application of Business Intelligence tools to better visualize what is happening at any given moment. This goes beyond just placing all of the metadata into a data warehouse for analysis — it involves constant monitoring of key components within the repositories themselves. The value, potential, and interest for this capability was evident in the response to the Swedish Military system.
This is likely, and hopefully, part of the logic behind the new partnership between EMC and Informatica. While it appears on the surface to be a resale agreement, you get the sense talking to the EMC people that they want to build solutions using tools from Informatica that will allow users to access more precise information from their repositories, not just the hoards of data that they can get today.
As always, the devil/implementation is in the details. IBM and Oracle already own BI tools, so they can also have the potential to provide a one-stop-shop for this functionality.
The blending of all that metadata, audit logs, and Content Analytics should offer people a new way of looking at their content. Context is the key here, and this is just the beginning.
3. Content Management Interoperability (CMIS)
Most content is not just content. Starting with documents which contain “unstructured” information, you then add metadata and presentation, creating content. When you provide that content in context, it becomes information.
This is where integration and federation comes into play. With CMIS, the ability to pull content into other applications is much easier, but the information also needs to flow in reverse. The most successful systems that I have seen have information from all systems come into a single, purpose-built dashboard.
The ability to talk to other systems is going to become more important to the Content Management vendors. Historically, they have worked hard to integrate with systems, but integration only works within an organization. The necessary context for content is becoming more likely to reside outside of the control of IT, where those old integration efforts fail.
Being able to interact with the same piece of content from within both SalesForce and SharePoint, while sharing it with external partners, is becoming the common scenario and not the exception.
Moving into the Future
There are a lot of things that will make this all easier, and those are hurdles that the Enterprise CMS vendors must master in order to bring their vision of Intelligent Content to fruition.
The key will be to create an approach that unifies the traditional business intelligence field with the next generation of content management systems. Once that happens, we won’t need Intelligent Content Management because we’ll have true Information Management
Source: - http://www.cmswire.com/cms/enterprise-cms/the-rise-of-intelligent-enterprise-content-management-007682.php
Saturday, May 22, 2010
State of the ECM Industry 2010: Enterprises Still Battling Content Chaos
While figures from AIIM’s State of the ECM Industry 2010 report indicate that the management of content across enterprises is still, to a large extent, chaotic and disorganized, they also show that there has been a considerable improvement on last year, and that many enterprises have finally seen the writing on the repository walls.
In the last year alone, for example, the research found that 12% of organizations have completed the deployment of an enterprise–wide enterprise content management system, a further 28% are still in the process of doing so and 15% are integrating projects across different sections of the enterprise.
However, the flip side of that is 21% have still to start an ECM project — although the report doesn’t say whether that means they haven’t started, or they haven’t started to plan — while 17% are only implementing a system for the first time. Let’s look at some of the key areas.
ECM Drivers
The massive increase in the amount of information arriving in enterprises appears to be the main driver for companies to deploy ECMs. While many have put it off until now, 60% of companies cite “content chaos” as being the principal driver in deploying an ECM.
Document management
Not surprisingly, if “content chaos” is the principal theme running through this year’s report, then document management issues are also going to be a major problem too.
Taking document management and records management together, the highest current priorities for ECM activity are implementing electronic records management and managing emails as records, followed by the integration of multiple repositories.
This is not altogether surprising given that 41% are not confident that their electronic information (excluding emails) is accurate, accessible and trustworthy.
In addition, 56% of those surveyed said that there were not confident that the emails documenting staff commitments and obligations are recorded, complete and retrievable.
SaaS Document Management
Moving from document management on-premise to document management as a SaaS is also an emerging trend with the numbers of enterprises taking this route in the next 18 months set to double from 6% to 12%.
Records management as SaaS is also set to rise from 2% to 6% over the same period, and email management from 4% to 6%.
SharePoint
On the SharePoint front things are looking good, even if they could be better. Over half of those surveyed had either deployed SharePoint 2007 or were currently implementing it, breaking down into 32% and 21% respectively. This is a proportionate increase of 26% on last year’s user base.
Another interesting figure is that in terms of a SharePoint strategy, while 46% recognized the need for a formal plan for using SharePoint with other ECM investments, they don't have one, and 12% don’t even know where to start. This is particularly telling considering:
* 11% cite SharePoint as their sole ECM
* 20% say they are integrating it with existing systems,
* 23% say it is working in parallel to their other systems
* 5% say it is competition with their other systems.
Social Media
Regarding social media and enterprise 2.0, 29% of respondents view internal E2.0 as imperative or significant to their organization’s business goals, citing knowledge sharing, team collaboration and project coordination as the main drivers
Open Source
Open source solutions are being used by 6% of organizations for ECM. This is set for growth, with a further 9% planning to adopt open source for ECM, WCM (Web Content Management) or portals within the next 2 years.
ECM Still Going Strong
The report concludes by saying that while there is still work to be done, the ECM industry entering a new decade is actually in quite a healthy state despite its many failings.
In particular, it notes, good information governance is now accepted as essential to good business, and ECMs are key in this respect, bringing the added advantages of collaboration, knowledge sharing, better business processes and ultimately cost savings.
The report can be downloaded from the AIIM website after you register for free.
Source: - http://www.cmswire.com/cms/enterprise-cms/state-of-the-ecm-industry-2010-enterprises-still-battling-content-chaos-007576.php
In the last year alone, for example, the research found that 12% of organizations have completed the deployment of an enterprise–wide enterprise content management system, a further 28% are still in the process of doing so and 15% are integrating projects across different sections of the enterprise.
However, the flip side of that is 21% have still to start an ECM project — although the report doesn’t say whether that means they haven’t started, or they haven’t started to plan — while 17% are only implementing a system for the first time. Let’s look at some of the key areas.
ECM Drivers
The massive increase in the amount of information arriving in enterprises appears to be the main driver for companies to deploy ECMs. While many have put it off until now, 60% of companies cite “content chaos” as being the principal driver in deploying an ECM.
Document management
Not surprisingly, if “content chaos” is the principal theme running through this year’s report, then document management issues are also going to be a major problem too.
Taking document management and records management together, the highest current priorities for ECM activity are implementing electronic records management and managing emails as records, followed by the integration of multiple repositories.
This is not altogether surprising given that 41% are not confident that their electronic information (excluding emails) is accurate, accessible and trustworthy.
In addition, 56% of those surveyed said that there were not confident that the emails documenting staff commitments and obligations are recorded, complete and retrievable.
SaaS Document Management
Moving from document management on-premise to document management as a SaaS is also an emerging trend with the numbers of enterprises taking this route in the next 18 months set to double from 6% to 12%.
Records management as SaaS is also set to rise from 2% to 6% over the same period, and email management from 4% to 6%.
SharePoint
On the SharePoint front things are looking good, even if they could be better. Over half of those surveyed had either deployed SharePoint 2007 or were currently implementing it, breaking down into 32% and 21% respectively. This is a proportionate increase of 26% on last year’s user base.
Another interesting figure is that in terms of a SharePoint strategy, while 46% recognized the need for a formal plan for using SharePoint with other ECM investments, they don't have one, and 12% don’t even know where to start. This is particularly telling considering:
* 11% cite SharePoint as their sole ECM
* 20% say they are integrating it with existing systems,
* 23% say it is working in parallel to their other systems
* 5% say it is competition with their other systems.
Social Media
Regarding social media and enterprise 2.0, 29% of respondents view internal E2.0 as imperative or significant to their organization’s business goals, citing knowledge sharing, team collaboration and project coordination as the main drivers
Open Source
Open source solutions are being used by 6% of organizations for ECM. This is set for growth, with a further 9% planning to adopt open source for ECM, WCM (Web Content Management) or portals within the next 2 years.
ECM Still Going Strong
The report concludes by saying that while there is still work to be done, the ECM industry entering a new decade is actually in quite a healthy state despite its many failings.
In particular, it notes, good information governance is now accepted as essential to good business, and ECMs are key in this respect, bringing the added advantages of collaboration, knowledge sharing, better business processes and ultimately cost savings.
The report can be downloaded from the AIIM website after you register for free.
Source: - http://www.cmswire.com/cms/enterprise-cms/state-of-the-ecm-industry-2010-enterprises-still-battling-content-chaos-007576.php
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Specialized Document Management Products Challenging ECM Mega-Suites
Real Story Group 2010 Market Analysis Reveal Tech Buyer Risks
The divide between "Enterprise Content Management Suite" platform vendors and more specialized Document Management product suppliers is becoming more pronounced, giving buyers more choices to address a broad range of content management challenges, according to new research by The Real Story Group (formerly CMS Watch).
The Real Story Group just released its annual Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Document Management Marketplace overviews earlier this week, including "Cross-Check" charts for both sets of vendors. The overviews assess changes that have occurred in the previous 12 months, as well as trends emerging in today's marketplace. This research differs from other market analyses by focusing on needs and impact for the buyers and users of technology, not the sellers.
"It's a risk mitigation report," notes Real Story Group analyst Alan Pelz-Sharpe, "giving you an inside look at what is really going on among the vendors and what you need to know to make the right procurement decisions." Given the divide between the more focused Document Management market and ECM suites, The Real Story Group has created two Cross-Checks.
Note that there are no "leading" vendors or "magic" segments here. A vendor's suitability may depend on the enterprise customers' risk profile, as well as the "fit" of the technology itself, which The Real Story Group evaluates in its subscription-based research.
Other key takeaways from this analysis conclude that:
•There is continued consolidation at the top end of the market
•More focused Document Management vendors continue to thrive
•International and non-traditional options (open source/cloud) continue to disrupt both markets
•SharePoint 2010 will be remain a strong contender and competitor — but typically not a replacement system
Just as importantly, the ECM market is strong and continues to grow, with dozens of viable supplier options targeting specific business problems. "When it comes to selecting the best technology for your enterprise, you must look beyond ‘the top right quadrant,’" argues Real Story Group founder Tony Byrne. "Otherwise you'll blind yourself to many other great options."
The complete research can be found at http://www.eiwatch.com/Research/Channel/ECM/.
Source: - http://www.ebizq.net/news/12544.html?grss
The divide between "Enterprise Content Management Suite" platform vendors and more specialized Document Management product suppliers is becoming more pronounced, giving buyers more choices to address a broad range of content management challenges, according to new research by The Real Story Group (formerly CMS Watch).
The Real Story Group just released its annual Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Document Management Marketplace overviews earlier this week, including "Cross-Check" charts for both sets of vendors. The overviews assess changes that have occurred in the previous 12 months, as well as trends emerging in today's marketplace. This research differs from other market analyses by focusing on needs and impact for the buyers and users of technology, not the sellers.
"It's a risk mitigation report," notes Real Story Group analyst Alan Pelz-Sharpe, "giving you an inside look at what is really going on among the vendors and what you need to know to make the right procurement decisions." Given the divide between the more focused Document Management market and ECM suites, The Real Story Group has created two Cross-Checks.
Note that there are no "leading" vendors or "magic" segments here. A vendor's suitability may depend on the enterprise customers' risk profile, as well as the "fit" of the technology itself, which The Real Story Group evaluates in its subscription-based research.
Other key takeaways from this analysis conclude that:
•There is continued consolidation at the top end of the market
•More focused Document Management vendors continue to thrive
•International and non-traditional options (open source/cloud) continue to disrupt both markets
•SharePoint 2010 will be remain a strong contender and competitor — but typically not a replacement system
Just as importantly, the ECM market is strong and continues to grow, with dozens of viable supplier options targeting specific business problems. "When it comes to selecting the best technology for your enterprise, you must look beyond ‘the top right quadrant,’" argues Real Story Group founder Tony Byrne. "Otherwise you'll blind yourself to many other great options."
The complete research can be found at http://www.eiwatch.com/Research/Channel/ECM/.
Source: - http://www.ebizq.net/news/12544.html?grss
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
“Content” technology predictions for 2010
When Hugh McKellar (KMWorld editor in chief) collared me at the KMWorld conference in November, and asked if I would like to write a piece on the CMS Watch predictions, I said without any hesitation, “Yes, of course!” Little did I know at the time that I would subsequently be spending a couple of weeks in the cold and darkness of a deep Finland winter, with little appetite to wake up each morning, let alone write a 1,250-word article on my day off. However, life plays tricks and the semi-somnambulant, dark Nordic environment oddly enough proved to be an ideal location to consider prophecies and predictions for the New Year.
First, a little background: CMS Watch has a tradition (four years is long enough to establish tradition in the Internet age, I believe) of publishing a top-10 list of predictions concerning what we might broadly consider the “content” technology sector. So for content technology, think enterprise content management (ECM), knowledge management (KM), Web content management (WCM), search, etc. As it so happens, our top 10 consists of 12 predictions, and nobody here seems to have the slightest idea why, but, hey, that’s tradition for you! The predictions themselves have usually generated a fairly large amount of debate so by the time you read this, it is quite possible you might have already seen the list. With that in mind, I shall not do you the disservice of simply republishing the entire list; rather, I thought I would take three of the predictions and dive into them a little deeper, share with you the thought process that led there and open them up for further consideration.
One last thing before diving in: I want to be clear that these predictions are the work of the entire analyst team at CMS Watch and not just mine. After many weeks of arguing, sulking and insulting one another, we came grudgingly to an agreed set of predictions. If you like, though, you can consider the more likely ones to be mine and the wilder ones to be the work of my colleagues. So without further delay, let’s look a little deeper at a few predictions.
Internal and external social and collaboration technologies will diverge.
Many collaboration and social networking vendors are struggling to support internal (behind the firewall) and external community scenarios off the same codebase. In 2010, most will give up the struggle and acknowledge that those business scenarios have fundamentally diverged. We will see more separate offerings from the same vendor, with increasingly different user experiences, security models, performance goals and so on. At the same time, vendors will add and promote integration hooks as more customers seek to “move” discussions and collaboration across enterprise boundaries.That particular prediction was one we could have made and postdated a few years ago when social media/Web 2.0/networking first emerged. The reality is that supporting and managing social interactions in a public environment is a very different thing from doing so within the walls of the enterprise. As any KM pro knows, the dynamics of interaction between a closed and controlled culture vs. an essentially anarchic one are dissimilar. Bottom line, we have been waiting for this one to happen.
Multilingual requirements will rise to the fore.
Many firms are now recognizing the need to localize applications and content across cultural and geographic boundaries. Though the technology has been around for a while to enable that, a mindset shift is propelling the requirement forward. For some firms, it is the perceived or actual threat of competition from countries such as India and China. For others, it is the recognition that employees and partners operate more effectively in their native language rather than using English as a second language. For still others, it is the potential to sell outside of the saturated English language market. Many collaboration and social computing vendors in particular will get caught flat-footed in their assumption that application interfaces need only support English.Of all the trends I have observed in 2009, that is the strongest by far. Put simply, the need and desire to support and develop multilingual Web sites, in tandem with the growth in managing multilingual enterprise content (sometimes to support needs such as English/Spanish, Spanish/French, sometimes to integrate foreign acquisitions) are widespread. The fact is the world has thrown off the idea of English being a universal language. The Internet era, rather than push us toward the goal of English as the lingua franca, has given us the tools to revitalize and re-recognize native tongues. (See related article, “Finding Your Language Wallah,” on page 1.) I think that is a good thing, but for KM professionals it opens a whole new set of challenges. Certainly our experience working with global organizations suggests that KM is very low on people’s priorities. Simply getting their head around managing multilingual versions of the same content and the horrors of localization are dominating the agenda.
Mobile will come of age for document management and enterprise search.
Does your ECM package come with its own mobile app store? In 2010, it might. Smarter phones, more bandwidth and an increasingly mobile workplace will push the traditionally more staid document management and search vendors to develop richer mobile interfaces. Meanwhile, major enterprises (and vendors) will need to adapt their search and information access strategies in the face of mobile application search, with a new emphasis on precision over recall, and a fresh look at faceted results.Of course, nobody wants to check in a hundred documents on his or her iPhone, but surely in this day and age, information access should be independent of device. And although that reasonable expectation may be difficult to fulfill for an array of technical reasons, workers are using mobile devices such as smartphones and PDAs far more pervasively then they ever have in the past. Vendors are getting wise to that, so giving knowledge workers mobile search access to their corporate information repositories can be a highly visible win. How many people will actually use such applications is debatable, but nevertheless it is something we expect to become common, at least as an option in 2010.
So in summary, there is really no rocket science behind these predictions. We are big believers at CMS Watch that the future is driven by good old-fashioned user requirements, not vendor and pundit hype cycles. However, even with close observation of what is happening in the user community, predictions are tenuous and flaky. Sometimes you get the subject of the prediction right, but the timing wrong, and sometimes you just get it plain wrong. In the latter half of 2009, I worked intensively with our global clients, and the one thing I can say for sure is that the industry continues to grow. Incompetence is rampant, skills are scarce and technology solutions are a little like warm ice cream on a cold day (better in theory than in practice). In short, 2010 will not be that much different than 2009, and likely not that much different from 2011. In fact, the differences are usually slight, often irrelevant, but occasionally profound.
We hope that our predictions are somewhat a reflection of the reality we face today. In some cases, they may be more like goals and aspirations than actual predictions, but we throw them out partly for a bit of end-of-year fun, but also in the hope that they help guide debate in the right direction—a direction that leads back to the needs and desires of those who are impacted by information technology, rather than those who simply wish to sell it.
Here is the link to the CMS Watch’s predictions for 2010: cmswatch.com/Trends/1760-2010-Technology-Predictions
Source: - http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/Editorial/Feature/e2809cContente2809d-technology-predictions-for-2010-60765.aspx
First, a little background: CMS Watch has a tradition (four years is long enough to establish tradition in the Internet age, I believe) of publishing a top-10 list of predictions concerning what we might broadly consider the “content” technology sector. So for content technology, think enterprise content management (ECM), knowledge management (KM), Web content management (WCM), search, etc. As it so happens, our top 10 consists of 12 predictions, and nobody here seems to have the slightest idea why, but, hey, that’s tradition for you! The predictions themselves have usually generated a fairly large amount of debate so by the time you read this, it is quite possible you might have already seen the list. With that in mind, I shall not do you the disservice of simply republishing the entire list; rather, I thought I would take three of the predictions and dive into them a little deeper, share with you the thought process that led there and open them up for further consideration.
One last thing before diving in: I want to be clear that these predictions are the work of the entire analyst team at CMS Watch and not just mine. After many weeks of arguing, sulking and insulting one another, we came grudgingly to an agreed set of predictions. If you like, though, you can consider the more likely ones to be mine and the wilder ones to be the work of my colleagues. So without further delay, let’s look a little deeper at a few predictions.
Internal and external social and collaboration technologies will diverge.
Many collaboration and social networking vendors are struggling to support internal (behind the firewall) and external community scenarios off the same codebase. In 2010, most will give up the struggle and acknowledge that those business scenarios have fundamentally diverged. We will see more separate offerings from the same vendor, with increasingly different user experiences, security models, performance goals and so on. At the same time, vendors will add and promote integration hooks as more customers seek to “move” discussions and collaboration across enterprise boundaries.That particular prediction was one we could have made and postdated a few years ago when social media/Web 2.0/networking first emerged. The reality is that supporting and managing social interactions in a public environment is a very different thing from doing so within the walls of the enterprise. As any KM pro knows, the dynamics of interaction between a closed and controlled culture vs. an essentially anarchic one are dissimilar. Bottom line, we have been waiting for this one to happen.
Multilingual requirements will rise to the fore.
Many firms are now recognizing the need to localize applications and content across cultural and geographic boundaries. Though the technology has been around for a while to enable that, a mindset shift is propelling the requirement forward. For some firms, it is the perceived or actual threat of competition from countries such as India and China. For others, it is the recognition that employees and partners operate more effectively in their native language rather than using English as a second language. For still others, it is the potential to sell outside of the saturated English language market. Many collaboration and social computing vendors in particular will get caught flat-footed in their assumption that application interfaces need only support English.Of all the trends I have observed in 2009, that is the strongest by far. Put simply, the need and desire to support and develop multilingual Web sites, in tandem with the growth in managing multilingual enterprise content (sometimes to support needs such as English/Spanish, Spanish/French, sometimes to integrate foreign acquisitions) are widespread. The fact is the world has thrown off the idea of English being a universal language. The Internet era, rather than push us toward the goal of English as the lingua franca, has given us the tools to revitalize and re-recognize native tongues. (See related article, “Finding Your Language Wallah,” on page 1.) I think that is a good thing, but for KM professionals it opens a whole new set of challenges. Certainly our experience working with global organizations suggests that KM is very low on people’s priorities. Simply getting their head around managing multilingual versions of the same content and the horrors of localization are dominating the agenda.
Mobile will come of age for document management and enterprise search.
Does your ECM package come with its own mobile app store? In 2010, it might. Smarter phones, more bandwidth and an increasingly mobile workplace will push the traditionally more staid document management and search vendors to develop richer mobile interfaces. Meanwhile, major enterprises (and vendors) will need to adapt their search and information access strategies in the face of mobile application search, with a new emphasis on precision over recall, and a fresh look at faceted results.Of course, nobody wants to check in a hundred documents on his or her iPhone, but surely in this day and age, information access should be independent of device. And although that reasonable expectation may be difficult to fulfill for an array of technical reasons, workers are using mobile devices such as smartphones and PDAs far more pervasively then they ever have in the past. Vendors are getting wise to that, so giving knowledge workers mobile search access to their corporate information repositories can be a highly visible win. How many people will actually use such applications is debatable, but nevertheless it is something we expect to become common, at least as an option in 2010.
So in summary, there is really no rocket science behind these predictions. We are big believers at CMS Watch that the future is driven by good old-fashioned user requirements, not vendor and pundit hype cycles. However, even with close observation of what is happening in the user community, predictions are tenuous and flaky. Sometimes you get the subject of the prediction right, but the timing wrong, and sometimes you just get it plain wrong. In the latter half of 2009, I worked intensively with our global clients, and the one thing I can say for sure is that the industry continues to grow. Incompetence is rampant, skills are scarce and technology solutions are a little like warm ice cream on a cold day (better in theory than in practice). In short, 2010 will not be that much different than 2009, and likely not that much different from 2011. In fact, the differences are usually slight, often irrelevant, but occasionally profound.
We hope that our predictions are somewhat a reflection of the reality we face today. In some cases, they may be more like goals and aspirations than actual predictions, but we throw them out partly for a bit of end-of-year fun, but also in the hope that they help guide debate in the right direction—a direction that leads back to the needs and desires of those who are impacted by information technology, rather than those who simply wish to sell it.
Here is the link to the CMS Watch’s predictions for 2010: cmswatch.com/Trends/1760-2010-Technology-Predictions
Source: - http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/Editorial/Feature/e2809cContente2809d-technology-predictions-for-2010-60765.aspx
Sunday, January 31, 2010
6 Ways Document Management and Records Management Differ
With the growing importance of compliance and eDiscovery issues for many companies, it might be time to consider deploying a records management system. Chances are that your company already uses some kind of document management system. The question is, will your document management system also support records management?
At the core of this question is what is the differences between document management and records management. Let's examine six differences.
1. Documents v Records
What are documents?
Documents consist of information or data that can be structured or unstructured and accessed by people in an organization.
What are records?
Records provide evidence of the activities of a given organization’s functioning and policies. Records often have strict compliance requirements regarding their retention, access and destruction, and generally have to be kept unchanged. There are often very stiff penalties for not doing so.
By some estimates, and depending on the company, 90% or more of all documents are records (meaning a portion of them are not!). Conversely, all records are documents.
2. DMS v RMS
Document Management Software (DMS)
Document management software was developed to make it easier for users with a shared purpose, usually within an enterprise, to access and manage documents. Another important ability is that it also allows them collaborate on those documents.
Common access to the documents is enabled by existence of a library and/or a repository within the system.
Records Management Software (RMS)
RMS software is more concerned with identifying, storing, maintaining and managing data that is used to describe events in an organization’s work cycle that are related to statutory, regulatory, fiscal or operational activities within the organization.
Unlike document management systems, record management repositories are generally focused on keeping only what is necessary for a specified length of time.
3. Storage
One of the critical differences between document and records management relates to the reason and approach each takes to storing documents.
Document Management And Storage
The principal reason for storing the documents in a document management system is so users who need to access the information stored in those documents can do so quickly and easily.
In general, these generalized electronic document repositories provide for the checking-in and out of documents that can be revised and unlocked for future revision, with version tracking and histories.
Records Management And Storage
Records management requires that records be kept in their original format in case they are needed for compliance or legal reasons.
Good records management needs to place records in their proper context so that generally they are kept in series, or in indexes determined not by internal, enterprise-dictated rules, but by external rules.
In fact, record keeping has become such an issue that in addition to on-site records storage, many organizations operate an off-site records center too.
4. Automated processes
While all companies in the regulatory or compliance zone have to spend a lot of time ensuring that their records and document management do exactly what they’re supposed to do, many of the processes involved are now automated.
Document Management
Automated processes are one of the elements that make document management attractive to companies whether that means the mass capture of documents and placement of that information in the repository, or its placement in a records management system.
In fact, automated process are a core function of these systems controlling the document’s life cycle, security access controls and other key features like version control and short-term storage.
These processes automate workflows so that the right actions are carried out on the right documents by the right people at the right time.
Records Management
Records management uses automated processes to manage records in a consistent manner no matter what format those records happen to be in.
Electronic record keeping systems must be able to preserve not only the content of those records, but also the context and structure they came from and often for long period of times. The final records should be auditable in their original form long after they have been put in the records repository.
5. Security
There is no getting away from the security and integrity of documents in either system. The difference between the two, though, is that with document management software security is desirable, with records management essential.
Document Management
With document management, security has to be placed in the context of document accessibility for users. Authorized users have to have quick access to information with comprehensive document management security controlling access to the repository.
While all systems will have means of tracking who has been using a document, when it was checked it out and when they put it back in the repository, and any changes that were made to the document — including new versions — the security standards are not necessarily as stringent as those required for keeping records.
Records Management
At the moment, the standard to which records security and records security within records management software is judged is the US Department of Defense 5015.2 regulations.
If a system is compliant with the DoD 5015.2 standard or equivalent it sets the standard for management of records that will be eventually transferred to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
These include government personnel records, manuals, standards, directives and documents that are scheduled for declassification or redacted items. In Europe, MoReq 2 is the standard applied across the entire EU as a standard.
6. Disposal
Document Management
The disposal of documents in a document management system occurs when the life cycle of the document has been complete and is no longer needed in the business process. While this can mean destruction it can also means turning them into records.
The decision to turn a document into a record depends on the need of the company and whether there are legal requirements to hold onto the documents.
Records Management
The destruction of records is generally regulated by law with strict procedures so that the information contained in them will not be disclosed. Records management software plays a significant role in this by implementing retention and destruction schedules that are compliant with regulations.
However, with public bodies, the records will not be physically destroyed, but converted into a format that is acceptable to U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), or National Archives of the country you reside in.
Final Thoughts
Document management software was created to make it easier to use store, manage and collaborate on electronic information. Records management software was designed to manage the life cycle of records so that organizations can easily comply with regulations and support the eDiscovery process.
It's very likely that you require both document and records management capabilities within your organization. Depending on your needs, a document management system may be able to support most of your requirements. Understanding the difference between document and records management and the software that supports each, should help you decide your next steps.
Source: - http://www.cmswire.com/cms/document-management/6-ways-document-management-and-records-management-differ-006454.php
At the core of this question is what is the differences between document management and records management. Let's examine six differences.
1. Documents v Records
What are documents?
Documents consist of information or data that can be structured or unstructured and accessed by people in an organization.
What are records?
Records provide evidence of the activities of a given organization’s functioning and policies. Records often have strict compliance requirements regarding their retention, access and destruction, and generally have to be kept unchanged. There are often very stiff penalties for not doing so.
By some estimates, and depending on the company, 90% or more of all documents are records (meaning a portion of them are not!). Conversely, all records are documents.
2. DMS v RMS
Document Management Software (DMS)
Document management software was developed to make it easier for users with a shared purpose, usually within an enterprise, to access and manage documents. Another important ability is that it also allows them collaborate on those documents.
Common access to the documents is enabled by existence of a library and/or a repository within the system.
Records Management Software (RMS)
RMS software is more concerned with identifying, storing, maintaining and managing data that is used to describe events in an organization’s work cycle that are related to statutory, regulatory, fiscal or operational activities within the organization.
Unlike document management systems, record management repositories are generally focused on keeping only what is necessary for a specified length of time.
3. Storage
One of the critical differences between document and records management relates to the reason and approach each takes to storing documents.
Document Management And Storage
The principal reason for storing the documents in a document management system is so users who need to access the information stored in those documents can do so quickly and easily.
In general, these generalized electronic document repositories provide for the checking-in and out of documents that can be revised and unlocked for future revision, with version tracking and histories.
Records Management And Storage
Records management requires that records be kept in their original format in case they are needed for compliance or legal reasons.
Good records management needs to place records in their proper context so that generally they are kept in series, or in indexes determined not by internal, enterprise-dictated rules, but by external rules.
In fact, record keeping has become such an issue that in addition to on-site records storage, many organizations operate an off-site records center too.
4. Automated processes
While all companies in the regulatory or compliance zone have to spend a lot of time ensuring that their records and document management do exactly what they’re supposed to do, many of the processes involved are now automated.
Document Management
Automated processes are one of the elements that make document management attractive to companies whether that means the mass capture of documents and placement of that information in the repository, or its placement in a records management system.
In fact, automated process are a core function of these systems controlling the document’s life cycle, security access controls and other key features like version control and short-term storage.
These processes automate workflows so that the right actions are carried out on the right documents by the right people at the right time.
Records Management
Records management uses automated processes to manage records in a consistent manner no matter what format those records happen to be in.
Electronic record keeping systems must be able to preserve not only the content of those records, but also the context and structure they came from and often for long period of times. The final records should be auditable in their original form long after they have been put in the records repository.
5. Security
There is no getting away from the security and integrity of documents in either system. The difference between the two, though, is that with document management software security is desirable, with records management essential.
Document Management
With document management, security has to be placed in the context of document accessibility for users. Authorized users have to have quick access to information with comprehensive document management security controlling access to the repository.
While all systems will have means of tracking who has been using a document, when it was checked it out and when they put it back in the repository, and any changes that were made to the document — including new versions — the security standards are not necessarily as stringent as those required for keeping records.
Records Management
At the moment, the standard to which records security and records security within records management software is judged is the US Department of Defense 5015.2 regulations.
If a system is compliant with the DoD 5015.2 standard or equivalent it sets the standard for management of records that will be eventually transferred to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
These include government personnel records, manuals, standards, directives and documents that are scheduled for declassification or redacted items. In Europe, MoReq 2 is the standard applied across the entire EU as a standard.
6. Disposal
Document Management
The disposal of documents in a document management system occurs when the life cycle of the document has been complete and is no longer needed in the business process. While this can mean destruction it can also means turning them into records.
The decision to turn a document into a record depends on the need of the company and whether there are legal requirements to hold onto the documents.
Records Management
The destruction of records is generally regulated by law with strict procedures so that the information contained in them will not be disclosed. Records management software plays a significant role in this by implementing retention and destruction schedules that are compliant with regulations.
However, with public bodies, the records will not be physically destroyed, but converted into a format that is acceptable to U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), or National Archives of the country you reside in.
Final Thoughts
Document management software was created to make it easier to use store, manage and collaborate on electronic information. Records management software was designed to manage the life cycle of records so that organizations can easily comply with regulations and support the eDiscovery process.
It's very likely that you require both document and records management capabilities within your organization. Depending on your needs, a document management system may be able to support most of your requirements. Understanding the difference between document and records management and the software that supports each, should help you decide your next steps.
Source: - http://www.cmswire.com/cms/document-management/6-ways-document-management-and-records-management-differ-006454.php
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Document management is one of the top ten technology priorities for CIOs in 2010 says Gartner
Document management and data storage is one of the top ten technology strategies for CIOs in 2010, says analyst Gartner.
A Gartner survey of 1,600 CIOs around the world reveals the top ten business and technology strategies for the CIO this year, with cloud computing and virtualisation heading the technology priorities.
The analyst says IT budgets will essentially be flat in 2010, increasing by a weighted global average of 1.3%, when compared with 2009 levels when IT budgets declined 8.1%. Gartner said this year CIOs are basically working with the same level of resources as they were in 2005.
“Last year was the most challenging year for CIOs in the corporate and public sectors as they faced multiple budget cuts, delayed spending and increased demand for services with reduced resources,” said Gartner analyst Mark McDonald. “This is set to change in 2010, as the economy turns from recession to recovery and enterprises transition their strategies from cost-cutting efficiency to value-creating productivity.”
McDonald said that while technologies are transitioning from “heavy” owner-operated solutions to “lighter-weight” services (like cloud computing), CIOs are, in turn, transitioning IT beyond merely managing resources to taking responsibility for managing results.
“Transition gives the enterprise and IT the opportunity to reposition themselves and exploit the tough corrective actions taken during the recession,” he said.
Gartner's Top 10 Business and Technology Priorities in 2010
Top 10 Business Priorities Ranking
1. Business process improvement
2. Reducing enterprise costs
3. Increasing the use of information/analytics
4. Improving enterprise workforce effectiveness
5. Attracting and retaining new customers
6. Managing change initiatives
7. Creating new products or services (innovation)
8. Targeting customers and markets more effectively
9. Consolidating business operations
10. Expanding current customer relationships
Top 10 Technology Priorities Ranking
1. Virtualisation
2. Cloud computing
3. Web 2.0
4. Networking, voice and data communications
5. Business Intelligence
6. Mobile technologies
7. Data/document management and storage
8. Service-oriented applications and architecture
9. Security technologies
10. IT Management
Source: - http://www.documentmanagementnews.com/the-news/general-news/41-general-news/330-document-management-is-one-of-the-top-ten-technology-priorities-for-cios-in-2010-says-gartner.html
A Gartner survey of 1,600 CIOs around the world reveals the top ten business and technology strategies for the CIO this year, with cloud computing and virtualisation heading the technology priorities.
The analyst says IT budgets will essentially be flat in 2010, increasing by a weighted global average of 1.3%, when compared with 2009 levels when IT budgets declined 8.1%. Gartner said this year CIOs are basically working with the same level of resources as they were in 2005.
“Last year was the most challenging year for CIOs in the corporate and public sectors as they faced multiple budget cuts, delayed spending and increased demand for services with reduced resources,” said Gartner analyst Mark McDonald. “This is set to change in 2010, as the economy turns from recession to recovery and enterprises transition their strategies from cost-cutting efficiency to value-creating productivity.”
McDonald said that while technologies are transitioning from “heavy” owner-operated solutions to “lighter-weight” services (like cloud computing), CIOs are, in turn, transitioning IT beyond merely managing resources to taking responsibility for managing results.
“Transition gives the enterprise and IT the opportunity to reposition themselves and exploit the tough corrective actions taken during the recession,” he said.
Gartner's Top 10 Business and Technology Priorities in 2010
Top 10 Business Priorities Ranking
1. Business process improvement
2. Reducing enterprise costs
3. Increasing the use of information/analytics
4. Improving enterprise workforce effectiveness
5. Attracting and retaining new customers
6. Managing change initiatives
7. Creating new products or services (innovation)
8. Targeting customers and markets more effectively
9. Consolidating business operations
10. Expanding current customer relationships
Top 10 Technology Priorities Ranking
1. Virtualisation
2. Cloud computing
3. Web 2.0
4. Networking, voice and data communications
5. Business Intelligence
6. Mobile technologies
7. Data/document management and storage
8. Service-oriented applications and architecture
9. Security technologies
10. IT Management
Source: - http://www.documentmanagementnews.com/the-news/general-news/41-general-news/330-document-management-is-one-of-the-top-ten-technology-priorities-for-cios-in-2010-says-gartner.html
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Businesses wasting time looking for documents?
You probably can't read too much into a survey of just 60 "information governance professionals", if only because a majority of Australian businesses are unlikely to employ that kind of specialist.
After all, the most recent figures provided by the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research state that 96 percent of all Australian businesses are small businesses, ie those with fewer than 20 employees.
So a study where only one-third of respondents work in organisations with fewer than 200 employees is hardly representative.
It seems plausible that very small businesses are likely to to a better job of document management, if only because just one or two people are likely to be responsible for storing and using the business documents and therefore can keep track of them relatively easily.
As more people get involved, there are more opportunities for documents to go astray.
Despite my implied criticism, that's actually consistent with the results of a recent survey of information governance professionals conducted for EMC Australia.
The headline finding was that Australian businesses spend more than 20 hours per week on average looking for difficult-to-find records, and that mid-sized organisations spend almost twice this amount of time.
Presumably small businesses probably don't have so much of a problem in the first place as they have fewer documents to manage and fewer people to misplace them, while larger businesses can afford to employ specialist staff and the systems needed to keep things under control.
But Hydrasight, the company that analysed the results [corrected 19/01/10] for EMC, thinks respondents are likely to be underestimating the effort needed to locate difficult-to-find or misplaced records inside their own organisations because they have a narrow view of business records and are confident of their own classification and retrieval capabilities.
Furthermore, John Brand, Research Director at Hydrasight, said "organisations may also be underestimating the potential impact that remote and mobile computing may be having on their information governance policies and practices."
Even though more than 50% of documents are created or saved electronically by the organisations surveyed, only 10% of respondents were very confident that documents related to commitments and obligations made by themselves and their staff were recorded, complete and retrievable.
Source: - http://www.itwire.com/content/view/30548/1151/
After all, the most recent figures provided by the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research state that 96 percent of all Australian businesses are small businesses, ie those with fewer than 20 employees.
So a study where only one-third of respondents work in organisations with fewer than 200 employees is hardly representative.
It seems plausible that very small businesses are likely to to a better job of document management, if only because just one or two people are likely to be responsible for storing and using the business documents and therefore can keep track of them relatively easily.
As more people get involved, there are more opportunities for documents to go astray.
Despite my implied criticism, that's actually consistent with the results of a recent survey of information governance professionals conducted for EMC Australia.
The headline finding was that Australian businesses spend more than 20 hours per week on average looking for difficult-to-find records, and that mid-sized organisations spend almost twice this amount of time.
Presumably small businesses probably don't have so much of a problem in the first place as they have fewer documents to manage and fewer people to misplace them, while larger businesses can afford to employ specialist staff and the systems needed to keep things under control.
But Hydrasight, the company that analysed the results [corrected 19/01/10] for EMC, thinks respondents are likely to be underestimating the effort needed to locate difficult-to-find or misplaced records inside their own organisations because they have a narrow view of business records and are confident of their own classification and retrieval capabilities.
Furthermore, John Brand, Research Director at Hydrasight, said "organisations may also be underestimating the potential impact that remote and mobile computing may be having on their information governance policies and practices."
Even though more than 50% of documents are created or saved electronically by the organisations surveyed, only 10% of respondents were very confident that documents related to commitments and obligations made by themselves and their staff were recorded, complete and retrievable.
Source: - http://www.itwire.com/content/view/30548/1151/
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