Executive Edge

Tommy Petrogiannis,
Co-founder and President,
eSignLive.

Before you start building your

new classification scheme...
The Whys and Wherefores of KM

Information governance
is the new black
April-May 2017

Digital Transformation
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Digital ASIC's FOI
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When they can and can't Bad recordkeeping no
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Records Management on SharePoint: The Questions You Should Ask!

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Lexmark leaps out of enterprise software Kodak Alaris unveils Information
The quest by printer giant Lexmark to build an empire in the Capture “Ecosystem”
unstructured data world has officially ended, with the news it is
offloading the impressive portfolio of capture and ECM software Kodak Alaris has announced a series of scanner, software, and
firms it had acquired since 2010. US private investment firm service enhancements featured in the Alaris IN2 Ecosystem.
Thoma Bravo, owner of Hyland Software, has purchased the full Specifically, Kodak Capture Pro and Info Input Express Software,
suite of solutions including the Perceptive Software business, when combined with Alaris scanners, offer new, intelligent
Kofax and ReadSoft. capabilities including:
Perceptive Software will be placed under the Hyland umbrella, • Intelligent Exception Processing - ensures immediate
while Kofax will be established again as a separate entity and validation of forms so any missed information at the point of
absorb the ReadSoft business. Both Hyland and Lexmark transaction is identified and fixed, resulting in better customer
engaged in a bidding war for ReadSoft back in 2014 — a war interactions and greater potential to drive revenue.
that Hyland eventually lost. • Intelligent Barcode Reading - produces the most accurate
The Perceptive portfolio assets acquired by Hyland include data extraction results and takes complexity out of the setup
Perceptive Content (formerly ImageNow), Perceptive Capture process.
(formerly Brainware), Acuo VNA, PACSGEAR, Claron, Nolij, • Intelligent Job Select - takes advantage of specific patch code
Saperion, Pallas Athena, ISYS and Twistage. As Thoma Bravo and separator sheets to automate job switching and profiles. This
Lexmark owners (Apex Technology Co Ltd, PAG Asia Capital and enhances productivity by minimising downtime between jobs,
Legend Capital Management Co, LTD,) are private entities, the and is available immediately on the i5000 Series scanners and
amount paid for the businesses was not released. the rest of the product line later this year.
Lexmark’s Enterprise Software business lost $US88 million in The Info Input Solution portfolio also introduces an HTML5
2015, according to Lexmark's 2015 annual report (Lexmark, Client solution in addition to the current Java Script option. On
which is best known for its printers, went private in November the Services side, the Alaris IN2 Ecosystem will offer individually
2016). It generated $US534 million in revenue that year, up from configurable repair and maintenance, as well as providing pro-
$US224 million in 2013 (it lost nearly $US80 million in 2013). fessional services like configuration, training and consultation.
The revenue increase was largely driven by two acquisitions: For hardware, the Kodak i4000 Series Scanners now offer the
Lexmark bought Kofax in 2015, and it acquired ReadSoft in 2014. addition of metal detection, extending this capability from the
Following those acquisitions, the Enterprise Software group top of the line i5000 Series. Detecting and preventing metal
went into cost-cutting mode, according to documents filed with such as staples or paper clips from entering the scanner reduces
the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. downtime and avoids damage to the scanner and documents.
"We're incredibly excited to be acquiring the Lexmark Enterprise The inability to efficiently capture information from paper-based
Software business as it contains some of the most advanced documents and integrate with digital workflows leads to
digital transformation technologies in the industry. The complexity and lost opportunity across organisations.
Perceptive Software business is highly complementary to “Within this challenge lies a massive opportunity to drive growth
Hyland, providing innovative technologies and vertical and efficiency,” said Rick Costanzo, President and General
expertise," said Seth Boro, a Managing Partner at Thoma Bravo. Manager, Kodak Alaris Information Management.
"We're equally thrilled to partner with Reynolds and his “Companies that master digital transformation are far better
management team under the Kofax brand as a new Thoma positioned to differentiate themselves from competitors and win
Bravo portfolio company. Their vision to digitally transform and in the marketplace.”
simplify initial customer interactions with businesses, or what Contact: [email protected] (03) 8417 8132
they term the 'First Mile,' represents an exciting opportunity
across all industries." ELO teams up with Info Proficiency
One of Australia’s most experienced Information Management
specialist organisations, Information Proficiency (part of the
Publisher/Editor Proficiency Group Pty Ltd), has formally joined ELO’s certified
Bill Dawes business partner network.
“Information Proficiency’s reputation for excellence and
efficiency precedes them” said Rainer Krause, Managing Director
Published by: of ELO Australia & New Zealand. “Needless to say that I jumped
Transmit Media Pty Ltd at the opportunity to set up a formal business partner
ABN 631 354 31659 relationship”.
PO Box 392, Paddington NSW The partnership with Information Proficiency gives ELO access
2021, Australia to an expanded capability. Following the completion of ELO
certification training Information Proficiency is now certified to
Telephone: +61 (2) 9043 2943
provide installation and professional consultancy services.
Fax: +61 (2) 8212 8985
“We’re excited at the opportunity of being able to offer ELO to
email: [email protected] new customers looking for a powerful EDRMS at an affordable
All material in Image & Data Manager is protected under the Commonwealth
price” said Dennis Strydom, Information Proficiency’s General
Copyright Act 1968. No material may be reproduced in part or whole in any Manager of Business Development.
manner whatsoever without the prior written consent of the Publisher and/
or copyright holder. Editorial contributions are welcome. All resonable efforts
“Organisations across Australia, especially SME’s are in desperate
have been made to trace copyright holders. need of a quality information management tools. Our technical
The Publisher/Editor bears no responsibility for lost or damaged material. The team rigorously tested ELO with a specific customer profile in
views expressed in Image & Data Manager are not those of the Editor. While mind and concluded that ELO enables customers to access
every care has been taken in the compilation of editorial, no responsibility important management and productivity features and realise
will be accepted by the Editor for omissions or mistakes within. The Publisher
bears no responsibility for claims made, or for information provided by the the benefits of an IM tool at a low cost entry point”
advertiser. www.elodigital.com.au, www.infoproficiency.com.au

Image & Data Manager | 1

Melbourne University pilots blockchain tional step in Australia’s digital business movement to a streamlined,
integrated and productive economy, and is an exciting step forward
for student records especially for the small business community. The Council is
The University of Melbourne is to join forces with Learning Machine, especially pleased to see Government at the forefront of digital
a US-based company associated with the Massachusetts Institute of transformation.”
Technology (MIT) Media Lab, to pilot a blockchain based John Delaney, co-founder and Managing Director of Australian-
micro-credentialing system. It will enable employers to verify those developed cloud integration service MessageXchange explained,
credentials quickly. The University will be among a select group of “e-invoicing offers significant processing and payment time
universities worldwide - and the first Australian institution - to trial efficiencies over scanned or emailed invoices. Many of Australia’s
this technology. largest and most efficient supply chains already use
Pro Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning) Professor Gregor MessageXchange, which currently processes more than 100 million
Kennedy said the system will be trialled in an internal professional transactions a year.”
development program run in July by the Melbourne Centre for the “We have demonstrated that both our MessageXchange and
Study of Higher Education with a wider roll-out being considered Colladium cloud services are ready to securely handle e-invoices
for 2018. Professor Kennedy said the decision to pilot Learning using the new Australian standard. Most importantly, we have
Machine’s blockchain platform for micro-credentialing is based on demonstrated that both Government agencies and Industry will be
supporting new types of learning recognition that are increasingly able to very inexpensively and rapidly reap the benefits of e-
being demanded by students and employers in a globalised, digital invoicing.”
world. Until recently in Australia, e-invoicing and Electronic Data Inter-
“In a future where career ‘churn’ and constant technical and change (EDI) technologies have been predominantly used in the
organisational innovation are the norm, employers are looking for supply chains of large businesses, with varying standards presenting
ways to verify the know-how and skills of employees at a very barriers for small businesses. Industry standardisation of e-invoicing
granular level,” Professor Kennedy said. is likely to increase adoption, while also reducing costs and
“Similarly, students are increasingly interested in showing the complexity for all. The collaboration between the private sector and
specific skills and abilities they have acquired and developed. the Australian Government achieved through the Council has led
Micro-credentials, verified through secure, distributed platforms like to the establishment of regulation, industry standardisation and
Learning Machine’s are a means to address this.” mechanisms that instil trust in the e-invoicing framework. The new
framework is designed to reduce barriers to entry and provide a
Learning Machine’s Dr Natalie Smolenski said the underlying level playing field for all Australian businesses that wish to adopt
blockchain technology gives individuals complete control and e-invoicing.
“sovereignty” over how their achievements are represented and to
whom. It also stores their credentials in an incorruptible and www.messagexchange.com
digitally secure system. A/NZ CIOs punch above their weight in
“Anyone who needs to verify official records, such as employers, can
quickly check the validity and authenticity of each certificate. Any Digital Transformation: Gartner
attempt to change, embellish, or otherwise misrepresent a mi- CIOs in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) place a higher priority on
cro-credential represented by a certificate will cause the verification customer focus and digitalisation than their global peers, with more
to fail.” investing in digital initiatives and fewer in core systems such as ERP,
according to Gartner, Inc.’s annual CIO survey. The survey data shows
Australian government tests e-invoices that ANZ CIOs are intensifying their efforts to strengthen digital
Australian technology company, MessageXchange has announced leadership, organisation and technology capabilities this year.
the successful demonstration of end-to-end transaction between The 2017 Gartner CIO Agenda Survey gathered data from 2,598 CIO
the Australian Government and a private sector recipient using a respondents in 93 countries and all major industries, representing
new Australian e-invoicing standard. approximately US$9.4 trillion in revenue/public-sector budgets and
The Australian Government’s Department of Industry, Innovation US$292 billion in IT spending. 173 CIO respondents were from ANZ.
and Science used MessageXchange, an Australian-developed cloud The survey data shows that 49 percent of ANZ CIOs are participat-
service, to securely deliver a test e-invoice to a grant recipient. The ing in digital ecosystems as platforms to exchange information
e-invoice is claimed to be the first of its kind to be sent by an and interact electronically with competitors, customers, regulators,
Australian Government department. stakeholders and other enterprises.
The Department of Industry, Innovation and Science’s Chief According to the survey findings, ANZ CIOs expect lower IT budget
Operating Officer, Michael Schwager said “e-invoicing will deliver growth in 2017 (2 percent) than last year (2.9 percent), which is also
benefits to our suppliers, including grant recipients, but it will also behind the 2017 global average of 2.2 percent. In Asia Pacific, the
allow the department to streamline its internal accounts payable average increase expected is 4.3 percent, skewed by CIOs in both
processes. These in turn will generate efficiencies and improve the China and India reporting over 10 percent average increases in their
timeliness of payments to suppliers.” IT budgets this year. CIOs globally are reporting that they expect to
The new Australian e-invoicing standard has been created through a spend more on digitalisation in 2017, with ANZ CIOs ahead of the
collaboration between Government and Industry, led by the Digital overall average on investment and focus. ANZ CIOs exceed global
Business Council. The Council was founded in 2015 to develop, peers in their expectation of digital spend from the IT budget this
deploy and facilitate the adoption of digital standards in Australia. It year, as well as in their projections for 2018.
has been estimated that widespread adoption of e-invoicing could ANZ CIOs cite a lack of skills and resources as their biggest barrier to
save Australian businesses between $A7 billion and $A10 billion achieving their objectives as a CIO. They identified the biggest talent
each year. Members of the Council include the Australian Taxation gaps as information, analytics, data scientist and business intelli-
Office, Australian Government Department of Finance, NSW gence skills, along with their global peers. However, in ANZ the next
Government Department Finance, and the Australian Local biggest gap is digital business/digital marketing skills, while CIOs
Government Association (ALGA). Other members include industry globally cited security. The top areas of new technology investments
bodies such as the Australian Business Software Industry clearly show that significant spending and opportunity continues in
Association (ABSIA), the Australian Information Industry Association big data and analytics, and that cloud continues to have significant
(AIIA), Chartered Accounts (CA ANZ), and the Chartered Institute of momentum Digital investment is more popular among ANZ CIOs
Procurement and Supply (CIPS). (28 percent) than global peers (16 percent). Proportionally fewer
Peter Strong, CEO Council of Small Business Australia and Chair ANZ CIOs are reporting core or ERP systems to be a top technology
Digital Business Council commented, “e-invoicing is a transforma- area than their global peers.
 Information Management

Alaris IN2 Ecosystem

Take the Complexity Out of Information Capture

Why You Need an Integrated Approach to

Information Capture
Scanners

The Alaris IN2 Ecosystem

DATA INFORMATION BUSINESS

PROCESS
Solution Partners

Services Software

Alaris IN2 Ecosystem - A Winning Portfolio

The Alaris IN2 Ecosystem simplifies information A range of options to fit your information capture needs, from simple
capture with: desktop capture to specialized solutions for unique technical and
business requirements.
Proven imaging science and technology excellence: software and Expert partners ready to create and install solutions precisely
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Award-winning Scanners

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• Kodak Capture Pro Software • Professional services

• Kodak Info Input Solution • Repair and Maintenance services
• Kodak Info Input Express • Installation, Setup and Optimisation services
• Kodak Asset Management Software • Training services

Please contact:
Kodak Alaris Australia Pty. Ltd.
Toll free No: 1300 ALARIS (1300 252 747)
Email: [email protected] © 2017 Kodak Alaris Australia Pty. Ltd.
The Kodak trademark and trade dress are
www.kodakalaris.com used under license from Eastman Kodak Company.
Corrs patents legal search technology EzeScan into the cloud with TechOne
EzeScan has been providing TechnologyOne Financials users
with Invoice Processing solutions for the on-premise version of
Financials for over five years.
The company has now assured users of the cloud version of
TechnologyOne Financials that they can use the EzeScan Invoice
Capture solution for AP officers to validate and upload invoice
document files into the TechnologyOne cloud environment as an
out of the box solution.
In 2016, TechnologyOne reported another record year for its
cloud business, recording more than 100 per cent year-on-year
growth.
The growth followed the enterprise Software as a Service (SaaS)
provider’s introduction of its sixth generation TechnologyOne
Cloud, which establishes software mass production and a high
level of automation.
Australian law firm, Corrs Chambers Westgarth, has received a “SaaS finally introduces the concept of mass production to the
patent from IP Australia for a new optical character recognition software industry. Much like mass production signalled the
(OCR) analysis technology. demise of the cottage industry in manufacturing, true SaaS
The technology identifies documents with low quality solutions will replace the role of cloud hosting providers,” said
searchable text and will be used as part of a new service being TechnologyOne’s Executive Chairman Adrian Di Marco.
launched by Corrs called JustOCR. “That is why, rather than ‘lifting and shifting’ to the cloud like
JustOCR is a cloud-based OCR service that is claimed to be 50% hosting providers, we've gone down the path of integrated mass
faster than standard in-house OCR processing and 50% cheaper production through SaaS. We are proud to be one of the only
than existing OCR outsourcing options, in addition to offering enterprise software providers that offer a fully-integrated and
the newly patented analysis technology at no additional cost. configurable enterprise SaaS offering.
Standard OCR tools convert images of text into machine- “Our enterprise SaaS solution provides a compelling value
encoded, searchable text. Just OCR performs this same function proposition to our customers, giving them what is essentially a
using cloud resources to significantly reduce time and cost. The very simple, cost effective and highly scalable model of
firm says JustOCR’s real innovation, however, is in the service it computing. We take complete responsibility to provide the
includes at no extra cost - OCR analysis - which provides a quality processing power, software and services including backup,
score for each document to help users identify where the black recovery, upgrade and support services for our cloud customers.”
spots in their document collections are. (After 30 years as one of Australia’s longest serving CEOs, Tech-
“We are committed to helping our clients see around corners, nologyOne founder, Adrian Di Marco, recently handed over the
and this is exactly what JustOCR does. OCR technology was a reigns to the Australian software firm’s COO, Edward Chung.)
huge leap forward for the legal industry, particularly in litigation
cases. Our new OCR analysis feature is the next step up, US hospitals struggling with EHR
providing users with a significant strategic advantage in interoperability
ascertaining where the gaps are in their own and other parties’
document collections,” said Corrs Partner James Whittaker. As nearly every US hospital has an electronic health record
system, 41% of surveyed medical record administrators still
Corrs Head of Innovation Graeme Grovum added: “It is also a
report struggling with exchanging patient health records with
much more efficient option for users. Existing OCR services
other healthcare providers, particularly physicians not on the
typically require a choice of speed versus cost. It can usually take
same EHR platform. 25% say they are still unable to use any
a week or more to recognise 1.5 million pages and cost clients
patient information received electronically from external
anywhere between 2 to 4 cents per page. While that might not
sources. 81% of network physicians look to their core health
seem like much, the cost of outsourced OCR is prohibitive for
system EHRs to enable interoperability among integrated health-
large matters with millions of pages. JustOCR is able to OCR and
care delivery providers in order to set the stage for data-
analyse 1.5 million documents in just a few hours and at about
intensive initiatives such as population health, precision
half the price of the industry’s lowest rates.”
medicine, and value-based payment models.
JustOCR was developed by Corrs’ innovation and development
“As inpatient organisations implement optimised EHR software
team and will be available to the open market in Australia and
that uses FHIR to advance interoperability and HIE, the entire
internationally, as well as to Corrs clients. It is one of a number
provider network gains the data exchanging functionality to
of recent innovations launched by the firm, including its recent
better serve patients,” said Doug Brown, Managing Partner of
launch of Beagle Asia Pacific , a joint venture providing
Black Book Research.
companies with practical and accessible artificial intelligence
technology, and CAEL Verify , a collaborative project with Elevate “Physician groups continue to lack the financial and technical
Services to streamline the process of verifying document expertise to adopt complex EHRs which are compulsory to attain
statements prior to market release. higher reimbursements by public and private payers.”
“Our pioneering mindset ensures that as a firm we are constantly 70% of hospitals aren’t using patient information outside their
assessing the current norms and exploring whether there are EHR in Q1 2017 according to surveyed clinicians because the
better, more efficient solutions out there. We are committed to external providers' data is simply not available in their EHR
open innovation and that means bringing to market our systems' workflow.
advancements to benefit not just our clients, but the legal 22% of medical record administrators report the transferred
profession more broadly,” James Whittaker concluded. patient information was simply not presented in a useful format.
JustOCR is currently in closed beta, with Corrs soon to be 21% of hospital-based physicians polled in January 2017 state
accepting applications to trial the product from existing clients the data they view cannot be trusted for accuracy when sent
and non-clients alike. between disparate systems.
4 | Image & Data Manager
DON’T
GET
LEFT
BEHIND
45% of organisations agree
that the lack of information
governance leaves their
organisation wide open to
litigation and data protection
risks. - AIIM, March 2017

Contact Toshiba to let us show you

how we can optimise your business
processes, enforce governance and
secure your senstive data.

1300 794 202

www.toshiba-business.com.au
BCE takes the pain and paper-
handling out of payroll processing
The headaches of handling paper forms and records “Many of the individual employee files had grown over tens of
can quickly add up when managing payroll for an years when different policies and records management pro-
organisation with more than 11,500 employees. A cedures were followed, so content within records often held
surprises,” said Lord.
successful backscanning and digitisation project at
Brisbane Catholic Education (BCE) has removed a lot of “By configuring direct connectivity from OPEX to PSIcapture and
PSIcapture to BCE’s SharePoint libraries environment it gave us
the pain from payroll administration.
end to end automation and created efficiencies which would not
The BCE Head Office in Brisbane is responsible for a vast have been otherwise possible. Using PSIcapture not only was the
education network including over 139 school communities and upload of the data and documents automated and seamless we
over 72,000 students from primary to secondary. When it came were able to dynamically create folders and metadata columns
time for a renovation of the head office the inordinate amount for each employee record and use BCE’s Folder and document
of floorspace required in storing more than 500 boxes of paper content types that were already available in BCE’s SharePoint
personnel records was viewed as an obstacle. environment.
Brisbane solution provider Avantix came
up with a proposal to bulk scan the
records into BCE’s SharePoint repository.
This included optical character recog-
nition (OCR) to allow for indexing and
instant search.
BCE’s SharePoint environment is the
second largest in the southern
hemisphere and provides an intranet for
more than 250,000 users including, staff
and students.
The wide range of documentation
required by the payroll department
such as leave requests, contracts of
employment, certifications, allowances,
etc. would typically arrive in paper form
for manual processing into BCE’s payroll
application, Ascender Pay.
As a state educational institution, it
is required to retain such records for
varying periods ranging from 7 years
from date of last action to 85 years from
date of birth.
BCE’s SharePoint deployment provided
the ability for individual records to be scanned and uploaded, “With end to end automation being a key component of
with a template form to allow relevant metadata to be added meeting the deliverables, the connectivity between OPEX and
individually. However, there was no ability to undertake bulk PSI capture was very important to us.
ingestion of thousands of individual files. "From scan - data capture - QC and exception handling - i
Avantix CEO Duncan Lord, said, “We were able to come up with ngestion into SharePoint was automated in a single workflow
a compelling solution for BCE utilising the PSIGEN PSIcapture platform for maximum efficiency and consistency across large
capture platform.” volumes of images and data.”
“This required us to work closely with the business unit, records As these were live personnel records, overall project timeframe
management and IT to ensure a successful implementation.” and accessibility to records during to project was critical. For
To complete the backscanning project, Avantix provided bureau emergency retrievals during the backscanning project, indi-
services accomplished with two OPEX Falcon mixed document vidual employee files were able to be located and uploaded to
capture workstations. SharePoint within 2 hours.
The project needed scanners that could handle mixed-media as “The project went very smoothly and provided a great result for
well as capture. BCE. They now have secure digital records that are searchable,”
Falcon is a one-touch document scanning workstation that said Lord.
allows operators to scan a broad range of document sizes and After the backscanning project was completed in January 2017,
formats with minimal labour, which makes it easy to prepare a complete catalogue of the contents of the 500+ boxes of his-
the documents for imaging. Each page is evaluated for image torical records was supplied to be barcoded and linked to BCE’s
quality, correct order, and orientation as the documents are long term storage suppliers retrieval system.
processed. Each employee’s historic record is stored as a single multi-page
As part of the scanning workflow, a data extract was received PDF/A file in their individual folder in SharePoint.
from BCE’s payroll system to validate and populate employee The payroll office has now implemented day forward scanning
numbers, first names and surnames to ensure uniformity across of new records utilising a Kodak alaris i4200 scanner and Kodak
their software systems. Capture Pro software.

6 | Image & Data Manager

Is RPA a Magic Pill ?
By Shashank Singh management dashboard starts to look great. This is a journey.
A couple of weeks back, I was interacting with few Let me iterate by giving example in the Insurance industry.
operations executives from health insurance, auto Insurers face multiple challenges – namely, manual data entry
insurance and specialty insurance companies. It was from multiple data sources, inter-department process
handshakes are fairly manual, back-end legacy platforms and
a nice cozy evening and the discussion topic was the
ever-increasing need for tighter regulations. Insurers play a
new buzzword in town “Robotic Process balancing act of moving their investments into the digital
Automation” aka RPA. People have different names to journey (customer experience), compliance with regulatory
it also – Intelligent Automation, Bot Automation and frameworks and persistence management. In this scenario,
probably few less known ones. process automation may not be a top priority.  
The general perception was that it’s a magic pill – some godly The reason I describe it as a journey is because it is the RPA tool
programmed software which can eradicate all the pain problems may help to automate repetitive long-drawn processes, but in
of the operations floor – mundane repetitive tasks, boring parallel, processes must be optimised to achieve better RPA
processes, cross-department bottlenecks, longer turnaround results. The RPA tool will not optimise the process – it just
time, high operations cost. After chewing this magic pill, all will automates. If certain process takes few hours manually, RPA tool
look extremely good from the KPI perspective. can bring down to minutes, but it will not streamline the process
Before we jump to assess whether it’s a magic pill or not; let’s or process dependency.
understand what is RPA? Within the Insurance operations realm, RPA is classic fit around
One definition says “RPA is a sophisticated compilation of customer on-boarding (new business), where tons of data entry
software programs which are intelligently written to capture happens, proposal tagging, OCR checks, policy service
and interpret existing applications for processing a transaction, (address update, etc.), letter generation, claims assessment,
manipulating data and triggering responses.” claims processing, complaints tagging, automated email
response and operations reporting,  
I think, it’s drawing too long a bow to compare RPA with
Robotics as there is limited resemblance with no artificial In conclusion, RPA may not be a magic pill but it definitely
intelligence (AI), neural networks or deep learning capabilities offers a welcome change to the arduous and manual operations
embedded. A better descriptor would be Intelligent Process department. For a soft- landing it is essential to have a pre-RPA
Automation (IPA) or Sophisticated Macros (SM) as the set of stage, where individual and inter-linked processes are reviewed
programs that intelligently mimic human interaction (not in detail and are optimised to remove insufficient grids, sub-pro-
behaviour) for managing a specific process and runs in a cesses or tasks or data points. For example, if a certain operation
controlled environment for best results. report has 20 data elements which are pulled from 5 different
data sources, can the report be further optimised (Minimal Via-
A few years back, there was similar excitement about Business ble Outcome) so that it has 10 data elements pulled from 2 dif-
Process Management (BPM) tools promising better ROI on ferent sources. This way, when the RPA program is configured to
operational dollars invested, but these had their own limitations. pull the data – it’s giving optimised result in a shorter time frame.
In today’s world, RPA tools are much leaner, meaner, intelligent
and optimally priced to give next level of process automation. Executives should be aware that process automation requires
process optimisation, both are
It’s not well-understood that to take the RPA ride, you must two great ingredients of a magic
meet specific minimum requirements – a basic rule of thumb is pill. The overall objective can’t be
to focus on repetitive tasks where programs can be configured achieved if we don’t use both the
to mimic.  This can safely cover processes around finance ops, ingredients. We have to do our bit
procurement, customer on-boarding, operations, supply chain before software can do it’s own.
management, accounting, customer service, infrastructure
monitoring, and much more. Shashank Singh is a
Singapore-based Digital
Is it a Magic Pill? The simple answer is NO. Consultant specialising in
This is not a magic pill where software will be installed for the Technology and Transformation
operations floor and all the amber/red lights will turn green and Management.

Workflow Improve Securely Work Wherever

from the Cloud Business Efficiency Manage Records and Whenever

Image & Data Manager | 7

ANZ improves security with Nuance this personal information to the individuals involved,’ Mr Fricker
said.
voice biometrics ‘The Information Management Standard sets a firm foundation
for agencies so they can plan for, conduct and monitor their
information management practices. The standard also provides a
basis for agencies and the Archives to review their performance.’
The National Archives’ expectations for creation and
management of Australian Government business information
are clarified in the standard and embrace the opportunities
offered by an increasingly digital government environment.
‘Information can be created anywhere, anytime and through a
variety of means including social media and email,’ Mr Fricker
said.
‘With that in mind this standard outlines the need for business
information to be created, kept and managed appropriately,
and to ensure key government deliberations and decisions are
documented to support robust advice, sound business process
and open and accountable government.’
The standard is consistent with the International Standard ISO
ANZ has announced it will be the first Australian bank to 15489 (2016) on Records Management and offers a practical
introduce voice biometrics to improve security on mobile approach to maximising the business benefits of well-managed
devices to allow higher value transactions. information in the Australian Government. It applies to both
From the middle of this year, customers transferring more than digital and analogue information and aligns with the National
$1000 through ANZ’s mobile apps will be able to use their voice Archives’ Digital Continuity 2020 Policy.
to automatically authorise high value payments. ‘Some digital information created today will be of national
Previously customers needed to use internet banking or visit a significance and preserved as part of the National Archives’
branch to complete transactions more than $1000. collection. In issuing this standard, the Archives is ensuring that
valuable business information is created and can be preserved
Managing Director Customer Experience and Digital Channels, and made available into the future for the benefit of all
Peter Dalton said: “One of the key challenges today for banking Australians,’ Mr Fricker said.
as the world becomes more digital is making it easier for
customers to do what they want to do in a safe and secure way. http://www.naa.gov.au/information-management/informa-
tion-management-standard/index.aspx
“Voice biometrics is the next step in making banking more
convenient for our customers while also strengthening security. Pacesetter Services & Information
“A person’s voice has five to ten times as many security points
than other methods such as fingerprints so we know this will Proficiency Team up for Local Govt
improve security and be welcomed by our customers. The Pacesetter Services has partnered with solution provider
technology is now so advanced that it can tell the difference Information Proficiency to offer a range of services and
between identical twins or even a voice recording. solutions for Local Government. Pacesetter Services are experts
“We also know that people are becoming more comfortable with in the Authority Enterprise Suite and Information Proficiency are
using their voice to do basic commands on their devices, so we specialists in Information Management and EDRMS.
see this is a natural extension of current technology and we are Richard Love, Managing Director of Pacesetter Services declares
expecting this to be a popular enhancement of our mobile apps,” “We know from experience that it is quite common for
Mr Dalton said. councils to have problems with integration and workflow
ANZ has been working closely with world-leading voiceprint between Authority and TRIM. We also know it is often a
and biometrics company Nuance to bring this new technology challenge to get problems resolved when having to deal with
to Australian customers. A pilot will begin with ANZ staff and multiple providers. As a result we looked for a partner that had
select customers in May using the Grow by ANZ mobile app. The complimentary skills and services to address this.”
service will then be rolled out to ANZ goMoney and other digital Lisa Read White, Managing Director of Information Proficiency
services progressively. added, “Pacesetter are experts with the Authority suite and Infor-
mation Proficiency has the specialist knowledge to wrap around
NAA sets standard for government IM that capability to design and implement good
The National Archives of Australia has launched a new Australian Information Management. We have been working with
Government standard to help manage the government’s Pacesetter to upgrade systems, improve and optimise existing
growing business information. installations, migrate unmanaged Authority data and refine
processes for Local Governments across Australia.”
The new Information Management Standard outlines principles
to help agencies meet business, government and community The Pacesetter and IP team will offer services including:
needs in relation to how information is managed across the Implementing and Optimising HPE TRIM, Records Manager,
sector. Content Manager, Control Point and other products.; HPE TRIM
and RM upgrade; •Extension solutions such as picture add-ins,
The National Archives will review how agencies are performing
document templates, and more; Corporate System Integration &
against the Standard as part of its regular survey and
MS SharePoint Integration
evaluation of the Australian Government information
management environment Contact details for both organisations are:
‘Recent government inquiries including into the Home Lisa Read White, Managing Director, Information Proficiency
Insulation Program and Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Phone: 08 6230 2213, [email protected]
Abuse have highlighted the need to keep evidence of Richard Love, Managing Director, Pacesetter Services
government decisions and interactions, and the importance of
Phone: 0466 786 856, [email protected]
8 | Image & Data Manager
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Records Management on SharePoint:
The Questions You Should Ask!
By Noel Williams But you do not have to have a Records Center to have records
– you can have records declared in place within document
libraries. What if those operational document libraries are not
I think by now there is a good level of awareness deleted after the operation is completed, but retained until all
that Microsoft SharePoint has records management their in-place records have reached their expiration dates? In
functionality, but the general view that I often hear that case we can answer YES to Key Question B, above.
expressed is that this SharePoint RM capability is light- This approach has the advantage of reduced effort – there is no
weight compared to traditional RM solutions. need to move the records to a Records Center, because they can
My own view is that SharePoint’s RM capability can be a good remain where they were saved during the operational phase.
answer for the real needs of many organisations, especially when
SharePoint is front-ended by a tool that provides an improved Is the Records Store Going to Contain
user experience – like MacroView DMF. The problem is that All Relevant Documents and Emails?
people are asking the wrong questions!
Another way of asking how to ensure user adoption, which is a
Here’s an example of such a question: “Is SharePoint RM certified
significant issue for any electronic Records Management
to comply with Standard XYZ?”. That’s a question that must
solution. Unless the users go to the trouble of declaring each
be asked and answered positively in some highly regulated
and every relevant document and email, the records store will
industries and market sectors. But for most organisations the
not be complete.
questions that should be asked about any electronic records
management solution are: How to know which documents and emails will ultimately be
relevant? Will at least one of the recipients of a vital email
A. Is the Records Store going to contain all the relevant
declare that email as a record?
documents and emails?
My view is that the best way to handle this is to make it so easy
B. Will those recorded documents and emails be retained and
to save documents and emails that users are happy to save all
protected from alteration for the appropriate period?
but their personal documents and emails in the store, so that
C. Will it be easy to find a recorded document or email should all of them can be retained as records. When later we need to
the need arise?
Let’s see how by combining SharePoint with MacroView DMF
you can create an electronic records management solution that
does provide good answers to these key questions.

Do You Need a Records Center to Have

Records in SharePoint?
Firstly, we need to clear up a commonly held misconception
about SharePoint records management solutions – which is that
you need to use a Records Center.
In a Records Center, metadata attributes are recorded in such a
way that every document in the Center can potentially have a
different set of metadata columns. That makes a Records Center
a handy repository for documents and emails that need to be
retained after the document libraries in which they were
originally saved no longer exist – typically because the library To declare a document or email in SharePoint as an in-place
was created to support an operational activity – e.g. a record you right-click it in a MacroView file list and choose the
transaction, a project or a matter – that is now completed. Compliance option. Declared records in a file list are highlighted
in a user-definable colour.
10 | Image & Data Manager
 Will it be easy to find a recorded docu-
ment or email should the need arise?
As noted above, the general answer here is to utilise the power
of the SharePoint Search engine to find records when they are
needed. And the key to making those searches effective is to be
able to use both content AND metadata.
MacroView Message and MacroView DMF support all the types
of metadata that you can have in SharePoint and they enable
extensive automatic metadata capture. In part that automatic
capture is thanks to the way MacroView automatically choos-
es an Email content type and automatically records all the
non-personal attributes of an email as metadata. But another
important reason why MacroView can do so much automatic
To save an email and have it declared as a record, you drag and metadata capture is the way it displays a complete and accurate
drop to the MacroView pane on the right of Outlook, rather than tree-view of the structure of a SharePoint document store –
to the Mail Folders pane on the left. essentially MacroView enables SharePoint designs which are
good for automatic metadata capture.
find a particular record we rely on an effective search (see more MacroView Message and MacroView DMF are also very
below). This make-it-so-easy-that-everything-gets-saved- business-user-friendly when it comes time to search for
as-a-record approach removes the effort and risk associated documents and emails in SharePoint, including those that have
with deciding which electronic documents are worth keeping. been declared as records. With MacroView you can search
How to make saving easy and attractive? That’s where based on content AND metadata to while you work in
MacroView Message and MacroView DMF come in. These tools applications that are familiar to business users – such as
provide a business-user-friendly interface to a SharePoint store. Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. What’s more,
They allow emails and documents to be saved by drag and MacroView allows you to define additional types of search
drop, individually or in bulk, with maximum automatic which are tailored to the way groups of users in an organisation
metadata capture (e.g. no prompting for metadata as emails are use metadata. Behind the scenes, the searches are performed
saved to SharePoint). by the SharePoint search engine – there is no need to define
additional search indexes or to use additional search
Will recorded documents and emails be retained and protected
applications. In a nutshell, what MacroView is doing is provide
from alteration for the appropriate period?
a much more intuitive, convenient and customisable interface
Based on my observations over many years, SharePoint security to the SharePoint search engine, compared to the interface that
is effective – if you have no permission to a document, it’s as ships as part of the SharePoint web browser UI.
if that document does not exist. Declaring a document as a
Noel Williams is co-Founder and Chief Executive of MacroView
record adds a further level of protection – essentially making
Business Technology. MacroView specialises in document genera-
that document read-only and removing delete permission for
tion and management solutions based on SharePoint and Office.
all users except those designated as Records Managers.
http://macroview365.com/
MacroView Message and MacroView DMF make declaring a
document as an in-place record as easy as right-clicking it in a
MacroView file list display and choosing the Compliance option.
Alternatively, documents and emails can be declared as in
place records automatically by a SharePoint workflow or library
setting. MacroView can even highlight the declared records in a
user-defined colour.
It’s important to note that ‘Appropriate Period’ does NOT mean
‘Forever’. For risk management reasons, an effective electronic Searching for records declared in a specified date range using
records management solution should not retain records for any Records Search panel in MacroView DMF. Note that this search
longer than is mandated. In this regard a useful approach is a was done across an Office 365 SharePoint Online tenancy –
workflow that highlights any records that have reached their also support for searching across and on-premises SharePoint
expiration date, or are about to reach expiry. Server environment.

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software solutions with

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Image & Data Manager | 11
Before you start building your
new classification scheme...
By Conni Christensen Are you sure you’re not re-inventing
.
the wheel?
To paraphrase Patrick Lambe (yet again): Building
classification schemes is at the same time deceptively Everything that you’re about to do has been done before, in a
different system, at a different time. Most organisations have
simple and fiendishly complicated.
established classification schemes – in network drives, in ECM
It's deceptively simple because it's one of those tasks that you systems, in SAP, in line of business systems. These schemes range
can just start by putting terms into a spreadsheet, or into the in structure from simple lists to deep and complex file plans.
SharePoint term store. Some are good, some are past their best. Many have been built
In my role as a taxonomy software developer, I watch as most at a considerable cost to the organisation by external
classification schemes fall over after a year or so. Because it's consultants. Maybe the scheme/s you are building already exists.
considerably more difficult to build classification schemes that And just need updating!
sustain over time. Those schemes that persist do so because they
meet the collective needs of the organisation. What is the best information
So here are some of the questions you need to ask before you architecture to use?
start. But finding the answers may be harder than you think.
Are you stuck in the hierarchical headspace?
Who are the stakeholders for the classification scheme?
Many folk still cling to the view of an all-encompassing file plan
You can’t just assume that your front-line users (those who are that forms the backbone of their ECM system. Originating with
classifying information in your system) are the only stakeholders. Windows Explorer the hierarchical approach to classification
Many others will have a vested interest in your scheme: transplanted itself into ECM systems as a system for arranging
• Searchers both within and from outside your information “records”. Given that the hierarchical approach to classification
ecosystem who want to find information was the main game for over 20 years, it’s not surprising that
• Data analysts who want to mash your information with other many folk still view classification as a hierarchical event.
databases But times have changed folks. Contemporary information
• Records managers who have to appraise the information for systems provide many more options for classification. In
retention and disposal – if not now, then in a few years’ time SharePoint for example you can create a mix of classification
• Legal and compliance managers, with oversight of risk, access options through team sites, sub-sites, libraries, lists, content
and security, privacy, types, folder structures, lookup sets, and managed metadata.
Information architects can now tailor classification to better suit
• ICT who will have to migrate/archive your information into the needs of their users.
another system
Of course, such flexibility creates its own problems.
You need to find them and consult with them.
What relationships will the classification
Are there existing standards you scheme have with system processes?
should be adhering to? Do you know which classification terms (and relationships) are
All across the world, governments and industry are working used to signify or trigger system processes relating to:
toward data/metadata governance standards particularly wrt • access and security
metadata formats, structure and values. Standards facilitate • retention and disposal
compliance with legislation, harmonisation across boundaries, • legal holds
interoperability and integration between systems, and support
functionality such as enterprise search. • data transfer
When you consult with other stakeholders, chances are you’ll • other workflows
find out what standards are applicable to your classification • migration into /integration with other systems
schemes. These include standards such as ISO 15489 Records There’s an entire logical data model that connects classification
Management and ISO 23081 Recordkeeping Metadata. Plus you concepts with information governance policies and workflow. It
should consult with peak industry bodies or your government may not be well expressed but it exists, sometimes in the form of
regulators. records retention schedules and security classifications. If you’ve
consulted with other stakeholders you should be getting a
Are there industry classification clearer picture of information governance requirements.
schemes you can or should be using? How will your classification scheme to be maintained over time?
Depending on your industry or jurisdiction you may be required Even if you get else everything right, your scheme is going to
to use approved schemes with standardised terms. You may find change over time, starting from tomorrow. How are you going
more information on the websites of your peak industry bodies to manage the process of change, who is responsible, and are
and government regulators. they across the answers to all of the questions we have just put
to you?
I recently witnessed a contractor building an entire suite of
classification schemes for a new SharePoint library. He was
building lists of commonwealth legislation and agencies from Conni Christensen is a founding partner of the Synercon Group,
scratch as he didn’t know who to contact or where to source specialist in Taxonomy & Metadata for Information Governance.
these schemes from.

12 | Image & Data Manager

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 The Whys and Wherefores
of Knowledge Management
By Rob Koene good answers to questions, and avoiding the “re-inventing of the
Over a lengthy career, I have found Knowledge wheel” (which happens a lot).
Management (KM) referred to by many different It is also about protecting Intellectual Property. These are your
names before settling into the current usage. One companies trade secrets or methodologies which must be
guarded diligently. Proprietary Designs, Beer Recipes, Strategic
thing that has remained constant is that the most
Information, Finances, etc..
important ingredient has always been the willingness
Knowledge Management is also about who can see what. It is
to share information. very likely that not all stuff in your company is viewable by all
The professional use of Knowledge Management Systems employees.
depends on people and it revolves around trust.
Knowledge Management will succeed best when:
Confucius is claimed to have said: To know what you know and
• Top Management understands the need for it (no need to
what you do not know, that is true knowledge. (And this guy lived
convince them)
around 500 BC (2500+ years ago).
• Top Management supports it by promoting it and
It is not difficult to understand why knowledge sharing is a
recognising the benefits.
survival factor, perhaps not immediately for the individual, but
for a group/civilisation. This is something which is even observed • Top Management provides sufficient funds on a continuous
in the animal world. basis.
In a corporate environment, KM helps improve productivity by • It is being run by a dedicated, strong and enthusiastic team
building trust, networks and by substantially enhancing the who do this as part of their career. (meaning: they take on
intellectual level of the corporation. this job for a longer period of time)
Knowledge = Power. OK this may work at an individual level until • Subject Matter Experts are identified and are active and
the knowledge gets stale, which can happen quite quickly. Often visible.
this is exposed by use of phrases such as “I have done it like this Unless your company is only about IT or HR, do not allow IT or
for 25 years”. HR to run the show. Although they mean well and they really
try with the best of intentions: IT is usually about automation
Why Do Knowledge Management? and will drive to automate the management. (and people do it,
Why should a company embark on Knowledge Management? remember?). Because of this IT-run KM systems often fail very
There are many good reasons but the major one – in my opinion quickly
– is to maintain the knowledge of those retiring in a way that HR may be focused on training which certainly is an item in KM,
makes sense to the next generation. but it is only part of the package. A loss of focus may occur very
Note that it is - in this context - important to involve this next quickly. IT and HR should be supporting and facilitating. In that
generation in how to present it. role they can provide a very valuable service. Keeping IT and
HR closely involved will always pay off big time: They are not an
Another major reason to do KM is the huge amounts of savings enemy but can be powerful allies.
that can come from sharing smart solutions, getting fast and
14 | Image & Data Manager
A Knowledge Management program is a success when: company operates in. This ensures a rigorous review of all
• People start complaining when it is out of order for longer knowledge that is posted. Experts will be able to make sure
than a couple of hours. (then you know it is used!) that the context is correct and the submitted knowledge makes
sense. That does not mean that the opinions of non-experts
• You see a regular activity in Forums and the questions
should be completely disregarded. Make sure reviews are
being answered adequately in time (at Fluor we set the bar
performed publicly since you never know where really
to 95% adequately answered within 48 hours).
additional good advice could come from. This is also a way to
• New Knowledge is being submitted on a regular basis. Do surface new experts.
not expect the same rate as the Forum activity though.
Forum moderators also play a role in this. Forums are always
• Forums are carefully moderated and have at least 4-8 hours public and the really good replies can be posted which also
of review time per day somewhere on the globe. It is surface new experts.
important to act quickly!
In my experience, it is best to actually name the experts and
• Sales uses the Knowledge Management program to sell remove any form of self-proclamation.
projects. (then you have really made it).
It is also good to warn your potential experts that, "The role is
• There is a constant improvement in the KM System, not an honorary title, work is expected from you". This deters
presentation, user friendliness, search capabilities, contents people who are after the title alone.
and probably a few more can be thought of.
Many people will use the KM system as a look up and will never
• Feedback is given by the users. And every feedback is of contribute or publicly ask questions. This figure is typically
value: Positive or negative. This keeps the KM leadership on around 60% of your users who are:
their toes. NEVER become complacent. What is good today
• Scared to look “unknowing” in the eyes of peers or
is substandard tomorrow.......
supervisors.
In short: Users have to see what is in it for them. Only then they
• Consider what they know is not of a sufficient standard.
will be willing to contribute themselves. The KM System has to
make sense, must be relevant and must be trustworthy. • Not really interested (9-to-5-ers)
On a personal level this can also take the form of public This is OK for a small organisation, as the KM team can fill the
recognition programs on a team/local office level. Small gifts gap. But in an enterprise with a huge membership base (Fluor
will also work: I am still using a ballpoint pen with the Fluor logo has 30,000) users need to be motivated to contribute by their
and a 2GB USB stick. OK, I admit, I am easily pleased but stuff like direct supervisors.
this is just fun. Recognition pins and certificates signed by senior These are extremely difficult barriers which often need attention
management are very often seen as very valuable. on a personal level. The supervisors/department managers are
At Fluor, it took us about five years of hard work to see a the KM team’s target audiences in this case.
significant portion of the company actually using the system.
Patience and hard work is the key. Expecting immediate results People Make It Work
is a “pipe dream”. It is a total misconception that KM systems work by themselves.
People make it work and practice shows that almost all of the
It Must Be Trustworthy time unmanaged KM systems will be short-lived.
Do what you promise or don’t promise it in the first place. This is Really powerful methods to build trust are:
the major challenge of any Knowledge Management system. • Forum Moderators: Make sure that Forum replies are on
You can find huge amounts of information on the Internet but time, are relevant to the question and are useful.
much of it is either posted without the proper context or is even • If a reply does not make sense remove it (and tell the author
(to an extent) wrong. And the inexperienced professional may why).
be challenged to detect this.
• And even more important: Make sure that the question
Do not misunderstand me: There is also a lot of excellent stuff makes sense. Recognise that is not always easy to phrase a
out there but how to distinguish between this and the “bad” question correctly (work with the author to edit it).
stuff....
• Knowledge Reviewers have to make sure that new
The solution is - of course - very easy: Make sure that the items knowledge is vetted (reviewed) and where necessary work
in your KM system are checked and approved. If you use forums with the author to edit it.
(Q&A) make sure that they are carefully moderated.
All of the above needs careful managing by a Knowledge
Nothing new here. Professional magazine articles and books Manager who may combine several roles as required. There is
have always gone through a thorough peer review process and no fixed rule for this and it all depends on the capabilities and
well-managed KM is not different. availability of the people involved.
Peer/Expert review and approval, and forum moderation is the This also means that the key people will be willing to invest part
key to making users trust the system. of their career in KM. KM processes are slow by definition, so a
Even Wikipedia uses a pretty severe moderation/validation team KM role should be at least five years (longer if you fall in love
of volunteers to make sure that the content makes sense. with it – as I did). Only then a person can make a difference.
One thing which is also important is to verify that knowledge As KM is positioned horizontally and vertically in a company: KM
still makes sense in the current environment of your company. workers will have an interesting view of the company as a whole.
I once heard the phrase “Knowledge Ecosystem”. This may cover This will hardly ever happen if you are on the shop floor.
the life cycle of Knowledge and how relevant (trustworthy) it still Your reward as a Knowledge Manager is to see it all work
is. Evolution shows that species (Knowledge) which do not fit the smoothly and recognise that you have been “the grease in the
current environment anymore must go extinct. wheels” most of the time. It is really a magnificent sight to see a
well-functioning KM system in operation.
People are the key to any KM system
This is not a hollow phrase. Achieving trust in a KM system is not Rob Koene is Knowledge Manager at Fluor Corp. This article reflects
something that happens by itself. You must have participation his personal views and does not reflect the views of Fluor Corp.
from a number of experts in all the fields and disciplines your

Image & Data Manager | 15

Innovative Information Management by design
By Toni Anderson want it now!
So where are the opportunities?
Electronic document and records management There is definitely the potential to manage our information by
systems (EDRMS) have been implemented over the design, i.e. looking at the broad information architecture within
last 20+ years as “a” means to manage information. organisations to:
Many of these products evolved from systems that • Focus on work processes and the information created
were used to manage paper records, and they may be • Identify information assets, where they are and how they are
integrated with other business systems if sufficient managed (beyond EDRMS)
funding and executive sponsorship exists. • Take a risk and value based approach, applying scarce
During the 20 years of evolution of EDRMS, time has not stood resources to mitigate and control risks
still, with an explosion in the growth in of digital channels for • Influence early through established frameworks (Business
social interaction and communication: Twitter, Facebook, planning, risk assessment and management, Procurement
Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube. Medium, Tumblr and Flickr …. processes, contract and project management)
The list seems endless. • Ensure system requirements address record-keeping
The rapid changes we are seeing in the social media realm also requirements, assessing their level of compliance as part of
extend into the broader business environment, with documents system acquisition or upgrade
generated by multiple business systems and a workforce that is • Connecting with other specialist staff managing information
much more mobile. security, privacy and access arrangements
We have all seen the effects of AirBnB and Uber on the hotel and • Participating in information governance processes and in
taxi sectors. Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes believes other communities of practice
there is even more significant change in the offing as a result of Taking a “by design” approach beyond EDRMS might include:
advances in driverless cars.
• Developing simple tools to assist non-specialist staff to
He recently stated that for the 2.5 million people driving cars navigate requirements as part of their business and system
as a significant part of their job, “Those jobs are all going away planning activities
whether it takes 10 years, 15 years or 20 years, it doesn’t matter”.
• Designing self-assessments for business systems to identify
Constant upheaval is challenging, but, it also provides risks and mitigation strategies
opportunity for innovation, highlighting the need to think
differently about our work – to be “change ready”. • Developing information management plans that are fit for
purpose – for simple or complex systems, pre-planning system
In the information management sector, some of the common management, migration or decommissioning
strategies that are adopted include:
Traditional approaches are changing, as professionals we can
• Using an EDRMS as a single tool to manage documents and add value to management of information across operations,
records providing guidance as part of business processes and systems –
• Capturing records created by other business systems in an by design.
EDRMS, either as an export or a manual process
• Integrating with business systems to capture and manage Toni Anderson is a senior consultant with Recordkeeping Innovation
records via an EDRMS for record-keeping purposes and has worked in the information and records management field
• Managing records within source business systems for a substantial period in a range of Local, State, Commonwealth
Sticking with EDRMS as a single tool is becoming less and less government organisations and the private sector, nationally and
practical: internationally. Originally published at http://www.records.com.au/
• Business models are less blog/
stable – frequent organisational
change, services may be provided
through third parties, outsourced
or privatised
• Organisations implement an
array of systems to manage core
business functions
• Business systems may have
some of the features expected
from a record-keeping
perspective, but they seldom
have all the functionality required
to meet record-keeping stand-
ards.
• Exporting information from or
integrating with business systems
is often complex, expensive, takes
time to plan and implement.
In a fast-paced business environ-
ment there is little tolerance for
projects take a long time to implement – agility is needed. To Many of the plethora of social media channels available today
quote one of my favourite songs by Queen – I want it all and I are relatively young compared to mobile phones, email and
other portable devices.
16 | Image & Data Manager
 Take the data. Leave the paper.

Capture data from any documents, from structured forms and surveys
to unstructured text-heavy papers.
Mobile Capture
Captures content from document images and photos
via tablets and smartphones for instant integration into
organizations’ business processes.

Document Archiving
Captures paper documents and converts them into searchable
digital files that include metadata, and which are optimized for
digital archiving and records management processes.

Accounts Payable Automation

Automated invoice processing can help make AP
departments more productive, and offer significant potential
for immediate savings and fast ROI.

Mailroom Automation
Replaces time and cost consuming manual work for input-
management by digitising, sorting and intelligently routing
all incoming mail in one smart software application.

Document Classification
Automatically identifies various types of documents based
on their layout, text or images.

Forms Processing
Automates data extraction from paper forms (e.g. credit
card applications, questionnaires, damage reports, etc.) to
reduce manual processing costs.

• Reduce document and • Fast ROI — usually 3 • Optimisation of data

data related Costs — to 6 months quality
usually by 50% • Increase Visibility • Reduce Operational
• Accelerate Transactions and Control Costs

ABBYY Australia: abbyy.com.au • +61 (02) 9004 7401 • [email protected]

Signing documents
in the digital age
By Christine Ecob & Georgina Xiradis, Johnson electronic signature:
Winter & Slattery • there is a method used to both identify the person signing and
to indicate the person’s intention to be bound by the transaction;
• in light of all the circumstances, the method is as reliable as is
As technology advances, opportunities to update
appropriate for the purposes of the electronic communication;
business practices are offered. However, the law is and
often one step behind, making it difficult for com-
• the recipient consents to the method of the electronic
panies to employ new efficient business practices. communication.
Although many transactions are now conducted
The first criterion would be satisfied if the person indicated
electronically, there are several exceptions to the their approval of the information in the communication (which
validity of electronic signatures which limit the use evidences the transaction) via a mark, or signature.
and effectiveness of electronic communications. The second criterion relates to the appropriateness of the
Business must keep these limitations in mind. signature method and several factors may be taken into account
There are almost identical laws in each jurisdiction in Australia, e.g. the type of transaction, the sophistication of the
which govern electronic transactions: communication system, the value and importance of the
Electronic Transactions Act 1999 (Cth)( Commonwealth Electron- information in the electronic communication.
ic Transactions Act ); There have been cases in Australia where electronic signatures
Electronic Transactions Act 2000 (NSW); have been used reliably to create binding agreements. In Getup
Ltd v Electoral Commissioner [2010] FCA 869 the court found
Electronic Transactions (Victoria) Act 2000 ; that a signature provided by a digital signature was valid on an
Electronic Transactions (Queensland) Act 2001 ; electoral enrolment claim form.
Electronic Transactions Act 2000 (SA); The final criterion requires the parties to reach an agreement in
Electronic Transactions Act 2011 (WA); advance regarding the use of the particular electronic
Electronic Transactions Act 2001 (ACT); communication.
Electronic Transactions (Northern Territory) Act 2011 ; and However, even if these criteria are met, the transaction may not
be valid if an exception applies.
Electronic Transactions Act 2000 (TAS).
Exceptions to validity of esignatures
Validity of electronic signatures
In each State and Territory different exceptions apply to the use
A transaction is defined in the legislation to include a contract, and validity of electronic signatures. There are five main
agreement or other arrangement. So long as specific criteria are categories of exceptions that may or may not be applicable in
met when electronically signing a document, the transaction different States and Territories:
will be valid. There are three standard criteria that need to be
satisfied in all Australian jurisdictions to ensure the validity of an • documents that are required to be witnessed;
• documents to be personally served;
18 | Image & Data Manager
 • court documents; • a director and a secretary of the company; or
• powers of attorney; and • for a proprietary company that has a sole director which is also
• wills. the sole company secretary – by that person.
In New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Western When a document appears to have been signed in accordance
Australia, documents that are required to be witnessed cannot with section 127, the other party can rely on the statutory
be executed validly by electronic signature. As most deeds assumptions in section 129 of the Corporations Act, namely,
executed by an individual are required to be witnessed, deeds that all relevant internal requirements of the company have
should not be signed electronically in these States. been complied with and that the document is binding on the
company.
Powers of attorneys cannot be electronically signed in Western
Australia, Northern Territory and Tasmania. In addition, in New If a document is electronically signed in accordance with section
South Wales, Queensland and South Australia, enduring powers 127, the counterparty cannot rely on the section 129
of attorney must be witnessed meaning that electronic assumptions because the entire Corporations Act is exempt from
signatures of these documents will not be valid. the application of the Commonwealth Electronic Transactions
Act. There are other execution options for companies and a
In all States and Territories, documents that are to be personally
counterparty to a transaction can investigate the authority of an
served cannot be executed by electronic signature. In New South
individual to execute a document on behalf of a corporation.
Wales and Queensland court documents cannot be executed by
electronic signature. However, if a counterparty wants to rely on section 129 of the
Corporations Act in relation to a corporation, the safest course
In Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania wills cannot be
of action is to obtain signatures of the directors and/or company
validly executed by electronic signature. Although there is no
secretary of the corporation using pen and paper.
specific exception for wills in New South Wales, Queensland and
South Australia – wills in these states are required to be The number of different exceptions to the validity of electronic
witnessed and so cannot be executed electronically. signatures that run across the States and Territories limits the use
and effectiveness of electronic transactions. If parties engage in
The Corporations Act is exempt from the Commonwealth
electronic transactions they should be mindful of these
Electronic Transactions Act. The Corporations Act outlines how
exceptions and only use electronic signatures where valid.
companies may execute documents without using a common
seal under section 127(1) if signed by: For more information contact: Christine Ecob (+61 2 8274 9556 ,
+61 414 921 522, [email protected] ) or Ravi de Fonseka
• two directors of the company; or
(+61 2 8274 9575, +61 404 808 487, [email protected])

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Image & Data Manager | 19

Exclusive Interview With Tommy
Petrogiannis, President of eSignLive
IDM recently had the pleasure of interviewing Tommy
Petrogiannis, President of eSignLive (formerly Silanis
Technology), the electronic signature provider he
co-founded in Canada in 1992. Acquired in 2016 by
Vasco Data Security International Inc. for $US85
million, eSignLive is using the funding to fuel
international growth, which is increasing at three
times the rate of people performing transactions
electronically in North America.

IDM: Only 1 in 5 deals are signed electronically these days,

according to recent research released by Aberdeen Group.
Why the holdout?
TP: There are several things that have driven the holdout on
e-signature adoption and the biggest one we’ve seen is the
need for education. In the US, we cracked that phase about five
years ago when people stopped asking whether e-signatures
were legal and safe. Canada followed about two years later, and
I see APAC coming to the end of its education phase in the next
few years. What we've found accelerates that education phase is
when a leading brand goes public that they’ve deployed
e-signatures, say a large financial institution or a large
government agency. Then those perceived barriers evaporate
because it becomes a competitive disadvantage if you don’t
adopt the technology. Europe is a good example of one of the Tommy Petrogiannis, c0-founder and President of eSignLive.
other holdouts on e-signature adoption. There we saw
e-signature laws that were rather technology specific – to e-sign, are still grappling with how to have true interoperability.
you used to have to use digital certificates or a credential that I don’t expect that to go away anytime soon. One thing that has
was issued to you, which is an extremely hard thing to deploy. I changed dramatically though is the cost of e-signature
haven’t seen anyone do it successfully, at least not at a gov- software. eSignLive is unique in the sense that we’re the only
ernment level, and very few agencies do it for their own users major e-signature vendor that allows you to use our multi-tenant
but not for the citizen and not for your end customer, if you're SaaS if you want, or have the exact same code base as a private
a financial institution. Since the introduction of eIDAS, the instance on the cloud or on premises. So, depending on the risk
European Union has relaxed its e-signature laws we’re seeing the profile of the transaction that you're automating or digitising,
region starting to catch up on e-signature adoption. Intuitively and depending on the budget and how quickly you need to get
it's a no brainer. Intuitively, everyone should’ve adopted up and running, you can select how you want to consume and
e-signatures already. deploy e-signatures because it's a per consumption model
regardless of how you deploy it. Obviously the more you go to
on premises, the more additional costs there are like hardware,
IDM: It’s been 17 years since they got the legal tick of
or for a managed service if you have someone managing a
approval in Australia, which seems like a technological life-
private instance for you, but the actual use of the e-signature
time ago. Yet, only in recent times have we seen a reduction
solution is the same regardless. If you go on premises, you just
in the fear and resistance associated with accepting
have more control about when things get updated, and when
e-signatures are valid and legally binding.
you release new features, whereas if you're using our multi-
TP: After e-signatures became legal around 2000, it took about tenant SaaS we’re pushing out new features every month. Some
five years for North American financial institutions to say, “Okay, agencies say, “Whoa, that’s too fast for us. We can't do enough
the laws are there, how does that apply to me when I'm doing a testing.” No problem, you can go to a dedicated instance and
mortgage application or loan process?” consume e-signatures at your own pace. So it's just a control
But before they could even bring electronic signatures into the aspect. But the cost aspect has pretty much gone away.
equation to really get the true benefits of straight-through
processing they first had to update their backend systems to
IDM: How to do you see the impact of the cloud model im-
have intelligent forms. That took them a few years.
pacting on the adoption of e-signature solutions?
The US market’s grown since then, but it’s still only around 15%
TP: We’re seeing a number of customers adopt multiple models.
adoption. Other countries including Australia are at single digit
For instance if you're doing a very high volume complex
adoption, so there's still a lot of market expansion potential.
transaction like a mortgage closing: in the U.S. you can have
up to 85 documents involved in a closing package, so that’s a
IDM: Many see key restraints hampering the growth in the lot of data (eight of the top 10 U.S. banks are using eSignLive).
signature market being the lack of cross order standardi- And what we found for the very large producers like the Tier
sation related to ecommerce laws and directives and high One institutions - pushing that data up to a cloud instance and
cost of e-Signature software licence. What would you say in then bringing information back and tracking it - the physical
respect to both of those? network latencies become an issue for them. So, for processes
TP: When it comes to cross border transactions, governments which don’t need to be close to your data centre or document

20 | Image & Data Manager

generation whatever period I need to retain it for, if the platform
engines, you can use the SaaS model but in some cases where disappears or the company disappears, what are the
you may have very, very high volumes of data that needs to talk assurances you're able to offer in that regard?
to home grown loan origination systems or underwriting TP: I think it used to be a fair concern but for folks who follow
systems, this may not be appropriate. In some instances they standards, it's not an issue and I’ll give you a simple example.
need to have it on-premises because everything else that it Adobe has done a great job of publishing its standards so we
connects to is on-premises and they weren’t designed to actually follow Adobe’s standard for how you sign a PDF document.
talk to the Web effectively and get out to public cloud instances.
This means anyone who wants to verify a document signed by
The SaaS model is great for the flexibility of developing and
eSignLive can do so independent of eSignLive, unlike some of
deploying solutions, but there may be some exceptions with
our competition where if you want to verify a document you
high volume complex processes that requires the flexibility to
have to go back to the service provider to actually verify it. So we
put it in your own data centre, which gives you tremendous
can disappear tomorrow and as long as you have an application
performance and ease of use and scalability.
that follows today’s standard, you have retention for as long as
When eSignLive started, the Cloud didn’t exist, which meant all the stamp is there and it's a published stamp.
our customers were on-premises. But when we said, “Okay, the
So you don’t have a big issue and the truth is what we've seen
market’s matured now to the point that a SaaS model is going
after about seven to 10 years, if there hasn’t been a need to go
to get adoption”, we were fortunate enough that Amazon had
back to that document, that requirement for retention drops off
been out for a couple of years. So we jumped onto Amazon
pretty dramatically. There still are a lot of companies that don’t
Web Services, then IBM SoftLayer and Azure: we support all of
follow standards, but as long as you pick a vendor that does, you
them. It’s because of this that when we said we were coming into
can't go wrong from a retention point of view..
Australia, we had a production grade system up and running two
weeks later.
And we did that in Germany, we did that in the UK. Because IDM: Does the eSignLive e-signature solution also require
again, data residency and sovereignty absolutely matters for that the signed documents are hosted on your platforms?
government agencies, for banks, for healthcare providers. TP: We offer it for many smaller customers, as they also want us
eSignLive is the only e-signature vendor that has the ability to to do the basic document retention so that’s part of the service
quickly spin up a data centre pretty much anywhere in the world but it's not a requirement. The larger organisations are typically
and that’s an important differentiator in driving adoption in integrating eSignLive into their systems, they use a transaction
regulated and government markets. platform and then they take the content, store it in their own
ECM or content management solution. In the larger organisa-
tions you typically start off in one line of business. It might be
IDM: You mentioned the challenge for the banks to update the retail banking person who’s responsible for that. And usually
their backend systems, in the public sector one of the obsta- after the first successful project that they deploy, the buyer ends
cles to eservices is often the limited budget and resources to up going into the IT department because they now make it as a
update legacy systems for smartforms and e-signatures. short service across the enterprise.
TP: Preparing your systems to create forms that are practical and What we also do – and we’re unique in the space – is we’re
useful when they're electronic as opposed to fill and print is a capturing everything that’s happening during the transaction.
barrier that still exists for government. For ad hoc processes, not Every page you saw, how long you saw it, what actions you took,
high volume processes, deploying electronic signatures is very and what IP address you're coming in from (because in the more
simple. If you're creating a Word document that you want people complex and sophisticated transactions, it’s not a single ‘come
just to sign, that’s super simple to do, there's nothing holding in once and get off’ process). If you're doing a mortgage closing,
you back from using it. You can literally start using electronic this could span two to three weeks. From a consumer protection
signatures right now as part of that solution. point of view and from the governance point of view, it's not
However, when you have backend systems that are producing just about signing the document, it's about, “Did you present
the content, that is always the barrier. That and also willingness that disclosure? Did you present your truth in lending policy?
to move to the cloud. Your privacy policy? Were they accepted?” So the user’s going,
It’s only in the last year and a half that we have seen major “I accept, I acknowledge, I agree.” We’re recording everything
agencies move to the cloud in the U.S. Agencies couldn’t use that’s happening, what they’ve done and then at the end of the
solutions on the cloud unless they were FedRAMP certified which process, we sign the transaction also – all that data – and we
is another level above SOC 2 certification. And to date we've link that into the document that you actually sign so you can
been the only e-signature provider that has a FedRAMP certified demonstrate cryptographically that the only way that this final
solution. contract got signed is if all these steps took place. If a regulator
or an auditor wants to see that you're following the rules, with
In the U.S. market place, we've been providing solutions to the
our system you can push rewind and it’ll recreate a transaction
government since 1995 and most of those solutions were for
completed five years ago. Look at what happened in the UK
internal process improvement, rather than citizen-facing. It was
with the PPI (Payment Protection Insurance) scandal, that was
all for streamlining expense reports, requests to travel, etc.
more than £26B of damages where the banks were accused of
Once they wanted to move to citizen-facing transactions or upselling, slipping in mortgage protection which they weren’t
government-to-business transactions, they had massive invest- disclosing properly. So the regulator came in and slapped them
ments that they had to do because they had to get their systems silly, £26B in damages, and it was not about the fact that the
converted and ready to go. Governments around the world person didn’t sign the document, it was about the process that
haven’t yet grasped the power of the cloud and the SaaS delivery they used which didn’t meet the regulations.
model because they do have additional regulatory concerns, and
From a functionality point of view, all the signature providers
privacy concerns that most commercial organisations don’t have
look and feel pretty much the same, features and functionality
to factor in.
and virtually on par. But it’s these core underlying things – the
white labelling, the evidence and audit trail, the common code
IDM: One of the perceptions that can cause people to be neg- base across deployment models – that the consumer doesn’t see
ative about e-signatures is how is that signature retained, but the organisations who provides the service definitely
how can I guarantee that I’ll have a record of it in 7 years, understand. And for them, doing it right absolutely matters.

Image & Data Manager | 21

Bad RM no excuse for stonewalling
FOI: Information Commissioner
Information Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim has ruled or minister’s filing system (reg 2(2)(a)) or, if no such indication is
that poor record-keeping practices are no reason for given, in the place that reasonably should have been indicated
the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in the filing system (reg 2(2)(b)). The ‘filing system’ of an agency
or minister should be taken as including central registries as
(ASIC) to charge exorbitant fees for a journalist’s FOI
well as other authorised systems used to record the location of
request. documents.”
The Australian newspaper had sought correspondence between “Time used by an officer in searching for a document that is not
ASIC and the National Australia Bank (NAB) following reports where it ought to be, or that is not listed in the official filing
that ASIC had allowed NAB to check and alter one of the regula- system, cannot be charged to an applicant. In summary,
tor’s press releases, to determine whether this was a one-off or a applicants cannot be disadvantaged by poor or inefficient
regular occurrence. record keeping by agencies or ministers.”
The FOI request was made in February 2015. Three months later, ASIC had submitted that its search & retrieval estimateincluded
on May 1st 2015, ASIC responded that the request would cost 25 hours for one officer of the Financial Adviser team to:
$A4,380 to process and claimed it required “228 hours search
and retrieval time and 45 hours of decision making time.” • search his own email in-box and relevant folders
ASIC submitted that ‘[a]s the Scope of the request covered • request three Executive Assistants to search three email
multiple matters over a long period of time, collating relevant in-boxes and provide to him any relevant documents, which he
documents required considerable coordination and input’. then ‘perused’
In his decision to strike out the $4380 fee, Mr Pilgrim noted • liaise with IT to obtain access to a former staff member’s inbox
“While the FOI Act does not mandate particular methods of and conduct a search of it, and
storage of documents by agencies, in processing an FOI request • save 49 relevant documents
an agency cannot shift its costs resulting from an inefficient According to ASIC’s own published Guidelines on records
records management system to an FOI applicant. retention, all “emails messages and correspondence
“ASIC’s own detailed breakdown of work done demonstrates the documenting discussions with senior management, external
inefficiency of its document handling system. agencies, businesses, industry professionals and other
“An underlying assumption in calculating search and retrieval individuals that involve decisions and advice regarding financial
time is that the agency or minister maintains a high quality or legal issues or other key work processes and courses of action”
record system. should be captured in the corporate record-keeping system.
"Search and retrieval time is to be calculated on the basis that a Mr Pilgrim observed that “While the scope of the request is
document will be found in the place indicated in the agency’s specific, in that the applicant is seeking various background
documents relating to 12 nominated ASIC media releases, it is
22 | Image & Data Manager
clear from ASIC’s submissions that documents relating to the “The FOI request was lodged following reports in February
preparation of each media release were not filed together nor [2015] that ASIC allowed NAB to check and alter a media release
were they effectively categorised and readily retrievable through dealing with serious problems with its Navigator wealth
an appropriately configured records management system. management platform.
“Rather, on receipt of the request it is apparent that ASIC had to “These reports came amid a crisis of confidence in the financial
discuss with a significant number of officers the likely locale of services industry and ASIC’s enforcement of the law regulating
relevant documents and carry out searches of many separate financial service licensees, especially big banks.
electronic storage areas (and in one case hardcopy notes). This “The question that therefore arises and underpins the FOI
includes searches of a large number of particular employees’ request is: was this a one-off or has ASIC regularly allowed the
email accounts, at least one of whom had left the organisation. regulated population, especially large institutions, to edit its
“It is therefore apparent that many of the documents at issue output?
were not integrated into a records management system which “This is self-evidently a matter of wide public importance. The
could readily identify and collate relevant documents. documents deal with ASIC’s administration of the law covering
“I consider that efficient record keeping could have documents hundreds of thousands of customers and hundreds of millions of
relevant to each media release located either together in a single dollars,” said Mr Pilgrim.
file or effectively categorised and readily retrievable through “The documents in this case relate to ASIC’s regulation of major
an appropriately configured records management system. Had corporate financial institutions. The applicant is seeking access
this been done, it is apparent that much of the manual search to documents that would potentially provide insight into ASIC’s
and retrieval work that ASIC had to undertake in response to the relationships with those institutions. Specifically, whether, or to
request could have been avoided.” what extent ASIC has allowed those institutions to contribute to
A 2016 advertisement for an Information Governance Manager the content of its media releases.
at ASIC highlighted a “significant technology transformation” “I agree with ASIC that there is a general public interest in
underway at the Federal Government Agency in a number of the matters to which the request relates. I also agree with the
areas such as virtualisation, mobility, cloud & roll out of applicant that ‘ASIC’s administration of the law covers hundreds
Microsoft applications in the enterprise such as Microsoft of thousands of [financial institution’s] customers...’, which is a
Dynamics, SharePoint and SQL services. In 2007 ASIC received substantial section of the Australian public. In my view, giving
increased funding of $A116.7 million over four years to “invest in the applicant access to the documents in this case may serve
essential business support tools including electronic document to better inform the public of ASIC’s regulatory processes and
and records management systems and data warehousing.” would likely contribute towards increasing scrutiny, discussion,
Mr Pilgrim also ordered ASIC to entirely waive the fee because comment and review of the Government’s activities.”
the request, which The Australian filed two years ago, was in the The full judgement is available at http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/
public interest cases/cth/AICmr/2017/18.html.
 Digital Transformation
DONE RIGHT!

Digital Transformation
DONE RIGHT!
By Dan Pulham and the technology that enables it. It’s about bringing
There’s a lot of talk about ‘Digital Transformation’ and those people closer to the customer they serve via a
(if the number of articles on Medium and LinkedIn are digital interface.
anything to go by) a lot of views on what it actually When done well, the people supporting your business are
means. only dealing with customers for high-cost, complex
Having spent five years as part of the digital transactions. All the low-value, low-cost transactions 
transformation of Australia’s biggest telco, and more -  those your customers don’t want to call or visit you for  -
recently working on the Federal Government’s digital should already be taken care of by digital means.
agenda, this is what I think when I hear the term. When done really well, there isn’t even a need for your
Digital isn’t just about technology, although it’s obviously customers to interact with you digitally. They know where
underpinned by it. Digital is more an attitude; it’s a way of they’re at with your products and services, and they have
life and now a way of doing business. We are engaging in confidence your business will contact them only when
digital lives when we check Facebook on our phones or totally necessary.
interact with a service provider via their app whenever we Digital Transformation is about transforming a company
want. It is about dealing with the ‘always-on’ world. from within. Technology needs to enable the
When a company or government embarks on a Digital interaction between internal and external customers in as
Transformation, it should be about breaking down the near realtime as possible, not getting in the way. It should
barriers between the people who support the business be seamless, intuitive and even delight in such a way as to

24 | Image & Data Manager

actually enhance the brand because it’s so simple improvements, enhancements and ‘nice to haves’ have
customers are loath to switch. Digital should extend to been left on the shelf in the rush to meet some (usually
the tools your staff use to interact with each other, so that arbitrary) deadline. You can’t use the same approach as
in the same way your digital interface makes it easier for your traditional IT programs; your digital interface will
your customers, your internal digital work space makes it need to evolve, with small changes made more often.
easy for staff to collaborate. Digital Transformation isn’t possible if you maintain the
Digital isn’t just about the front-end or the website, separation between Business and IT that exists in many
although you can always tell a company that hasn’t companies. The analogy of bringing your customers closer
thought through (or started) implementing its digital to your business by a digital interface must be reflected
strategy when its online and mobile experience is clunky internally by creating empathy between these two groups
or hard to navigate. Simple is hard to do; it’s always easier and bringing them together in your organisation with a
to expect customers to do the hard work in navigating common ‘digital’ vision.
what ‘you’ think they should do to interact with your Gone are the days where the ‘Business’ shows up to I.T.
business  - and the information you expect them to with a list of requirements and a bag of cash and says,
provide to do so. That’s why so many companies pay lip “Build me this”. We aren’t building houses or bridges;
service to Digital Transformation. They see it as another Digital Transformation is about continual investment and
layer to their already expensive IT costs, and not worth the improvement.
effort to make it frictionless for the people who use it.
Even a small investment in improvements to your digital
This attitude is visible in most interfaces people use; ones interface, internal or external, which shave seconds off
that are designed from the bottom up and are therefore a task or remove a barrier to progress are worthwhile.
constrained by the limitations of whatever database or Seconds are precious in a digital world; they may mean
back-end solution that was brought ‘out of the box’. the difference between a customer staying or giving up
Anything that can be configured probably isn’t going to on you in frustration.
give you the flexibility you need, so it’s worth investing For at the heart of digital and the transformation there
time and money to build a truly great customer needs to be a fundamental change to focus on the
experience. You will also need to continue maintaining customer, and the investment in that interface and the
and improving your set-up . The world is littered with thought behind it that puts the customer needs first, is
interfaces delivered by projects in one go, where the the clearest indication that you care about them.

Govt. transition delays blamed on lack

of dollars and legacy apps
Funding constraints and legacy infrastructure have been government information is one of our greatest concerns. We are
cited as the main barrier to Australian government agencies working together with agencies to improve that and assist with
transitioning to digital information management, according to their progress towards digital information continuity by 2020”
a report by the National Archives of Australia (NAA). Some success has been achieved in reducing the costs of
The report was delivered to the Attorney General in August storing physical records, according to a comparison of 2015 and
2016 but was only recently made available on the NAA’s Web 2016 survey results.
site. It analyses the progress in the Australian’s government’s Data provided by agencies indicates that substantial improve-
Digital Continuity 2020 Policy and is based on data self- ments in digital information management have been made. In
reported by Commonwealth agencies. According to this, particular,
three-quarters of government agencies now manage their • A decrease in the cost across the Commonwealth of storing
records digitally.The NAA report includes a listing of physical records of $A94 million per annum. In 2016 agencies
agencies rated according to their level of maturity in the digital reported the annual cost of storing physical records was $A126
transition, from High (most advanced), Developing to Initial million, compared to $A220 million in 2014.
(just beginning their transition). • An increase of 44% over 6 years in the number of agen-
Some major Commonwealth agencies in the ‘Initial’ stage cies managing records digitally. In 2016, 74% of agencies
include: Australian Electoral Commission, Australian Federal reported they had transitioned to digital information
Police, Australia Post, Department of Finance, Department of management compared to 30% of agencies in 2010. This is
Health, Department of Immigration and Border Protection, consistent with Check-up Digital 2015 data which indicates
Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, Department that 73.9% of agencies are operating digitally by default.
of Parliamentary Services, Department of the Prime Minister The National Archives has promised to report annually for
and Cabinet. at least the next 3 years to Government on the status of digital
“Although agencies have made progress in digital informa- information management in agencies.
tion management, there is still more that needs to be done”, http://www.naa.gov.au/Images/Report to the Minister 2016
Archives Director-General David Fricker said. - Digital Transition and Digital Continuity 2020 - FINAL_
“The continuing potential for loss of valuable tcm16-95403.pdf

Image & Data Manager | 25

Accelerating transformation: here's why
information governance is the new black
By Sonya Sherman
A natural tension between freedom and control for
public sector information assets can easily create
obstacles to transformation and a shift to digital
processes. Information governance empowers you to
get the balance right.
Consider this: “On the one hand, information wants to be
expensive because it’s so valuable. The right information in the
right place just changes your life.
On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the
cost of getting it out is lower and lower all the time. So, you
have these two things fighting against each other.” Transformation benefits are real. These metrics come from a
NSW government central agency.
In an era when tech trends seem to come and go like teenage
fashion, this paradox was first put forward by seminal
technology pioneer, futurist and environmentalist Stewart Information needs to flow to add value
Brand, at the first “Hackers” conference in 1984 in Marin County, Ministers and senior executives now recognise that all business
California. The statement hails from an era when a DIY – including government business – today runs on data and
computing counter culture spawned such giants of innovation digital information. It flows through every process, underpins
as Apple and Microsoft, along with others long since forgotten. policy, powers transactions and has the potential to drive whole
‘Information wants to be free’ became a catch cry for cypher- economies. Information can, and must, move between different
punks and hacktivists. people and organisations, for a variety of uses or actions and to
That assertion might sound like the perfect truism for working in support services and decisions.
modern government today as the drive for digital Organisations that ‘go digital’ increase the speed and efficiency
transformation gathers pace. But it’s really Brand’s first of their work processes by letting information flow.
observation – the potential for the right information in the right
They frequently report further benefits including business
place to change lives – that’s even more relevant today than it
insights based on real time data and a growing culture of
was then, and here’s why:
innovation. But it’s important to remember that just ‘going
Since the dawn of the internet age we have become an digital’ without solid underlying governance structures can
information society. Our lives at work and at home, in business produce unintended consequences that detract rather than add
and social activities, revolve around accessing and exchanging value.
information. The public sector is still under pressure to be more
If the value or integrity information diminishes, it can quickly
open, more transparent and to release more data. Agencies are
erode public trust, or expose key stakeholders to serious
also regularly the subject of public and media criticism
liabilities – if it is the wrong information, or ends up in the wrong
stemming from concerns about privacy, cybersecurity and
place. Add mandatory disclosure obligations for data, privacy
excessive or intrusive collection of data.
or information security related incidents and it’s not difficult to
Like Brand’s paradox, there’s an inherent tension between identify where the pain points can occur.
freedom of, and control over, information which can easily create
Allowing multiple parties within the organisation to view, reuse
obstacles for public sector transformation and a shift to digital
or contribute to an information asset can increase the value of
processes. How then to address both parts of the puzzle and get
that asset. This reduces the relative cost of producing the right
the balance right? Information governance provides an
information and offers broader public benefits when limited
authorising and accountability framework for creating, valuing,
resources can be put to optimal use.
using and managing information assets. It takes account of
business needs, legal and regulatory obligations. It establishes
roles, responsibilities and reporting requirements, along with
The “info-flow” challenge
principles you can build into operational processes and IT Most agencies have developed robust information governance
systems to enforce controls or streamline decision making. frameworks to manage their complex mix of risks and balance
public interests. That’s a good thing. Such frameworks take
Information governance is not new but has experienced a
significant investment of time and expertise and are intended to
sudden spike in popularity. Once the preserve of records
streamline decision making and appropriately release or protect
managers or compliance officers, information governance is now
information with a minimum of bureaucracy.
recognised by all levels of the organisation, from ministers
through to frontline staff, as a key to safety and agility. Not only The challenge for digital process transformation arises because
that, it is acknowledged as a foundation for the entire information governance is usually stuck in a box. It’s often
transformational journey to a digital government. attached to a single system or silo where the information is
stored.
In the digital age, everyone knows how great it feels to have
the right information in the right place when we need it most – While information is stored in that box, it’s managed and con-
customers and service providers alike. Good governance enables trolled. Once out of the box, information may move through un-
agencies to be collaborative, mobile and transparent, while governed channels where it is more difficult to track or protect
ensuring information accuracy, reliability and security are never and this legitimately makes people nervous.
compromised. Nevertheless, information still needs to flow to be useful. People
If you don’t see up-front acknowledgement and detail on respond to this tension in different ways.
information governance on your transformation roadmap, it may Common behaviours include:
be time to start asking questions. • Holding onto manual processes, which feel safer because

26 | Image & Data Manager

they’re slower, but create an efficiency drag. In a report commissioned by the NSW Public Service
• moving information into and through ungoverned digital Commission, Nous Group identified the “size and complexity of
channels, based on a case-by-case assessment that benefits will public sector structures [and the] fragmentation of knowledge
outweigh the possible risks. across these structures” as a core driver of cross sector
collaboration to allow different experts to work together to solve
Neither scenario is optimal.
multi-faceted problems.
Process governance for secure Critically, the report identified governance as a key enabler of
successful collaboration.
‘info-flow by design” The collaboration challenge arises because information
By linking existing information governance to process auto- governance usually stretches only as far as the boundaries of
mation you can set governance free to follow the information the organisation. The use of unsanctioned digital channels or
where it needs to go. Information doesn’t have to live in one “shadow IT” for collaboration and sharing information with
place. It can safely travel between different systems. external parties can erode information security and auditability,
We call this process governance. impacting value and integrity. It exposes agencies to a variety of
risks including unauthorised disclosure of information, duplica-
Process governance means people can continue to work in
tion and version control issues, and (ironically) the creation of
familiar applications from any location. Staff are empowered to
information silos.
share and release non-sensitive information, safe in the
knowledge that protection for privacy and security is built into So here, again, we have this tension between the concepts of
the process by design. freedom and control. On the one hand, productivity and the
value of information is potentially increased by collaboration.
Automation brings information to the right place, where and
when it is needed. On the other hand, security, privacy and the quality of the
information may be compromised by collaboration.
Process governance applies information governance in the back-
ground, every step of the way, and controls risks by ensuring it’s
the right information and access to it is managed according to
Collaboration governance
established rules. By linking existing information governance to shared
Importantly, process governance also allows transformation to workspaces, agencies can extend their governance policies into
be tackled incrementally – or ‘chunked down’. the places where knowledge workers gather. Information can be
safely shared outside the team and beyond the boundaries of
the organisation. We call this collaboration governance.
Collaboration governance means people can work effectively
together and partner in a variety of ways with access to the
information resources they need, whilst maintaining the
integrity of the information along with the rights and
responsibilities of all stakeholders.
Shared workspaces enable knowledge workers to share ideas
and expertise, bringing information to the right people, where
and when it is needed. Collaboration governance applies
Where knowledge workers gather information governance in the background. It controls risks by
ensuring it’s the right information and that access to it is
A steady supply of reliable data and information is the currency managed according to established rules.
of knowledge workers, executive or operational, in government
Information wants to be free – free to flow to the people that
today. Their success also depends on opportunities to
need it most and the places where it is most useful.
communicate and collaborate with peers and stakeholders, who
can review or contribute to their work. Information also has value to those who produce, procure or are
parties identified in the content. Its integrity and security are
Digital government relies on collaboration and information
equally as important as its availability.
exchange across teams, between agencies and jurisdictions,
with service providers and customers. The synthesis of diverse Digital era government provides the opportunity to:
perspectives supports innovation, decision making and actively • transform processes and let information flow, to support
manages risk. It drives better service design, policy development better services and faster decisions
and strategic planning. • address the collaboration challenge and securely share
Of course, agencies are the trusted custodians of personal and information with other parties to solve complex policy problems.
other sensitive information relating to health, law enforcement, The right information in the right place does change lives for
environmental, cultural or commercial matters. They have a the better, that’s why today information governance is ‘the new
responsibility and a legal obligation to protect people’s rights black’.
and ensure accountability.
Digital fads may come and go but good information governance
Former Australian Public Service chief Peter Shergold AC stresses will endure well into government’s digital transformation and
the fundamental importance of good records and collaboration beyond.
across sectors as a critical success factor in government policy
Sonya Sherman is a data and information
initiatives.
specialist for Objective Corporation supporting
Shergold also highlights the real risks of ‘solutioneering’ before innovation, collaboration and digital
properly scoping the problem, and then trying to re-engineer transformation in government business. She
crucial governance requirements. has held senior public policy and advisory roles
in Australia, UK and the Caribbean. Sonya is a
The collaboration challenge strong advocate for digital transformation in
An urgent and growing need exists for the public sector to part- the public sector, maximising the use of data
ner with industry and non-government organisations to deliver and information for better policy outcomes and
efficient, targeted services and improve public outcomes. greater public value.

Image & Data Manager | 27

How to Ensure Your Digital
Transformation Initiatives Thrive
By Henry Patishman need and cross-referenced with the company’s pre-set rules and
policies to make better business decisions.
In some cases, the knowledge gained through analysing
We’ve seen what digital transformation can do
captured data can become a product or service. IDC estimates
through the disruption of many consumer and B2B that by 2019, 40 percent of IT projects will create new digital
services. Recall the demise of Blockbuster services and revenue streams that monetise data. This could
Entertainment’s physical stores when Netflix first include custom or context-driven products, services and upsell
delivered movies to mailboxes, then digital streaming offers.
directly from TVs and mobile devices. Or the battle taxi However, not all data is nicely packaged in preset forms. The
services endured when Uber’s ridesharing app reaped challenge with unstructured data, such as handwritten notes and
market share. social content, is it requires a more sophisticated,
linguistic-based approach for capturing, classifying and
From a B2B perspective, we saw the move from on-premise CRM
extracting then injecting intelligence into business processes.
applications like Oracle and Siebel to cloud CRM Salesforce.com,
and dedicated corporate data centres moving to Amazon, By using natural language and deep semantic processing at
Google and Microsoft public and hybrid cloud hosting. the sentence, paragraph and document level, unstructured and
semi-structured data can be used by knowledge workers to
Improving the customer experience is at the heart of digital
extract value and understand meaning and relationships
transformation initiatives. In this endeavour, organisations have
between entities in a single document or across a corpus of
needed to improve operational efficiencies and work with leaner
documents. This provides unprecedented insights to make
staff by digitising processes for improved process transparency
smarter business decisions quicker, such as fund a new account,
and accuracy, ease and speed of transaction, customisation, and
give credit, sell a car, or upsell a product.
customer satisfaction.
By the end of this year, IDC expects over 70 percent of the Global Gain executive-suite support
500 companies will have a dedicated digital transformation or
innovation team, and by 2020 all enterprises’ performance will A managing director at PwC recently listed ten ways
be measured by benchmarks in customer engagement, digitisa- organisations can succeed with digital transformation.
tion of new and traditional offerings, operational efficiency and Not surprising, the top three included having C-level support
organisational agility. and direct involvement with the strategy. While that is ideal, line-
Unfortunately, IDC also believes that at least one-third of these of-business owners are increasingly responsible for reassessing
leaders will fail to clear these digital transformation hurdles. existing processes as part of the digital transformation initiative,
Here’s how to ensure your digital transformation initiatives are especially among mid-sized organisations.
successful. A key part of the effort is automating manual business process
through intelligent data capture, classification and extraction to
Update Your OCR Technology feed new or rapidly evolving customer facing business processes.
Additionally, depending on the size of the company and the
At the heart of the digitisation revolution is the ability to
maturity of the initiative, IT will continue to play a role in
accurately and quickly automate the capture of information from
qualifying vendors ahead of C-suite involvement.
any source. It started with automated mailrooms and expanded
to other units of the enterprise including accounts payable, Digital transformation needs to be a holistic approach to service
human resources and customer relationship management. customers. Information coming into an organisation from multi-
ple channels contain essential data that drive business processes
Intelligent capture and removing the reliance on paper are the
and enable automation.
first steps in a digital transformation process, but organisations
are still using OCR solutions from the beginning of this century. With paper and electronic documents both widely used for
Legacy OCR solutions extract static data and house data in an customer interactions, it’s clear that smarter data capture is
aging repository. essential for smarter business processes. Intelligent capture can
reduce costs and cycle times, but more importantly, can enable
Today, capture needs to extend to all sorts of data forms ranging
digital transformation of customer-facing processes. Organisa-
from proof of delivery, proof of income, proof of ID, new account
tions must start with an intelligent foundation where context
forms, claims forms and more. Once digitised, the data must be
and content deliver a better understanding of your company’s
classified, extracted and verified to support and integrate with
data.
downstream processes to action information.
Henry Patishman is Director of Sales (Australasia) at ABBYY. Contact
For the customer experience to be truly transformational, data
ABBYY at [email protected] or on (02) 9004 7401 for any further
needs to be understood within the context of the customer’s
information.
28 | Image & Data Manager
Australian firms up on Teams
Organisations as diverse as Amicus, Blackmores, Objective
Corporation, Readify and RSL Queensland are some of the first
Australian users of Microsoft’s new chat-based workspace in
Office 365, Teams.
In preview mode since November 2016, Microsoft says Teams is
now available to now available to all Office 365 business
ASX-listed software developer Objective Corporation has been
using Microsoft Teams as a secure platform for one of its design
teams. Led by senior product manager Angus McDonald, the
group brings together business analysts and usability experts to
map out innovations for Objective’s enterprise content
management (ECM) system.
Digitally Transformed
Through Planner, Teams gives the group access to a Kanban
board to steer its discussion, and persistent chat provides all the “We intend to become the premier Australian company assist-
content needed to support and streamline the design process. ing medium and large organisations build smarter, faster, more
Australia’s leading natural health company, Blackmores, efficient workforces through performance-based knowledge
has rolled out Office 365 to six countries in Asia so that its management solutions.
1,000-strong workforce is now on one cloud platform. www.knosys.it
It’s IT team is also using Microsoft Teams to manage work across
multiple projects, supporting the technology transformation Singapore Air flies ahead with ViaSat
initiative being led by CIO Brett Winn. Singapore Airlines has selected ViaSat's AeroDocs document
Andrew Grech, head of IT operations for Blackmores, says the management system to distribute its digital documents in a
tight integration of Office 365 and Microsoft Teams means that secure, controlled manner, with advanced workflow tracking to
when a group is working on a project, everyone is assured that help maintain aviation regulatory compliance.
the most current artefacts and content are available AeroDocs is a modular, aviation-grade document management
immediately. software system that gives airlines complete control over the
“The benefit we’re seeing from the collaboration on Office 365 is editing, distribution and viewing of their documents. It is
huge,” Grech says. “We’re able to work as one team in real time, designed to handle a mix of fleet sizes and aircraft types,
helping us reach decisions quicker and drive engagement and enabling it to scale with Singapore Airlines. The software's pilot
connection within the business.” document iPad viewer delivers a best-in-class document viewing
Additional features of Microsoft Teams now available include: experience.
• an enhanced meeting experience, with scheduling capabilities Don Buchman, Vice President and General Manager, Commercial
Mobility business at ViaSat, added, "The AeroDocs system was
• mobile audio calling, with video calling now available on An-
designed around end-user needs with a focus on getting correct,
droid and coming soon to iOS and Windows Phone
updated documents to pilots. In working with the award-
• email integration winning Singapore Airlines, we are tailoring the AeroDocs
• new security and compliance capabilities. software system to help them maintain their operational
excellence through greater compliance, collaboration and
ANZ Bank enhances KM with Knosys usability."
ANZ Bank is underway with an expanded rollout of the Knosys The AeroDocs document management software system was
knowledge management platform across its business units. acquired by ViaSat in November 2016, through ViaSat's
Australia’s Knosys has developed the platform to allow acquisition of Arconics, a provider of software solutions to the
organisations to better capture, manage and access information aviation industry. Through this transaction, ViaSat gained key
across disparate business units, divisions and IT platforms. aviation-grade software and mobile applications to make flying
safer and more efficient for pilots, cabin crews and flight
A new order from ANZ Bank for $A34,000 is for an initial two- operations teams. ViaSat is also supplying Qantas with
month licence period commencing on 1 May 2017 and ending technology used to introduce its first in-flight Wi-Fi trial on a
on 30 June 2017, the annual licence renewal date under the Boeing 737-800 aircraft.
existing agreement. Upon annual renewal of the licence
arrangement from 1 July 2017, this additional order will ViaSat claims to offer the best in-flight internet in the sky, with
contribute a further $A200,000 per annum to group revenues. typical speeds 10 times faster than traditional in-flight Wi-Fi
services. The faster connection speeds - which enable
Knosys Chief Executive Officer, John Thompson, said that this streaming - are made possible through the NBN Sky Muster
expansion further reflects the confidence that this major satellites, the only satellites servicing Australia with the capacity
customer has in the company’s capacity to deliver a superior to offer enhanced services. The Sky Muster satellites represent a
knowledge management technology that brings real benefits to significant upgrade over older satellite technology accessed by
its workforce and business units. most airlines around the world. The in-flight internet service uses
He said the web based architecture of the solution enables its excess idle data capacity, with the signal reaching the aircraft as
rapid setup and deployment across the business units. it flies through the satellites' spot beams.
“This extension builds on our longstanding relationship which The ViaSat satellite equipment is currently installed and flying
dates back almost 8 years,” said Thompson. on one trial Qantas Boeing 737-800 aircraft connected to the
“We plan to work with this and other customers in 2017 to ViaSat/NBN test network. The full production internet system
continue to improve our product’s capabilities and performance. is expected to be switched on later this calendar year. The rest
We have some exciting developments planned for this year to of the airline's domestic fleet of Boeing 737 and Airbus A330
enable more knowledge based solutions to become mainstream aircraft is projected to be outfitted with the ViaSat equipment
in many organisations. starting in 2017.

30 | Image & Data Manager

Nearly half of CEOs Have Begun Digital ZircoDATA acquires Archivewise
Business Transformation: Gartner ZircoDATA, provider of records and information management
services across Australia, has confirmed the acquisition of
Archivewise Records Storage based in Perth, Western Australia.
With the acquisition, ZircoDATA will assume responsibility for
Archivewise’s strong customer base, growing its presence in
Western Australia. Terms of the deal were undisclosed.
“Archivewise is a strong business that delivers trusted and
dependable services to organisations in Western Australia,” said
Dennis Barnedt, Executive Chairman, ZircoDATA.
“Archivewise succeeded in building a strong customer base with
a great service reputation that will fit in well with our current
operations. We are confident ZircoDATA will continue to provide
secure, attentive records and information management services.
The acquisition bolsters ZircoDATA’s position as a leading records
management company in Western Australia”
“Acquisitions and new service offerings are key components of
ZircoDATA’s strategic focus to grow its business in Australia. The
acquisition of Archivewise aligns with our objective for
growing our presence in the Western Australia market.” said
Dennis Barnedt.
While the idea of shifting toward digital business was www.zircodata.com.au
speculative for most CEOs a few years ago, it has become a
reality for many in 2017, according to a recent survey of 388 Veritas, IBM join forces in the cloud
CEOs by Gartner, Inc. IBM and Veritas Technologies have announced a collaboration
Forty-seven percent of CEOs are being challenged by the board designed to help enterprises working with increasing data
of directors to make progress in digital business, and 56 percent volumes better manage, optimise and protect data across hybrid
said that their digital improvements have already improved cloud environments.
profits. "CEO understanding of the benefits of a digital business As part of the agreement, Veritas has certified the IBM Cloud
strategy is improving," said Mark Raskino, vice president and Object Storage family of software and cloud services for use with
Gartner Fellow. Veritas NetBackup 8.0. As a result, both Veritas and IBM clients
"They are able to describe it more specifically. Although a can gain a more efficient way to migrate data from on-premises
significant number of CEOs still mention e-commerce or digital systems to the cloud for greater storage capabilities and efficient
marketing, more of them align it to advanced business ideas, management of their growing unstructured data. Based on IBM's
such as digital product and service innovation, the Internet of acquisition of Cleversafe in 2015, IBM Cloud Object Storage
Things , or digital platforms and ecosystems." brings advanced object storage technology to the cloud.
CEOs have also progressed in their digital business endeavours. In addition, IBM has also certified NetBackup 8.0 to run on the
Twenty percent of CEOs are now taking a "digital-first" approach IBM Cloud to offer clients additional data protection for cloud-
to business change. based workloads. NetBackup 8.0 has an anticipated availability
"This might mean, for example, creating the first version of a of 2Q17 and will be available for order from the IBM Bluemix
new business process or in the form of a mobile app," said Mr. Catalog of services. Through this model, customers will have the
Raskino. tools to rapidly provision or modify infrastructure more cost-
effectively across the IBM Cloud.
"Twenty-two percent are taking digital to the core of their
enterprise models. That's where the product, service and The agreement also calls for joint go-to-market and support
business model are being changed and the new digital initiatives from both companies, designed to help customers
capabilities that support those are becoming core accelerate their adoption of cloud services by leveraging the
competencies." combined enterprise expertise of IBM and Veritas.
Although more CEOs have digital ambitions, the survey revealed
that nearly half of CEOs have no digital transformation success
Clearlake acquires NetDocuments
metric. "For those who are quantifying progress, revenue is a top US investment fund Clearlake Capital Group is to acquire
metric: Thirty-three percent of CEOs define and measure their NetDocument, the provider of secure cloud-based document
digital revenue," said Mr. Raskino. management, email management, and collaboration solutions
CEOs set the success criteria for digital business," added Mr. to law firms and corporate legal and compliance departments.
Raskino. The Company will continue to be led by Matt Duncan, CEO, and
"It starts by remembering that you cannot scale what you do Alvin Tedjamulia, CTO, who will both join the Board of Directors
not quantify, and you cannot quantify what you do not define. alongside Clearlake. Financial terms were not disclosed.
You should also ask yourself: What is 'digital' for us? What kind of Founded in 1999, NetDocuments is currently used in more
growth do we seek? What's the No. 1 metric and which KPIs must than 140 countries and by over 20 percent of Am Law 200
change?" law firms, as well as numerous leading corporations and legal
Gartner conducted a survey of 388 CEOs and senior business departments. NetDocuments plans to use the investment funds
leaders in user organisations worldwide in the fourth quarter to accelerate growth organically by continuing to build on a
of 2016 to examine their business issues and some areas of IT successful product development and sales strategy, and also
technology agenda impact. inorganically through acquisitions.
Most responding organizations were those with annual revenue "We are eager to begin our partnership with Clearlake and
of $US1 billion. continue building our next generation cloud platform" said Alvin
Tedjamulia, CTO NetDocuments.

Image & Data Manager | 31

The Role of Process Automation
in Business Transformation
By Dan Griffith Traditional approaches to BPM and process automation focused
Organisations everywhere are facing disruption. on creating standard automated workflows, but process auto-
mation also brings additional benefits to the organisation. It can:
We’ve entered full steam into the age of the customer;
growing expectations, new digital capabilities and • Increase data-centricity by connecting the internal and
external applications and information necessary for
increasing demands from employees to have more
employees to efficiently and effectively support customers.
flexibility in how they work require major changes in
• Serve as a starting point for incorporating new business
how enterprises run their businesses. The disruption practices, compliance rules, and other business regulations,
for IT is great, but there are ways you can move as well as new technology.
forward without throwing away everything you’ve • Increase and speed up collaboration among employees,
built so far. partners, and other associates both within the office and on
In today’s world, business transformation is digital the road.
transformation, and while technology may not be the principal • Improve process visibility and traceability, supporting
driver of transformation, it plays a crucial role. This is why the continuous improvement.
role of Enterprise Architect is so critical to understanding and
enabling business transformation. A few examples of process automation include automating the
on-boarding of employees, customers and vendors; customer
Gartner defines business process automation as “...the auto- and employee self-service; sending out automated notifications
mation of complex business processes and functions beyond to employees involved with high risk financial transactions and
conventional data manipulation and record-keeping activities, regular reporting to executives.
usually through the use of advanced technologies.”
Simply stated, it is the automating of activities within business Re-imagining Process Automation
processes that are routine and repeatable, and don’t require Traditional process automation is focused on eliminating
human intervention. This is sometimes called robotic process variation and driving internal improvements often through the
automation, or RPA. Through the automation of these routine automating of as many tasks as possible. It took an inside-out
activities, enterprises gain efficiencies and cost savings. approach that identified how the process needed to work to
But this is only one component of the value process automation support the business itself.
brings to business transformation. Today, Gartner says that process automation focuses on
32 | Image & Data Manager
providing “freedom within a box.” It requires enterprises to cost-effective IT environment. This is where process automation
rethink their idea of “process,” moving it from a back-office can help.
management tool to the front office where employees have the Process automation is important to helping IT on-board new
ability to dynamically adjust how a process, and its technologies. It can support the migration of records and
activities operate to meet the current situation. The focus now information to less costly technologies. It can support the
shifts from inside-out to outside-in and supporting the needs of creation of processes that integrate existing systems and new
the customer. systems, and it can enable employees to adopt new approaches
“The dynamics of digital business necessitate an enterprise’s to working, but still retain access to systems that contain key
most adaptable resource - its people - to easily consume information.
systematised capabilities and the best information available in
the moment to dynamically orchestrate their interactions with
peers, customers, partners and so on. Process becomes less Most organisations have dozens of
about automation and more about the dynamic orchestration
of human, machine and information resource interactions to processes that look like this: Receive
deliver an optimal outcome,” according to Gartner. an email. Get data from an
One way we see this evolution happening is in the creation of application X. Copy information in a
process-driven applications. Case management is an example of
process automation that includes both automated and flexible, network available spreadsheet.
agile activities that adapt to the current situation and customer. Generate word document. Update
Incident management is a perfect example for this kind of system Y; etc. These kinds of
automation. Identifying the existence of an issue is usually a very
structured entry point, and the closure of the problem is also processes are expensive, people
very well defined. But what happens in the middle is much more dependant, error prone and huge
complex to envision and thereby harder to model in advance.
bottlenecks to achieve strategic
The right process platform will allow you to model the
expected milestone (identification, assessment, resolving, business objectives.
confirming solution and closing) with the right service level
agreement protocols in place. But it will also allow those in
Some approach modernisation through process automation as
charge of executing the actual tasks to create new activities,
a mechanism to provide more activity focused interfaces that
collaborate and trigger new specialised processes as needed.
leverage information available in different sources.
All this unpredicted activity leaves trails and results that will
If workers collaborate in the context of “enabling service X for
coexists with the information received from the pre-envisioned
customer Y” rather than performing different transactions in
activities. Choosing to automate this process with the right
their ERP, CRM and core systems, performance will improve.
platform should not be a decision between visibility and
Process automation allows the operation to focus on business
flexibility. Introducing process automation into your enterprise
outcomes rather than putting together the support pieces.
doesn’t mean you have to abandon existing IT investments.
Smart enterprise architects know that the best process Others see modernisation in providing completely new
automation strategy includes the right combination of people, interfaces. Through process automation, customer-facing
processes, and technology. That right combination considers transactions can be exposed via a highly-efficient, tailored user
many factors such as current IT investments, integrations with interface. For example, an insurance company could provide a
internal and external systems as well as how and with whom mobile website to allow customers to configure and quote their
employees need to collaborate to get their work done. policies. All the rules, calculations and support transactions to
enable such mobile experience are orchestrated by a process.
Process automation is not just about cost-savings. It’s about
delivering long-term value through the consistent and efficient Working with core systems that often exist in black boxes causes
operation of business. It empowers IT to support the definition, particular changes. There is little to no visibility into how these
automation, and integration of processes the best way possible. systems work, the ability to change them as business needs
change is difficult and time-intensive, and there’s often a lot of
Modernisation of legacy systems replication of data across systems that is not always in sync.
Most enterprises have a number of legacy systems in house. Today’s systems need to support cross-organisation
Some are custom-coded applications, and others are complex collaboration as enterprises work to focus on the constantly
mainframe systems. In many cases, these legacy applications changing demands of customers. Employees need the flexibility
support critical business activities. to change the way business processes work, empowering them
to adapt to changing market conditions, new partners, and new
Most of these systems can’t be easily replaced, either due to compliance requirements.
their use in the business or to the cost of replacement. However,
their continued use challenges the enterprise architect’s ability Through the implementation of business process automation, IT
to help the enterprise respond to changing business priorities can help create processes that automate routine, repetitive tasks,
quickly. yet allow for the flexibility required to alter processes as needed.
At the same time, the enterprise architect can help ensure that
The amount of time and budget IT expends maintaining and these processes are well governed and adhere to compliance
supporting these legacy systems could be better spent rules and regulations.
elsewhere. IT resources are also frustrated because the time
required to support legacy systems keeps them from working Most organisations have dozens of processes that look like
with innovative technologies that grow their skillsets. this: Receive an email. Get data from an application X. Copy
information in a network available spreadsheet. Generate word
Modernising legacy systems through “wrapping” them with an document. Update system Y; etc…
agile process layer and migrating the data to a less expensive
records management platform takes a great burden off IT. It These kinds of processes are expensive, people dependant, error
enables the Enterprise Architect to shift their attention and prone and huge bottlenecks to achieve strategic business
efforts to new digital technologies such as mobile, cloud and objectives. Through automation, the actual human intervention
Big Data, lowers risk to the organisation and results in a more (Continued over)
Image & Data Manager | 33
 Overcoming the BPM stereotype
Traditional business process management was about defining gives employees one place to access the information and tools
business processes to the nth degree and then implementing needed, while still performing proper security and auditing.
standardised workflows that fit 99% of situations. It was all Visibility, transparency, and traceability go hand in hand
about efficiency and cost-savings. Today’s approach to business with successful process automation. The right automation
process automation is much more flexible and agile, and brings platform provides the tools necessary to get full visibility into
many additional benefits to the business, including making em- all the activities in a business process.
ployees more efficient and effective in their daily work. It also Analytics improve process visibility through consistent
provides a number of benefits to IT. monitoring and reporting of all process activities not just when
“Front-office effectiveness and innovation are enhanced the process is complete, but throughout the period the process
when CIOs and digital workplace leaders enable workers to is performed. Most business processes involve more than one
situationally adapt their tasks, interactions, information needs person working on a vary of activities. This makes it critical to
and decisions in the “business moment” to deliver an optimal ensure all activities are traceable back to the person or system
outcome.” (from Gartner The Future of BPM: From Prescribed that did the work, as well as what exactly was done.
Actions to Improvisational Interactions) The key is to ensure that the right people can see the right
Time to market is critical. The competition in many information when they need it and the system tracks when and
markets is fierce, and the most successful companies are those that how activities are conducted.
recogniae and make changes, and get them out to the You can’t set and forget a business process. Changing
market as quickly as possible. At the same time, it’s important to markets, increasing customer demands, changes to compliance
maintain consistency in how work is done. Consistency en- rules and regulations (internally and externally) and many
sures that every customer is treated equally, not in the sense other factors force enterprises to continually monitor and
that the process is identical, but in the sense that they are improve how processes work.
listened to and supported to the best of the company’s abili- This approach of continuous improvement can happen when
ty. Consistency through process automation also ensures business process automation is implemented strategically and
each process is conducted in a controlled manner, following with the right tools. The right process automation platform
corporate norms and best practices.Business processes also need helps enterprises introduce agile and adaptive approach-
to continue to be efficient. By automating repeatable, routine es to deal with changing and complex business and market
tasks where appropriate and ensuring employees have the tools conditions and at the same time ensure the following of
and information they need at their fingertips to get their work compliance rules, both internal and external.
done, process automation provides the best of both worlds. Process automation is certainly about lowering costs.
No single system supports all the needs of a business or a Automating activities within a process where it is feasible
single business process. Unfortunately, in many instances, ensures that routine work is done efficiently and reliably,
employees spend significant time going from system to reducing risks and removing the possibility of human error.
system to get the information they need to do their jobs. In some It also empowers business and IT to focus their attention
cases, they also need to access external systems or resources. on more important aspects of the process, such as integrat-
Employees are forced to rely on outdated, time consuming ing new innovative technologies and systems, adapting and
methods of collaboration that delay their work and the out- enhancing critical activities and improving collaboration between
come. employees and partners.
Process automation can provide the connectivity needed to Ultimately, it’s about ensuring customers are getting the on-
bring together all the external and internal systems required going support they need when they need it. Customer loyalty
to perform a particular business process. This connectivity and retention are critical to higher profit growth.

( from previous page) involvement and providing capabilities to adjust process

activities to meet each situation. Process automation brings
could be reduced to a check to see if things are working as agility through different fronts. Firstly through low code
expected and the capacity to intervene if something is off the development, which means less complexity. Business processes
rails or extra activities are needed for any special case. are complex enough so simplifying how you build them it is an
Business success today is directly related to an enterprise’s important gain. Then, process automation doesn’t create new
agility. How quickly and easily can it adapt to changes? The things, it leverages what you have and allows you to augment
speed at which new technologies are coming to market and the this. Enterprises already have most of the transactional systems
speed at which customers and employees are adopting them they need; process automation is about making them work
and demanding the products and services they use to support together within a common objective in the most efficient way
them is increasing every day. In addition, new regulations possible. Last but not least, a process platform will deliver a
regularly surface that must be addressed. large number of your usual requirements out of the box which
To compete in this “age of the customer” requires agility, the mean less things for the customers to be concerned about:
ability to react quickly to customer needs, new internal and security, audit trails, logging, reporting and system manage-
external drivers, new opportunities and challenges, and more. It ment are areas that only need minimal attention in terms of the
requires the flexibility to change according to the situation and effort allocated when using the right process platform.
the customer. Process automation can help IT provide the agili- Dan Griffith is Enterprise Sales Director at Everteam, a specialist in
ty and flexibility necessary yet in a controlled fashion, ensuring Enterprise Content Management, Business Process Management,
compliance is upheld and best practices are followed. It does Archiving and Records Management. http://www.everteam.com
this by automating the tasks that don’t require direct employee
34 | Image & Data Manager
New Senate count solution in 12 weeks
Changes to Senate voting at the 2016 Australian validated by a human operator before being imported to the
federal election substantially increased the AEC EasyCount system for the distribution of preferences and
complexity of the Senate count. Faced with a tight declaration of results.
deadline before the double dissolution election on Each state and territory established a dedicated Central Senate
July 2, 2016, the AEC in partnership with Fuji Xerox Scrutiny (CSS) site in their capital city. At the CSS, batches of
Senate ballot papers were scanned using Kodak i5650 scanning
Document Management Solutions was able to
hardware and entered into the TIS eFlow imaging software.
develop a new end-to-end solution involved scanning
Optical character recognition technology captured voter
and image recognition technology in less than 12 preferences, with manual verification by a human operator. Once
weeks. each Senate ballot paper is digitised and the marks interpreted
At the 2013 federal election, most people voted by marking a by TIS eFlow imaging software, any ballot paper with unknown
‘1’ above the line, next to the group of their choice. The group preferences or unusual markings is referred to a human operator
voting ticket determined the flow of preferences. for verification of the marks on the ballot paper
Previously, only preferences expressed below the line, about 4 Once verified, a record, representing the preferences on the
per cent of votes, needed to be recorded and entered ballot paper, was generated and a cryptographic digital
individually into the count system. signature applied to protect each preference record from
The changes to Senate voting in 2016 required voters to express modification. The AEC then imported the preference record into
group preferences (at least 1 to 6) above the line, or individual the AEC EasyCount system for the distribution of preferences
preferences (at least 1 to 12) below the line. Consequently, Notable features of the solution included:
preferences had to be entered into the count system for 100 • a continual, trackable chain of custody for ballot papers
per cent of Senate ballot papers – whether the ballot paper was
marked above or below the line. • human verification of every ballot paper
• full access for candidate scrutineers
New semi automated solution • Best-practice IT architecture and security standards.
To ensure a workable count solution for the 2016 election, the The counting solution required the movement of
AEC developed two potential solutions in parallel: (1) a semi approximately 14 million ballot papers from over 7,000
automated vote scanning and new counting system; and (2) an polling places to a Central Senate Scrutiny (CSS) site in each state
enhanced EasyCount solution, using the AEC’s existing count or territory. At these sites, over 800 staff scanned and verified
application. preferences for 631 candidates. From Tuesday 5 July, eight CSS
Developed in partnership with Fuji Xerox Document sites operated five days a week, over two shifts.
Management Solutions, the semi-automated process was The AEC, with the assistance of the counting solution, success-
considered more robust, efficient and technically superior, and fully declared the eight state and territory senate results and
was adopted for the 2016 federal election. returned the writs by 8 August 2016. The AEC is proud of its
The solution involved scanning and image recognition achievement given the short time provided in which to imple-
Scanning
technology and preferences
to capture Securitywhich
Technology
were then visually ment the changes.
Independent Technical Security Assessment

Information Security Registered Assessors Program (IRAP) Information Security Registered Assessors Program (IRAP)

Penetration tested Penetration tested

FUJI XEROX AUSTRALIAN ELECTORAL COMMISSION

CCTV and security guards CCTV and security guards

Firewall Firewall
Access controls
Access log
Firewall Firewall
Ballot papers Kodak i5650 scanner TIS Metadata SFTP transfer with Compare cryptographic
eFlow imaging software cryptographically signed 256 bit encryption signature
Retrieval log
SEGREGATED SECURE NETWORK

SEGREGATED SECURE NETWORK

System log

Firewall
Secure holding Scanned images Monitoring system EasyCount Election Management
Scanned image
zone batch log System (ELMS)
and meta data
Scanning log

Firewall

Access controls

Firewall Firewall

Reports TallyRoom

Scanning and Security Technology developed for the 2016 Senate Election. Scrutineers may view the scanning,
verification and adjudication processes. If they wish, they may raise challenges for adjudication by the Australian Electoral Officer (AEO).
Image & Data Manager | 35
 What exactly the heck are
Prescriptive Analytics?
By Mike Gualtieri, Forrester Research the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of enterprises decisions
Prescriptive analytics is about using data and allows developers to refine or redo decision logic to make it even
better. It can be as simple as marketing managers reviewing
analytics to improve decisions and therefore the
email conversion rates and adjusting the decision logic to target
effectiveness of actions. Isn’t that what all analytics an additional audience. Alternatively, it can be as sophisticated
should be about? A hearty “yes” to that because, if as embedding a machine learning model in the decision logic
analytics does not lead to more informed decisions for an email marketing campaign to automatically adjust what
and more effective actions, then why do it at all? content is sent to target audiences.
Many wrongly and incompletely define prescriptive analytics as
the what comes after predictive analytics. Our research indicates
8 Prescriptive Analytics Technologies
that prescriptive analytics is not a specific type of analytics, but Because "prescriptive analytics" is a focused moniker for data
rather an umbrella term for many types of analytics that can and analytics that are specifically designed and used to improve
improve decisions. the effectiveness of decision logic there are many technologies
Think of the term “prescriptive” as the goal of all these analytics that enterprises can use to improve decisions:
— to make more effective decisions — rather than a specific • Descriptive analytics. Descriptive analytics enables
analytical technique. Forrester formally defines prescriptive analytics users within an enterprise to query data integrated
analytics as: from multiple applications to create reports, dashboards, or
"Any combination of analytics, math, experiments, simulation, aggregated data that firms access through applications either
and/or artificial intelligence used to improve the effectiveness directly or through APIs. Descriptive analytics can inform
of decisions made by humans or by decision logic embedded in decision logic either with aggregate variables specific to
applications." customers or with historical data that has been integrated from
multiple application systems. For example, a simple aggregate
Whether To Act (or not act) analytic of the current sales for the day can plug into pricing
logic in other applications to raise or lower the price.
Prescriptive analytics can be used in two ways:
• Predictive analytics. Predictive analytics is about creating
• Inform decision logic with analytics. Decision logic needs data predictive models - models that can predict an outcome with a
as an input to make the decision. The veracity and timeliness of significant probability of accuracy. Data scientists can use a
data will insure that the decision logic will operate as expected. combination of techniques including statistical algorithms,
It doesn’t matter if the decision logic is that of a person or em- machine learning, and forecasting to create predictive models.
bedded in an application — in both cases, prescriptive analytics These models can either provide a variable that feeds into the
provides the input to the process. Prescriptive analytics can be decision logic or make a probabilistic decision themselves. For
as simple as aggregate analytics about how much a customer example, an application could use extensive decision logic to
spent on products last month or as sophisticated as a predictive approve a loan based on many factors, including a credit risk
model that predicts the next best offer to a customer. The variable — which a predictive model can derive.
decision logic may even include an optimization model to
determine how much, if any, discount to offer to the customer. • Streaming analytics. Streaming analytics detects events and
patterns in real-time streams of data. Many enterprise decisions
• Evolve decision logic. Decision logic must evolve to improve have to be made in an instant. Streaming analytics allows
or maintain its effectiveness. In some cases, decision logic itself developers to define patterns in multiple streams of disparate
may be flawed or degrade over time. Measuring and analysing live data sources. Streaming analytics can provide real-time

36 | Image & Data Manager

insights for decision logic or it can detect patterns in data that
indicate that a decision has to be made. For example,
streaming analytics could detect that a shipment will be late due
Infosys Nia makes big predictions
to a breakdown or that a customer is shopping for motorcycle Infosys claims its new Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform,
safety products because she has a pattern of clicking on Nia, builds on a year of experience with 50+ clients of its
motorcycle safety products such as helmets. first-generation AI platform, Infosys Mana, and its Robotic
• Search and knowledge discovery. Information leads to Process Automation (RPA) solution, AssistEdge.
insights, and insights lead to knowledge. That knowledge Dr. Vishal Sikka, Chief Executive Officer, Infosys, said,
enables employees to become smarter about the decisions they
make for the benefit of the enterprise. But developers can embed
“"When we launched our knowledge-based AI platform
search technology in decision logic to find knowledge used to Mana one year ago, we set out on our path of bringing
make decisions in large pools of unstructured big data. For knowledge, data and automation, together with our services
example, search technology can bring back a list of options for to our clients as never before.
an application that finds the nearest gas station or products that “We have seen tremendous adoption, and indeed, a
are most likely to pique a customer’s interest. massive embrace of Mana by our clients, particularly in
• Simulation. Simulation imitates a real-world process or system leveraging Mana to improve service delivery and drive
over time using a computer model. Because digital simulation efficiencies and cost performance through automation. But
relies on a model of the real world, the usefulness and accuracy
we could clearly see that there was much more potential, an
of simulation to improve decisions depends a lot on the fidelity
of the model. Simulation has long been used in multiple unlimited potential, in bringing AI to our clients’ most
industries to test new ideas or how modifications will affect an sophisticated and complex business problems, as they work
existing process or system. Firms use it in engineering to test the toward a vision of bringing technology to every aspect of
safety of infrastructure, as well as in manufacturing to test the their businesses.
safety, quality, and design of products. Simulation uses many “Nia, the next generation of our AI platform now takes
analytical techniques. For example, financial services firms use our purposeful approach to AI, one in which technology
Monte Carlo simulation to explore how unexpected events might
serves to amplify people and empowers them to work in new
affect the value of their investment portfolio so they can make
decisions to mitigate risk. ways, to new heights. When we bring this together with our
unmatched ability to educate and train in AI techniques
• Mathematical optimisation. Mathematical optimisation is
the process of finding the optimal solution to a problem that has and emerging technologies, we now have the platform, the
numerically expressed constraints. For example, firms use services and the skills, to deliver new unprecedented value to
optimisation to determine the best way to allocate advertising our clients.”
dollars to multiple outlets or to determine the best allocation of Infosys says Nia converges the big data/analytics,
supply chain resources. The breadth of mathematical machine learning, knowledge management, and cognitive
optimisation techniques is exceptional because such techniques automation capabilities of Mana; end-to-end RPA capabili-
originate from various mathematical disciplines, including linear
ties of AssistEdge; advanced, high-performance and scalable
and non-linear programming and integer programming.
machine learning capabilities of Skytree; and optical character
• Machine learning. Don’t think of machine learning as a
recognition (OCR), natural language processing (NLP)
singular approach to analysing data. There are dozens of
specialized classes of machine learning algorithms that focus on capabilities and infrastructure management services.
specific problem domains. What makes machine learning Infosys’ first-generation AI platform was about IT,
algorithms unique is that they identify patterns or make simplification, efficiency and cost. Capabilities included
predictions by analysing historical data that is representative of socialisation of organisational knowledge, deep analytics,
the domain. “Learning” means that the algorithms analyse sets service automation, automated incident root cause analysis
of data to look for patterns and/or correlations that result in and others.
insights. Those insights can become deeper and more accurate
The next generation platform, Infosys Nia, tackles busi-
as the algorithms analyse new data sets. The models created and
continuously updated by machine learning can be used as input ness problems such as forecasting revenues, forecasting what
to decision logic or to improve the decision logic automatically. products need to be built, understanding customer behaviour,
• Pragmatic AI. AI can, at present, reasonably be considered the deeply understanding the content of contracts and legal
ultimate prescriptive analytics. Enterprises can use AI to program documents, understanding compliance, and fraud.
machines to continuously learn from new information, build Infosys claims Nia can help clients solve a wide variety of
knowledge, and then use that knowledge to make decisions and business problems:
interact with people and/or other machines. We are still a long • improving order-to-cash process by creating a realtime
way from pure AI like the kind you see in sci-fi movies like Ex risk profile to customise the collection strategy, expedite
Machina or television series such as HBO’s Westworld . However,
resolution of disputes, predict anomalies, prevent disputes,
the building blocks of AI comprise many of the other technolo-
gies we have mentioned here, including machine learning, and and enable better visibility and forecasting of cash flow to
have value for prescriptive analytics. reduce days sales outstanding (DSO).
• create knowledge models of multiple, complex labour
Tie Analytics To Decisions contracts with an on-demand, self-service conversational
The bottomline: Enterprises must stop wasting time and money interface to operationalise the knowledge.
on unactionable analytics . These efforts don’t matter if the • create a customer genome based on internal &
resulting analytics don’t lead to better insights and decisions that external data sources to help develop targeted messaging,
are specifically linked to measurable business outcomes. identify upselling and cross-selling opportunities, offer
Mike Gualtieri is a Forrester VP, Principal Analyst Serving Application personalised solutions, and improve customer satisfaction.
Development & Delivery Professionals. http://blogs.forrester.com/ www.infosys.com
mike_gualtieri

Image & Data Manager | 37

My Health Record: the resuscitation
of e-health, or a data placebo?
By Matthew Swinn and Mark Weber, King & Terminal failure of the PCEHR
Wood Mallesons PCEHR was launched in July 2012 as one of the pillars of the
National E-Health Strategy developed by Deloitte in 2008. The
Like a phoenix rising from its ashes (or perhaps a aim of the PCEHR system was to contribute to the creation of a
resuscitation scene from ER) the Personally Controlled “platform for health information exchange across geographic
and health sector boundaries.”
Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) digital health system
has been given new life under the new My Health Despite being met with initial warmth by consumers, PCEHR
failed. PCEHR was not being used by healthcare providers,
Record platform (MyHR).
leading to a drop off in demand, with registration plateauing at 2
Launched in July 2012 as one of the foundations of the National million users. The medical profession all but abandoned PCEHR,
e-Health Strategy, PCEHR failed to make a significant impact on claiming it was too hard to use in daily practice. Only 40,000
digital health due to poor uptake by both consumers and the health records were ever uploaded to PCEHR, accounting for
medical professions. In November 2013, the Australian only 2% of registered users.
Government commissioned a review of PCEHR by a panel of
Accordingly, the PCEHR Review was commissioned by the then
health and IT experts, which was completed in the record time of
Minister for Health, Peter Dutton. The PCEHR Review looked at
6 weeks and released in May 2014 (PCEHR Review). Deloitte was
the failings of PCEHR and sought to determine whether there
then engaged to run the public consultation process, with their
was still a place for an e-health record system.
report being released in September 2014 (Deloitte Report).
The PCEHR Review highlighted the following issues with PCEHR:
In response to the PCEHR Review and the Deloitte Report, the
Government announced a $A485 million “rescue” package to • not enough patients registered to provide clinical value;
“re-boot” the failed PCEHR. The cash injection would be used to • not enough information in patient records to provide clinical
trial an opt-out system, improve the user-friendliness and clinical value;
utility of the platform, including to relaunch the platform under • poor integration with healthcare practices; and
the new name of MyHealth Record, and to replace the
responsible agency, the National E-Health Transition Authority, • the PCEHR interface was not conducive to practical clinical use.
with the Australian Commission for e-Health (since changed to However, the PCEHR Review found that there was still a place for
the Australian Digital Health Agency, or ADHA). The project has an e-health system and that it remains a critical part of Australia’s
cost nearly $A1 billion to date and is expected to cost at least future healthcare infrastructure. The PCEHR Review also suggest-
another $A500 million. ed that fixing PCEHR’s flaws would help realise its benefits for the
My Health Record is intended to provide a secure online healthcare industry.
summary of a patient’s health information. It aims to facilitate Following the PCEHR Review, the Government commissioned
improved medications management and care coordination, the Deloitte Report which indicated strong consumer support
particularly for those in frequent contact with the health system. for an e-health record system. PCEHR was rebranded as MyHR
The patient has full autonomy over what goes into their MyHR and injected with more capital.
portal. They also decide who is allowed to access their records.
One of MyHR’s stated benefits is that a patient’s important
Will I be automatically registered?
healthcare information will be available in one place online, eas- One of the reasons PCEHR failed was that it was designed as an
ily accessible by authorised persons. This should result in better opt-in system, with voluntary registration. The PCEHR Review
care in medical emergencies, and more generally by facilitating found that healthcare providers were reluctant to use a system
the dissemination of up-to-date information across the patient’s which only some patients were using. It recommended
contact points within the healthcare network. It also switching to an opt-out system to create an instant uptake of
dispenses with the requirement for patients to remember their users. The PCEHR Review recognised that implementing an
own medical history in great detail. It could mark the end of opt-out system was dependent on a sufficient amount of patient
filling out lengthy forms in the waiting room. information being uploaded and the establishment of clear
The Government estimates that a fully functioning MyHR will privacy and security standards.
save it $A7 billion in direct costs and $A2.5 billion a year on an The recommendation for the opt-out approach was met with
ongoing basis. serious privacy concerns. A number of Members of Parliament

38 | Image & Data Manager

took the view that such a substantial imposition on individual say that shared health records which contain predictable, core
rights could only be justified if it advanced a legitimate public and unqualified clinical information are critical to the
policy objective and that merely increasing My Health Record achievement of MyHR’s key objective; that is, to create a reliable
usage did not warrant such a step. and universally accessible source of patient data in order to drive
Despite those objections, the My Health Records (Opt-out Trials) efficiency gains across the healthcare system.
Rule 2016 bill was passed to enable the implementation of the A lack of confidence in MyHR by healthcare providers is
opt-out system on a trial basis. Rollout of a full opt-out scheme ominous. The PCEHR Review highlighted this as one of PCEHR’s
will hinge on the success of these trials. So far, trials have been main failings. The less that healthcare providers can rely on
implemented in parts of NSW and QLD. They have seen nearly 1 MyHR the less likely they are to use it.
million users added to MyHR with only 1.9% opting out.
The government has allocated $374.2 million in the 2017 federal Building a better MyHR platform
budget towards expanding the MyHR system to a full opt-out The PCEHR Review found that an electronic health record system
model. requires a series of unified, integrated and extendable
“This follows unanimous support at COAG [in late March] for foundations to enable the government and private sector to
a national rollout of My Health Record with every Australian provide appropriate software solutions to the industry. Poorly
to receive a record, or opt out if they choose to do so,” budget integrated software systems were highlighted as contributors to
documents state. the failure of PCEHR.
Will your healthcare provider be using MyHR compatible The ADHA has published various resources for implementing
software? There is nothing which compels healthcare providers and developing a better digital health platform. These include:
to support MyHR and the Deloitte Report warned that any • ‘eHealth Foundations’ – basic technologies of unique
electronic health record system would suffer from a lack of identification, authentication and encryption to provide a safe
interest by healthcare providers. and secure method of exchanging healthcare information;
Of course, patients are largely free to choose their healthcare • ‘My Health Record Developer’ – easily customised guides and
providers and the National Health Services Directory now resources for developers integrating digital health products into
displays a MyHR logo next to MyHR compatible healthcare their platforms;
providers, which makes it easier for patients to use MyHR with • ‘Implementation and Adoption’ – enhanced essential
ease and confidence. However, it is unlikely that a large number foundations and infrastructure required to enable a truly
of patients will value having a unified health record enough national MyHR system;
to elect to move away from a longstanding doctor–patient
relationship just to enjoy the benefits of MyHR. Realistically • ‘National Infrastructure’ – national approach to support private,
the successful uptake of the program will require support from national, state, and territory digital health reforms; and
healthcare providers. • ‘eHealth Reference Platform’ – clinically validated technical
Some steps have been taken to encourage healthcare providers simulator for digital health, with technical services and sample
to transition to MyHR compatible software. The Practice code supporting demonstration, training and development
Incentives Program, ePIP, makes payments (capped at $A12,500 testing.
per quarter) to practices which meet certain eligibility The full range of development resources published by the ADHA
requirements and usage targets. Those requirements include: can be found at www.digitalhealth.gov.au/implementation-re-
• using compliant software to access MyHR; sources
• applying to participate in MyHR; Next steps for MyHR
• uploading a minimum number of shared health summaries to The ADHA has recently published MyHR statistics current to
MyHR. 12 March 2017. Approximately 4.6 million patients and 10,000
This program reflects a key recommendation of the PCEHR healthcare providers have now registered for MyHR. Almost
Review, namely the use of better incentives to encourage the 650,000 shared health summaries have been uploaded.
medical profession to use the system. These numbers show an improvement in uptake from
Is a patient’s record on MyHR reliable? consumers. More significantly, they show increased usage by
healthcare providers to levels never seen during the days of
Not necessarily, and this is perhaps the key criticism of MyHR, PCEHR. As the PCEHR Review found, without adoption by
and the main reason some commentators suggest that the healthcare providers, consumer interest will wane.
system will ultimately fail. ADHA CEO Tim Kelsey described the 2017 Consultation as an
A key function of MyHR is that the patient has complete opportunity for the community to voice how it wants
autonomy over what health data gets uploaded to their health technology to interact with healthcare. The findings from the
record and who is allowed to have access to that data. The 2017 Consultation will be used to develop a national digital
patient also has the ability to remove items from view once they health strategy. The Productivity Commission’s report (http://
have been uploaded, no matter how significant the item is. As a www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/data-access/report) into Data
result, MyHR cannot be relied on as a complete source of Availability and Use highlights the health sector as particularly
information. Accordingly, some corners of the medical problematic in the context of data sharing and has suggested
profession say that acting on MyHR information presents clinical significant reforms to data and privacy laws in order to break the
risk. The MyHR website itself says MyHR is not comprehensive myriad silos that lock up our health data.
and cannot replace official medical records held by healthcare It is still too early to say whether MyHR will succeed where
providers. Healthcare providers cannot assume that a patient’s PCEHR failed. As a successful e-health system provides
MyHR is complete. Rather, it can only ever be treated as an opportunities for software developers and healthcare providers
“additional source of information”. A further issue for accuracy is alike to create better consumer offerings, this is an interesting
the permitted use of pseudonyms. MyHR allows patients to space to watch throughout 2017 and beyond.
register and upload information under a pseudonym in
addition to using their real name. These accounts do not have to Matthew Swinn ([email protected]) and Mark
be merged. The AMA has criticised this level of patient control Weber ([email protected]) are partners at King & Wood
saying it is an impediment to reaching MyHR’s potential. They Mallesons.

Image & Data Manager | 39

 NERDy Content for
the Enterprise
By Zach Wahl gold standard. We also commonly find documents and
Over my years of consulting, I’ve had the opportunity directories that reference individuals who no longer work at the
organisation and haven’t for some time.
to strategise, design, and conduct a number of content
migration efforts. This is typically in the context of No one cares. Lastly, many organisations inevitably possess a
great deal of content that users no longer care about. Meeting
broader content management, document manage-
memos from years past, news about people no longer employed
ment, or knowledge base redesign or refresh efforts. (or living), and sales plans for products that are no longer sold
In many of these cases, the goal is for multiple legacy systems all fall into this category. The concept of a help desk knowledge
to be decommissioned, with the appropriate content migrated base serves to paint the picture. If there’s an answer to a question
to the new system. Such efforts generally begin by conducting that no one has asked for a decade, it likely doesn’t need to be in
a content analysis, where, amongst other things, the location, your production system.
amount, and utilisation of the legacy content is assessed. This cleaning of content, eliminating the detritus accumulated
Such content analyses often reveal a massive amount of legacy over years, is not simple. However, if approached correctly, it will
content, commonly measured in millions of documents. It is at not only make your content migration effort exponentially easier,
this point where a combination of panic, malaise, and hope- it will also improve your findability while minimizing the risk and
lessness hits some organisations. We can help you avoid this, liability associated with poor content management.
however, with some core content migration best practices that To guide these efforts, I created the acronym N.E.R.D. When faced
can help you to prioritise your content, focus on highest value with a daunting content migration effort, organisations should
content, and clean your systems in the process. focus on that content which is:
EK’s past effort have yielded a critical data point for content • New – Simple sorting will reveal the newest version of
migration. On average, no more than 20-30% of an organisa- documents and the latest thoughts from your experts.
tion’s content is ever migrated to the new system. This is not to
say the old content should be deleted (we can discuss records • Essential – Company policies and legal restraints will guide
management another time), but simply that it doesn’t need to be that which is necessary for regulatory compliance and your
moved to a new system for one of several reasons. Typically, this business users can help to identify business critical
is because: information.
Content is outdated or obsolete. A recent content analysis, for • Reliable – When faced with a myriad of old, outdated, and
instance, found 47 versions of a single policy. Another found a obsolete content, ensure you’re migrating the “right”
floor plan for a building that had been sold a decade earlier. Yet versions and leave the rest to the archives.
another included the cafeteria “specials” menu for every day over • Dynamic – Recognise the content that is fleeting, such as
the last twenty years. news, memos, and meeting minutes. The latest of these
Content is duplicate or near duplicate. Many legacy systems documents demonstrate dynamism and tend to be critical,
are full of iterated versions of documents that have since been but their value wanes quickly, as does their need to be
finalised. For example, for a new client looking to migrate their migrated.
document management system, we discovered they’d been Basic user and system analytics can go a long way to helping you
holding over 100 different versions of a single marketing plan. identify your NERDy content. Engagement with your end users,
This commonly occurs when an individual saves a document critical for a variety of other reasons as well in such an endeav-
locally, and then uploads it as a fresh document instead of our, can fill in the gaps.
leveraging version control capabilities. In organizations that are As a result, your organisation will not only succeed in their
consolidating from multiple systems to one, we also commonly content migration, they’ll end up with a cleaner, tighter, and
see content duplicated across these legacy systems. more trustworthy collection of content, and that will result in
Content is simply incorrect. Going beyond the concept of happier and more productive end users.
outdated policies or old forms, many legacy systems include
information that is plain wrong. In a recent effort for a web
Zach Wahl is Principal, Knowledge Management and Taxonomy at
design company, their knowledge base still included a best
Washington, US based consulting firm Enterprise Knowledge. Email
practices document on designing for Internet Explorer 7 as the
him at [email protected]
40 | Image & Data Manager
Structured Data classification tool by the end of March 2019 . Therefore, RAVN are offering
existing Google Search Appliance customers a discount to
ClassiDocs has unveiled new functionality that enables upgrade to its solution: RAVN Connect Enterprise.
the Classification of Structured Data Sets. In addition to
RAVN Connect Enterprise is based on RAVN's "Applied
existing support for hundreds of file formats for unstruc-
Cognitive Engine" ("ACE"), which offers capabilities that go
tured data, the classification of 'the other half' of every
far beyond merely searching for documents and web
major enterprise's data set (structured data) completes
pages, including Machine Learning capabilities and
the holistic view of data across the enterprise for IT
automatic extraction of key data from the unstructured
administrators, Security Administrators, and Governance/
data under management.
Compliance officers.
It incorporates several new features that help
"In addition to our recent release of Artificial Intelligence
organisations manage their documents and other
services for classification, we are leveraging that
unstructured data a lot more efficiently. A few of those
investment to apply the same policies and selection
capabilities are:
criteria for structured databases," stated IP Risk Control
President Jason Remillard. • Contextual guided search as you type
"We can use the same policy and classification set - • Automatic classification using iterative Machine
guided and trained by end users and data stewards Learning techniques
directly - to classify data within major database vendors. • Deconstructing documents and contracts into their
"This supplements every security and compliance constituent parts, for instance creating Clause Libraries
program - classifying what kind of data is where and who - letting users search for knowledge rather than merely
has access to it. Customers can now correlate this documents
information with their existing compliance and policy • Graph based searches - exploiting explicit and implicit
systems." links between knowledge objects both for exploratory
ClassiDocs is a Data Classification platform that enables purposes but also to enhance relevance (i.e. term
End Users and Data Stewards to actively participate in the frequency is not the only measure of relevance)
process of classifying data sets - in a user-friendly, efficient www.ravn.co.uk
and quick process that generally requires little to no end
user training or education. Unstructured data classifica- Nuance enhances voice recognition
tion has been available from its initial release, and now Nuance Communications has announced customisation and
the solution is augmented with support for structured productivity enhancements for Dragon Professional Group and
data sets - across leading database vendors' technologies. Dragon Legal Australian. Both solutions have been updated to
include a next-generation speech engine leveraging Nuance’s
"By exposing this additional data to interested parties - Deep Learning technology to deliver high-recognition accuracy
systems, people and processes - we are opening a whole with the ability to learn and adapt to a variety of accents and
new realm of security posture information that may be environments.
used to make more intelligent and orchestrated With optimisation for popular Microsoft Windows touchscreen
security decisions. Add this to our existing SIEM PCs, mobile professionals and field workers can complete
integration and governance alert system that is built-in, detailed documentation or reports, or fill out form-based
you have a classification platform that supports the entire templates, such as client intake forms, almost anywhere work
takes them.
security ecosystem - and actively contributes to making
existing investments less taxed, more reliable and most Dragon Professional Group, version 15 enables employees to
create high-quality documents, spreadsheets, and presentations
importantly - more accurate," continues Remillard.
or fill form-based reports – which often include drop-down
The ability to classify data sets in myriad platforms - with menus and the need to point and click – faster and more
an accurate and up-to-date classification system - is accurately, all by voice.
integral for any organisation (health care, financial Dragon Legal Group Australian, version 15 is designed
services, manufacturing, government) with private, specifically for the Australian legal industry with a specialised
customer, or financial information to protect. ClassiDocs legal vocabulary developed using a corpus of Australian legal
represents a departure from the regular approaches - with documents.
its focus on end-user adoption, simple and rapidly Dragon Legal Group Australian enables the quick creation and
deployable architecture, and native integrations with formatting of case files, contracts, or briefs, and empowers
solicitors and other legal professionals to streamline legal
leading SIEM, EndPoint Security and Governance and
documentation turnaround times and reduce transcription
Compliance toolsets. costs, while freeing up support staff to concentrate on high-
http://www.classidocs.com value, billable tasks.
In addition to enhancing Dragon Legal Group Australian,
RAVN Systems adds Google Search Nuance is releasing a Dragon Legal Individual Australian
Appliance replacement solution. “Dragon Legal Individual Australian will allow sole
practitioners and smaller firms that don’t need the enterprise
RAVN Systems, developers of Artificial Intelligence (AI), features of Dragon Legal Group Australian to realise the
Search and Knowledge Management solutions, has productivity boost from the local legal vocabulary,” said Derek
announced the launch of their Google Search Appliance Austin, Nuance’s Dragon Business Manager, Asia Pacific.
replacement programme. www.nuance.com
Google will cease to support the Google Search Appliance
Image & Data Manager | 41
 ABBYY DocsCorp
Phone: (02) 9004 7401 Tel: 1300 559 451
E-mail: [email protected] Email: [email protected]
Web: www.abbyy.com.au Web: www.docscorp.com
ABBYY is a leading global provider of technologies and solutions DocsCorp is a leading provider of productivity software for
that help businesses to action information. The company sets document management professionals worldwide.
the standard in content capture and innovative language-based Our offices and products span the globe with over 250,000 users
technologies that integrate across the information lifecycle. in 32 countries. Our clients are well known and respected global
ABBYY solutions are relied on to optimize business processes, brands that rely on DocsCorp for their technology needs.
mitigate risk, accelerate decision making and drive revenue. Our mission is to provide document professionals who use
Thousands of companies process more than 9.3 billion pages of enterprise content management systems with integrated, easy-
documents and forms annually using ABBYY technologies. ABBYY to-use software and services that extend document process-
solutions and products are used by many of the largest international ing, review, manipulation and publishing workflows inside and
enterprises and government organizations, as well as SMBs and outside their environment to drive business efficiency and to in-
individuals. crease the value of their existing technology investment.
ABBYY technologies are licensed by world-leading hardware Our solutions include:
and software vendors to provide Image Pre-Processing, OCR, • contentCrawler intelligently assesses image-based documents
Data Capture and Format conversion capabilities for their in content repositories for batch conversion to text-searchable
products. ABBYY technologies and products, available on a PDFs, making every document searchable and retrievable
number of platforms (mobile, desktop and server) and a variety • compareDocs delivers unparalleled levels of efficiency and
of operating systems (Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Android, etc.), accuracy in the document comparison process
include FineReader, PDF Transformer, FlexiCapture, Recognition • cleanDocs provides a high level of confidence that metadata is
Server, Mobile Imaging SDK, Lingvo, and ABBYY Compreno-based cleansed from confidential or sensitive documents before being
Semantic technologies. sent externally.

Information Proficiency/Sigma Data

Tel: 08 6230 2213
Email: [email protected]
Web: infoproficiency.com.au
Objective
Phone: 1800 065 640
Information Proficiency and Sigma Data Email: [email protected]
specialises in Information Management Web: www.objective.com
Solutions, Technology and Services. Designed for regulated industries, Objective’s solutions extend
Our focus is on implementing efficient governance across the spectrum of the modern digital work-
processes critical to enhancing place; underpinning information, processes and collaborative
productivity, improving transactional speed, reducing costs and workspaces. Solutions vary from information, records and draw-
achieving regulatory compliance for your organisation. ings management to business process automation; from collab-
We supply and support Records and Content Management orative authoring through to secure collaboration with external
software and solutions that improve business processes, as well parties.
as our range of leading productivity and connectivity tools. We These solutions turn the burden of compliance, accountability
work hard to understand our client requirements and implement and governance into business opportunities by maximising the
solutions to match. value of content to deliver operational efficiency that translates
Our team is made up of experienced and diverse industry into improved services, increased productivity and reduced risk
certified professionals. We strive to build lasting relationships and cost.
with our clients, providing continuous improvement and mature Objective solutions have been designed to remove the friction
solutions which significantly improve your end-to-end business associated with traditional information management, delivering
processes and outcomes. quick and easy access to accurate information across a variety of
digital devices and business applications for a diverse range of
customers ranging in size and complexity, from large government
EzeScan bodies to local councils and any other regulated organisation.
Phone: 1300 393 722
Fax: (07) 3117 9471
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.ezescan.com.au
EzeScan is Australia’s most popular production document
capture software solution and product of choice for many
Brother
Tel: 1300 885 989
Records and Information Managers. Email: [email protected]
This award winning technology has been developed by Outback Web: http://corpsolutions.brother.com.au/
Imaging, an Australian R&D company operating since 2002. Trusted worldwide and always with a “Customer First” approach,
With 1000’s of seats world-wide, EzeScan enables its clients to Brother continuously meets the needs of consumers through a
substantially reduce the cost of deploying batch scanning and comprehensive range of quality solutions.
data capture solutions for documents of all types. With “out of the Committed to the advancement of printing and scanning
box” seamless integration with many industry standard EDRMS technologies, Brother also offer business solutions designed to
and/or ECM systems, EzeScan provides the fastest most cost- fit perfectly in the SOHO, SMB, SME and corporate environments.
effective method available to digitise business processes. With a skilled team specialising in assisting their customer’s
EzeScan solutions range from basic batch scanning with manual corporate growth, Brother’s business categories such as portable
data entry to highly automated data capture, forms and printers and scanners, commercial desktop scanners and high
invoice processing. EzeScan provides both centralised solutions volume corporate printers can help businesses achieve in any
for records professionals and decentralised business process industry.
digitisation for entire workgroups. With resellers located Australia-wide, readily available product
EzeScan benefits include: and a locally based product support team, Brother is always ‘at
• initiate intelligent automated processes; your side’.
• accelerate document delivery; Contact the Brother Commercial Division today to find the best
• minimise manual document handling; solution for your business requirements.
• capture critical information on-the-fly;
• and ensure regulatory and digitisation standards compliance.

42 | Image & Data Manager

Kodak Alaris Epson
Information Contact: Clyde Rodrigues
Phone: 0429 487 013
Management Email: [email protected]
Contact: Francis Yanga Web: www.epson.com.au/products/scanners
Email: [email protected] Epson is a global innovation leader dedicated to exceeding
Tel: 0419 559960 expectations with solutions for markets as diverse as the office,
Web: www.alarisin2.com home, commerce and industry. Epson’s advances in scanning
The ever-increasing flood of data, and how we manage it, technology deliver the perfect balance of speed and reliability
is one of the greatest opportunities facing businesses and for image reproduction of unbeatable quality. From compact
governments in the 21st century. Kodak Alaris Information mobile scanners to A3 flatbed scanners that operate at speeds
Management works with organizations from small offices up to 70ppm, the range is designed for a variety of demanding
to global enterprises, bringing together the best science, organisations where fast and easy document management is
technology and partnerships so its clients can stay ahead of the required. Combine that with high productivity software that
curve. From our award-winning range of scanners and software allows networking and ‘scan to’ options including the cloud, its
to the best global customer service and support, we’re here to versatile functions dramatically expand data usability and on-
help businesses transform data into a powerful competitive line document workflow. A high quality scanner is a powerful
advantage. tool. For unbeatable reproduction of photographs, documents
To learn more, please visit www.kodakalaris.com/go/IMnews. and graphics, you can't do better than the Epson scanner range -
outstanding results, simple operation and value for money.
Kapish
Tel: (03) 9017 4943
Email: [email protected]
Web: http://kapish.com.au/
Fujitsu Australia
Tel: 02 9776 4555
As a Tier 1 HPE Software Platinum Business Partner, Kapish aims Email: [email protected]
to provide its customers with the best software, services and Web: au.fujitsu.com/scanners
support for all versions of the Electronic Document and Fujitsu, as one of the world’s leading document scanner
Records Management System, HP TRIM, HPE Records companies for both Desktop and Workgroup scanners,
Manager (HPE RM) & HPE Content Manager (HPE offers compatibility with over 200 different document imaging
CM). We help our customers overcome the everyday applications. The result is state of the art image solutions
challenges associated with information governance and from innovative portable units all the way to large centralized
document/records management through software and production environments. Fujitsu document scanners are
services that improve the user experience and maximise renowned for their performance, remarkable image quality,
return on investment. Focused exclusively on HPE RM / CM, our fail-safe paper handling and Fujitsu's legendary reliability.
extensive range of software solutions are designed to easily New innovations include:
integrate into existing systems or be implemented as new • Overhead contactless scanning of fragile documents, thick
solutions, enable projects to be delivered faster, more books and oversized items;
effectively and with a higher degree of success. We work with • Ability to input and sort multiple small documents, business
our customers to improve their everyday use and experience cards, etc., just by laying them on the desktop;
with the system. Designed to bridge the gap between users • Ultra-sonic and patented ISOP paper sensing technology
and technology, our software solutions are easily integrated that prevents batched document damage; and
into existing systems or implemented as new solutions. Quite • Mixed batch scanning & automatic paper skew correction.
simply, our products for HPE RM/CM make record-keeping
a breeze. Kapish is a member of The Citadel Group. Citadel
solve complex problems and lower risk to our clients through
our tailored advisory, implementation and managed services
capabilities.
ELO Digital Office
Contact: Rainer Krause – Managing Director
OPEX Tel: 02 9460 0406
Email: [email protected]
Contact: Byron Knowles, Business
Development Manager - APAC Web: www.elodigital.com.au
Phone: +61 484 596 470 (m) EELO Digital Office is a truly global ECM company with
Email: [email protected] Australian expertise! With subsidiaries in 48 countries and
Web: www.opex.com/contact/sales-contact/ hundreds of thousands of users, ELO has become the natu-
OPEX is a recognised global technology leader in document ral choice in ECM. An award winning ECM supplier, ELO has
imaging, high-speed mailroom automation and material been consistently recognised for its comprehensive function-
handling. Since 1973, OPEX systems have provided performance ality, user friendly design, trend-setting innovation and open
enhancing workflow solutions and cost-effective results to architecture. The Australasian HQ of ELO was established in
thousands of organisations worldwide. OPEX systems are 2005 and has gained an impeccable reputation on all levels of
designed for a wide variety of industries including financial Government, the Private Sector, NGOs and Not-for-Profit
services, insurance, healthcare, government, retail, non- Organisations.
profits, utilities, telecommunication, service bureaus, educational The completely scalable product allows ECM implementations
institutions, and fulfilment operations. OPEX has developed from as little as five users to solutions for many thousand staff
innovative prep reducing scanners that address the root causes members. With reputable certified business partners such as
of workflow issues our customers face. Minimising preparation, Toshiba, Information Proficiency (WA), InfocentriK (NZ), AMS
paper handling, and other manual tasks not only improves Imaging (Victoria), Jardine OneSolution (Hong Kong) and
efficiency, but also results in superior transaction integrity and others, ELO customers are assured of quality implementations,
information security. As documents are removed from successful rollouts and continued support – 24/7/365.
envelopes/folders and scanned, operators can view each The VERS-compliant ELO product provides solutions for
image to ensure it is properly captured. Document Management, Records Management, Workflow,
This prevents time-consuming and costly re-scanning later Accounts Payable Automation, Imaging, Contract
in the process. Moving image capture upstream also reduces Management and mobile applications for all industries. ELO
information management risks. can be deployed onsite, in the cloud or as a hybrid solution.

Image & Data Manager | 43

TOOLS &
TECHNOLOGY

Realtime recognition captures mobile Fuji Xerox Smart Work Gateway

screens on the fly Fuji Xerox Australia has announced the launch of its Smart Work
Gateway concept designed to support businesses with more
flexibility and secure mobile working. Smart Work Gateway
offers businesses the ability to connect directly with popular
cloud service providers, simplified device management and
access to new productivity apps.
To support the Smart Work Gateway concept, Fuji Xerox Australia
also introduced 12 models of cloud-friendly, digital colour MFDs
under its ApeosPort-VI C series.
The new ApeosPort-VI C series integrate Cloud Service Hub – a
new platform that links the multifunction devices with multiple
de facto standard cloud services.
Users can log into the cloud services with a single sign-on,
search across these services for documents as well as the ability
to scan, save and print from the cloud.
A Direct Management Console enables users to purchase,
download and install apps for multifunction devices from the
internet in a centralised manner. This allows multiple multi-
function devices to be simultaneously managed and configured,
ABBYY is enabling ‘instant’ text extraction from the preview
providing rapid adaptation in the event of sudden changes in
screen of mobile devices via a newly introduced Real-Time
working processes, creating a more nimble and agile working
Recognition SDK (RTR SDK). Realtime recognition enables
environment.
quicker, simpler extraction of text from documents and objects
placed in the live video stream from smartphone and mobile Additional features such as Digital Rights Management
cameras. The extracted data can be used in a variety of mobile (available at a later date), Near-Field Communications (NFC)
applications ranging from highly responsive customer services printing integration (Android devices) and DocuWorks Digital
to automated enterprise processes and consumer apps. Signatures give an additional level of document control and
security. The high-end ApeosPort-VI C series models have
Applications based on ABBYY Real-Time Recognition SDK can
improved scanning productivity, achieving 270 pages of duplex
pull text from on-screen objects and automatically convert it
scanning per minute. Bulk scanning of large volume documents
to digital data. On-screen images are processed in live video
can be efficiently done as the new multifunction devices scan
stream, eliminating the need to first take a photo and save it.
the front and back of double sided documents in a single scan.
This makes the data entry process simpler and more intuitive.
The conversion takes place directly on the device and within the
mobile app, no Internet connection is needed. Once digital, data
Kofax enhances ReadSoft Online R9
can be easily processed by the application or even sent to cloud- Kofax has announced the availability of ReadSoft Online TM R9, a
based systems for further handling. cloud-based capture and invoice processing solution.
Enterprises can develop real-time recognition-enabled customer ReadSoft Online automates the accounts payable process
services and products to speed up data acquisition and by capturing invoices, extracting invoice data and exporting
processing times. As part of customer onboarding processes verified data to ERP, accounting and other applications. Built
such as account opening or loan application, information from on Microsoft Azure, its setup is quick and does not require IT
ID cards, pay slips and other documents can be captured within resources.
seconds and then transferred directly into online forms or apps Key enhancements with this release include:
for new customer sign-ups. A new HTML5 interface offering an intuitive screen
For customer self-services provided by banks or insurance presentation that makes it easier for developers to generate
companies, mobile apps can quickly extract and use interface improvements with little or no training.
transactional information such as bank transfer details (BPay, Upgraded capture capabilities with enhanced line item
SWIFT, IBAN, etc.) or policy numbers in claim forms to make data extraction, learning and optimisation to readily identify country
entry processes more efficient. As no photos are stored on the specific invoices, improved custom extraction fields and
device, the technology is well-suited for use in processes that enhanced auto learning. Improved reporting for better
must comply with data security and data privacy standards. extraction of key analytical data and access to reports using
Software vendors developing consumer apps can easily add new Microsoft Excel. Increased partner channel autonomy with
functionality and value for their users. Travel apps can offer fast simple integration to applications through easy-to-use APIs and
translation assistance when images captured on preview screens XML outputs.
can be quickly translated using mobile dictionaries. ReadSoft Online R9 builds on previously released features
Text reading apps for persons with reading and learning including multi-language support, line item extraction, supplier
disabilities can be enhanced by ‘live text input’ into their text-to- recognition and Excel import for master and purchase order
speech components. data and reporting. As a cloud-based solution, updates and
ABBYY Real-Time Recognition SDK is available for integration enhancements are deployed in an automated manner allowing
into new or existing applications for iOS and Android. The ABBYY customers to access new features as they are incorporated into
developer toolkit supports easy integration and offers code the product.
samples and ‘quick start’ guides to help developers get started.
The SDK supports capture of texts in 63 languages. MediaValet DAM locks into SharePoint
A video illustration of the solution is available at http://bit.ly/ MediaValet Inc. a provider of cloud-based digital asset
RTRSDK. For more information on the ABBYY Real-Time Recog- management (DAM) software, has announced integration
nition SDK or to request a trial for developers, visit the ABBYY that allows SharePoint users to view, manipulate and share all
website (www.abbyy.com/en/real-time-recognition-sdk). popular formats and sizes of photos, videos, audio files, graphics,

44 | Image & Data Manager

animations and 2D and 3D CAD files within the platform. the high performers happy.
Microsoft launched SharePoint in 2001 to address organisations' The pack also includes more than 2,000 sentiment phrases
fundamental need to store and manage documents in a central, drawn from genuine employee feedback, such as “toxic
secure location. Today, over 200,000 organizations around the environment” and “treated equal*.” In a test of over 2,000
world rely on SharePoint as their company-wide intranet. documents, the Lexalytics HR Industry Pack achieved 82 per cent
MediaValet's integration with SharePoint allows organisations overall agreement with human annotators, reaching the gold
to add high resolution, large format, rich media, 2D and 3D files standard at which humans agree of ~80%.
to SharePoint, view and manipulate them in full resolution, and https://www.lexalytics.com
download or share them in all popular formats or sizes.
Rendering is delivered on demand by MediaValet, along with Free Document Approval for iManage
version control and rights management. Office Information Australia (OIA), a provider of Content Services
MediaValet's recent launch of its 3D AutoCAD viewer further and Workflow Management in the APAC region, has announced
enhances the SharePoint integration by enabling all users to an offer which allows iManage customers to implement a
view and manipulate detailed industrial design, engineering Workflow system with a Document Approval workflow for free.
and architectural files on their corporate intranets. Manipulation Workflow and Business Process Management has long been
of 3D models includes the ability to rotate, zoom, explode, slice considered only appropriate for larger companies and
and do walk-throughs. businesses in the Manufacturing and Engineering space.
www.mediavalet.com Acknowledging that the need for workflow stretches beyond
these traditional markets and that the paper-intensive, OIA is
eSignLive now on the AppExchange offering a free version of the Enterprise class WorkflowGen from
eSignLive for Salesforce CPQ is now available on the Advantys, together with a free ‘Document Approval’ workflow
Salesforce AppExchange, providing an easy-to-integrate app integrated directly with the iManage DMS.
which digitises the configure-price-quote (CPQ) process by “We have seen process automation move across in recent times
bringing e-signing capabilities to sales quotes, proposals and from our manufacturing and Engineering clients into the com-
agreements directly from Salesforce CPQ. pliance and process-sensitive areas of larger professional offices”,
eSignLive for Salesforce CPQ enhances the deal closing process says Nigel Askew, a Director at OIA.
by making it easy to sign documents quickly and securely on “Some of these have been maturing Lotus and SharePoint
any device, eliminating the need to use paper for a signature. customers wanting to convert existing serial forms into more
Organisations can generate quotes and configure orders from process-driven business objects, while others are clearly aiming
within Salesforce, and then with one click, push the documents at the policy enforcement end of the spectrum”.
for signature. WorkflowGen is a full function workflow creation tool that offers
eSignLive for Salesforce CPQ helps keep the entire quote-to-cash the creation of Forms and Business Rules without the need for
process digital and eliminates hybrid paper-digital processes. programming. OIA’s WorkflowGen based Document Approval
Digitising the sales contracting process can add value across the for iManage provides users with an easy right-click option from
organisation: their usual iManage Work interface (DeskSite or FileSite), allows
them to select deadlines, reviewers and provide instructions
• Sales departments benefit from a completely digital process
before sending the workflow on its way.
that lets them focus on closing deals rather than chasing
approvals or paperwork. www.officeinfo.com.au
• Customers gain the ability to conveniently sign anywhere, any DocsCorp apps verified as Citrix Ready
time and on any device.
DocsCorp products compareDocs, cleanDocs, and pdfDocs have
• Operations and Finance benefit from fully digital invoicing,
been verified as Citrix Ready. The Citrix Ready program helps
reporting and other post-sales activities triggered automatically
users identify third-party solutions that are recommended to
from Salesforce.
enhance virtualisation, networking and cloud computing
• Compliance receives e-signed documents and subsequent solutions from Citrix.
audit trails that are stored back into Salesforce once the
These products are now listed in the Citrix Ready Marketplace
transaction is complete, including transaction history like how
, which hosts over 30,000 verifications plus an extensive list of
and when the transaction took place.
verified products and solutions compatible with a range of Citrix
http://sforce.co/2mOSXxr. products. The DocsCorp products have successfully passed a
series of tests established by Citrix, and can be trusted to work
Listen to voice of the employee (VOE) effectively with Citrix Cloud XenApp and XenDesktop Service on
Lexalytics, a provider of cloud and on-premise text analytics Azure.
solutions, has announced its HR Industry Pack, which uses text While DocsCorp products have been designed from the outset
analytics to improve corporate human resources (HR) operations to be compatible with XenApp and XenDesktop, they are now
and voice of the employee (VOE) programs. verified for use in Citrix environments – notably compareDocs,
The HR Industry Pack uses Lexalytics’ machine learning and its document comparison application, and cleanDocs, its meta-
artificial intelligence technologies to analyse company reviews, data removal software.
internal company emails, message boards, employee surveys cleanDocs for desktop and mobile users is a breakthrough
and other workplace data. With the resulting insight into technology that delivers on speed, flexibility and control to
employee sentiment about the organisation, management protect against accidental information and metadata leaks.
teams can design programs to improve retention, productivity compareDocs uses leading-edge technology to compare and
and satisfaction. analyse the difference between two documents with incredible
The HR Industry Pack includes 185 categories specific to accuracy across all document types. pdfDocs for PDF creation
employee content; around concepts like benefits, discrimination, and editing integrates with business systems to deliver higher
ethics and managerial quality. levels of efficiency and productivity when assembling, securing
These categories allow companies to reduce overall risk by and distributing business-critical documents in PDF and PDF/A.
catching problems as early as possible, and help them to keep www.docscorp.com
Image & Data Manager | 45
TOOLS &
TECHNOLOGY

Records compliance tool goes online “Hybrid users are defined through inclusion in one or more
audiences as configured when enabling the hybrid sites feature
Information Enterprises Australia has made available online the in SharePoint Server 2013.
Australian Record Retention Manual (ARRM) online, a tool for
"This new hybrid capability allows administrators of SharePoint
information retention compliance across the private sector
Server 2013 to have the option to enable their existing or new
“We have been listening to our clients and have spent time Self-Service Site Creation flow redirect users to SharePoint
researching the best way to take this extensive resource into the Online to create a Group (with an associated Team Site)."
online environment.” said Shirley Cowcher, Managing Director of
There is the ability to turn on or turn off Hybrid Self-Service Site
Information Enterprises Australia.
creation using SharePoint 2013 Central Administration, Baer
“The last print edition of the ARRM was our 16th edition and added.
it totalled 952 pages and referenced more than 1700 pieces of
Microsoft expects to make the hybrid self-service site creation
Australian legislation. When a reference tool gets to that size,
option available SharePoint Server 2016 in the second half of
and with legislative change occurring as rapidly as it is, you have
2017.
to look for methods of access that will provide ease and
currency” Shirley said. SharePoint Maven eases the pain of
ARRM Online launched on 3rd April 2017 as an online subscrip-
tion service. It is the same authoritative tool providing in-depth learning SharePoint
interpretation of Australian acts and regulations. Subscribers will SharePoint Maven has developed a searchable Knowledge Base
get instant access to guidance on reducing information risk and to help businesses and non-profits learn how to setup
improving compliance. SharePoint’s out-of-the box functionality with easy to follow,
Legislation can be searched by title, subject and jurisdiction. in-depth tutorials and affordable one-on-one or group training.
ARRM online is the one-stop-solution to learning all about what SharePoint was released back in 2001 to help Microsoft’s
information your organisation needs to keep, the length of time customers facilitate employee collaboration, improve document
it should be kept and the penalty for not doing so. Subscriptions management and make better-informed decisions.
are annual and available as a single user or a five-user licence. The software enables users to easily create portals, team
www.iea.com.au collaboration sites, and searchable document libraries. Millions
of people use SharePoint. However, many of these users work for
Formitize launches OCR Digital Division Fortune 500 companies with sizeable IT departments that have
Formitize, an Australian developer of paperless mobile form and in-house SharePoint experts—a luxury that small to mid-size
data collection solutions, is launching a new dedicated Digital businesses can’t afford.
Division focussed directly on OCR Capture, Paper & Invoice SharePoint Maven’s highly searchable Knowledge Base includes
Processing. Formitize has historically focussed on ‘formitizing’ a step-by-step directions and numerous screenshots - making
client’s existing internal business forms and workflows. it possible for even a tech newbie to configure SharePoint for
The main focus has been in the mobile environment with the their needs. Users can search by category, tags or keywords. If
aim of converting paper forms to smart, paperless forms with they need more help, they can hire SharePoint Maven to provide
automated workflows to help businesses run more efficiently affordable, just-in-time training. Or simpler yet, hire SharePoint
and remove all the issues associated with existing paper forms. Maven to create a custom SharePoint solution.
The new Digital Division is focussed on documents coming To explore SharePoint Maven’s Knowledge Base, visit http://share-
into the business from external sources such as suppliers and pointmaven.com/blog-sharepoint-best-practices/
getting them paperless too! . This includes a wide variety of
cases including Application Forms, Delivery Notes, Order Forms, Secure filesharing as a service (SFAS)
Purchase Orders, Receipts, Paper Timesheets, Human Resource Australian hosting provider CloudRecover and the American
Documents, Questionnaires, Claim Forms, Agreements, Accounts security platform vendor FinalCode have announced a new
Payable Invoices, or any other inbound paper documents that partnership to offer Final Code’s secure file sharing solutions
need to be processed. across a number of applications.
Heading up the Digital Division in the Asia Pacific region is As a Managed services provider, CloudRecover is also now able
Anthony Smiljan and Luke Morgan while the US & Canadian to deliver FinalCode as a service.
regions are led by Bill Vowell and John Williams. Headquartered in San Jose, California, FinalCode provides easy
A Free Trial of the Formitize service is available at Formitize.com. to deploy data protection solutions designed to enable
businesses to securely share documents and data with external
Hybrid Site creation in SharePoint 2013 parties.
Microsoft has announce organisations running on-premises The FinalCode solutions have been designed by a team of cyber
SharePoint will be to direct user site creation requests to Office security experts and are suitable for organisations of all sizes,
365 services via a new SharePoint Server 2013 feature called commercial, enterprise or government agencies.
"Hybrid Self-Service Site Creation.” Their file security solution enables businesses to easily protect
The new capability is enabled following installation of this shared sensitive information both within and outside their
month's Public Update release for SharePoint 2013, according organisation, including:
to an announcement by Bill Baer, senior product marketing • Enterprise-grade encryption
manager for SharePoint at Microsoft.
• Granular file permissions to give organisations full control over
New with the March 2017 Public Update for SharePoint their data – no matter where they are
Server 2013 is the option to Create Site Collections in SharePoint
Online. • Control over files even after they have been shared, with the
ability to modify or revoke access at any time.
“When selecting this option any hybrid user that goes to the
Self-service Site Creation page (/_layouts/15/scsignup.aspx) will FinalCode’s solution addresses the needs of data security across
be redirected to SharePoint Online Group creation, and will be multiple devices. It reduces data leakage risk and keeps data safe
able to create a Group and associated Team Site in the Cloud from hackers, malware and unintentional mishandling.
using the new modern group creation flow,” notes Baer. FinalCode integrates with all popular applications.

46 | Image & Data Manager

Fujitsu debuts two new A3 scanners SharePoint analytics for SMBs
Intlock, developer of CardioLog Analytics, has releases a SaaS
reporting package for SMBs (Small to Medium size businesses)
The service-based solution offers sophisticated reporting
integrated with Power BI and coupled with optimisation and
engagement tools.
CardioLog Analytics SaaS is available with a variety of premade
reports, enabling users to immediately understand their portal
adoption levels, scope of content, and how well a search schema
is working.
It aims to provide SMBs with a holistic toolbox to address overall
portal challenges by monitoring engagement levels, portal
resources, internal collaboration, productivity, adoption and
more. CardioLog SaaS promises small and medium-size business
the tools necessary to create, measure, understand and optimise
Fujitsu has announced the availability in Australia and New SharePoint.
Zealand of two new A3-capable document scanners: the fi-7700 As a service-based solution, there is no need to install any
(pictured above) and fi-7600. software or deploy any complicated IT configurations, and users
The new models are able to capture documents up to A3 size in can execute strategies without waiting on prolonged
a wide variety of paper weights in one batch, saving time and development execution times.
cost for production-level scanning in a professional For more info on SaaS Analytics for SMBs, contact info(at)
environment. intlock(dot)com
The fi-7700 model combines ADF (Automatic Document Feeder)
and flatbed functionality with the ability to simplify loading veraPDF 1.0 ships, testing begins
documents by adjusting the rotating ADF to suit the users’ office The veraPDF consortium has announced the release of veraPDF
or workspace environment. 1.0, an open-source industry-supported PDF/A validator.
The fi-7700’s straight paper path allows for very thick materials Led by the Open Preservation Foundation and the PDF
to be processed, while the flatbed is suitable for scanning fragile Association, veraPDF validates all parts and conformance levels
or oversized documents like magazines. of ISO 19005 (PDF/A). The software is available under a MPLv2+/
The straight paper path assures reliable scanning of mixed GLPv3+ license.
batches, regardless of the condition and type of document. The 1.0 release is required by PREFORMA in order to initiate
A one-touch change to non-separation mode allows for Phase 3 testing and acceptance, which runs from February 1
hassle-free scanning of folded or multi-layered documents. – July 30, 2017. Users are strongly encouraged to report bugs
Freely adjustable document side guides in the document feeder or other concerns to the project’s GitHub issue tracker: https://
and effective stacker side guides minimise operator intervention github.com/veraPDF/veraPDF-library/issues .
before and after scanning. Commenting on the release of version 1.0, Carl Wilson, Technical
The skew reducer improves the feeding performance and Lead for the Open Preservation Foundation said: “Identifying
ensures that a single skewed sheet in a batch does not skew any a file’s format and establishing that it conforms to the format
following sheets. specification is an essential step for memory institutions with
responsibilities for long term preservation and access. veraPDF
Paper protection functionality detects acoustic and document helps users to evaluate their files against the standard.
length irregularities, thus minimising the risk of document
damage even for documents as thin as 20g/m2. "A PDF feature reporter and a customisable policy checker allows
organisations to enforce institutional policy beyond the scope of
The fi-7600 model comes with dual fold-out operating panels PDF/A.”
to support left-to-right and right-to-left scanning scenarios. A
wider variety of document qualities, materials, shapes and sizes Duff Johnson, Executive Director for the PDF Association said:
can be scanned without special settings or operator interaction. “The release of veraPDF 1.0 is a significant milestone for both
the PDF industry and the digital preservation community. For
The fi-7700/ fi-7600 scanners achieve scanning speeds of the PDF industry, the project to develop veraPDF facilitated the
100ppm/200ipm (A4 landscape, colour, 200/300 dpi) and are identification and resolution of ambiguities in the PDF/A
optimised for centralised scanning of up to 30,000 documents specification, improving interoperability and utility to end users.
per day.
“For the digital preservation community, veraPDF delivers
The compact size of the scanners allows for placement in authoritative information about the nature and long-term
production and department settings. The scanners are designed reliability of digital holdings while providing more tools to
for mixed batch capture application in the public sector, financial help preservationists advise contributors on their software and
services and healthcare industries, as well as Business Process workflows.”
Outsourcing (BPO) service providers and scanning service
bureaus. “We hope to see users and industry performing large-scale
testing of the software to help us find remaining bugs and make
Each model is supplied with PaperStream software for high necessary and/or desirable enhancements within the
clarity image processing, routine automation and document PREFORMA-contracted period.
routing:
The PDF Association is preparing a Technical Note highlighting
PaperStream Capture professionalises scanning routine automa- the ambiguities uncovered during development of veraPDF,
tion. Patch code, barcode, matrix code and zonal OCR allow for and their corresponding resolutions. The organisation plans to
routing and document augmentation on the fly. publish TechNote 0010 in Q1 of 2017.
PaperStream IP automatically produces high quality images for veraPDF now enters its contracted acceptance testing phase,
subsequent processing. which runs until July 2017.
http://blog.au.fujitsu.com
Image & Data Manager | 47
TOOLS &
TECHNOLOGY

Dynamics 365 vs. SharePoint

By Steve Mordue cost, nor do I feel obligated to make use of something because I
am paying for it. So, I get that my perspective might be skewed,
but we use SharePoint all day long.
Many of you may wonder why I would title this
In fact, I am not sure how we could even function without it. All
“Dynamics 365 vs. SharePoint”, as though it were an of our client documents sit in SharePoint libraries that are
either/or decision. But many customers, particularly synchronised with everyone’s devices, as well as the related
in the SMB space, seem to grapple with “deciding” Dynamics 365 records. While this is crucial to our business, it is
between the two. also about the extent of our SharePoint use.
If I worked at it long enough, I could probably remove a screw Like all things Microsoft, we are making use of about 10% of
with a pair of pliers. Granted, a screwdriver would clearly do a what SharePoint can do. For us, SharePoint is an extension of
much better job, but what if a screwdriver cost way more than a Dynamics 365.
pair of pliers?
I might be tempted to stick with the pliers. I know that by using
SharePoint is no CRM
pliers, removing a screw will take me about 20 minutes, and a With all due respect to my SharePoint focused peers, SharePoint
screwdriver would take seconds, but I count my pennies. The is no more a Customer Relationship Management platform,
time that me and my team spend using pliers for this? Hmm, yes, than Dynamics 365 is an Enterprise Collaboration platform.
I guess there is that. Tangerines and Bananas (Avoiding “Apples and Oranges” cliché).
I am trying very hard to avoid the cliché of “Using the Right Tool Attempting to turn SharePoint into a CRM is a pointless
for the Job” here, but it is unavoidable. I am assuming, and the exercise. Development and customization costs are similar for
evidence is clear, that many customers do not really understand both platforms, so why would you want to spend so much of
the differences between Dynamics 365 and SharePoint. What that on replicating another product’s features… into either
they do understand, is that SharePoint came with their Office platform? The work has already been done. It would take an
365 Subscription and is already sitting there, while Dynamics absurd amount of money to make either of these platforms
365 requires an additional purchase. provide even a fraction of what the other one does. What you
would end up with, is a ridiculously customized “house of cards”,
Fair enough, I have said in the past, that customers don’t look for
that is not going to be well supported by Microsoft, so you will
reasons to spend more, but rather look for reasons not to spend
be joined at the hip to your development partner. Your loyalty to
less. The problem comes from focusing on one metric of cost:
a partner should be a result of their continuous efforts to satisfy
the subscription. In reality, the subscription cost is the lowest
your needs, not because you painted yourself into a corner with
cost factor, not just “over time”, but from day one.
them.
SharePoint is Awesome! Dynamics 365 is no Collaboration Platform
I am not a SharePoint expert. While we know all about how to
The same holds true for Dynamics 365. If you want to add
integrate SharePoint with Dynamics 365, that is coming from the
collaboration capabilities, just connect it to SharePoint. Voilà,
Dynamics 365 side.
instant collaboration. While both products have awesome
As a Microsoft Certified Partner, we get all of these tools for capabilities on their own, when combined, the net result is far
free, so I am neither reluctant to use something because of more than the sum of its parts … exponentially. Shift your focus
from Cost to ROI, saving a few dollars, but generating little return
for your investment, is actually not a good business strategy.

What provides the Best ROI?

You are probably expecting me to say “Get Everything”, but that
is not always the case. Forget about costs and software for a
moment, and instead think about outcomes that could lead to
solving your business problems.
Too often I see customers looking at it the other way around,
“ Dynamics 365 looks really cool, what could it do for us? “. The
more important question is “What do you need done? ”
If you come with a clear understanding of your
particular success inhibitors, the solution you
need becomes obvious. Maybe it is SharePoint,
maybe it is Dynamics 365, maybe it is both,
maybe it is neither.
When you contact your Microsoft Partner, you
should know ahead of time, exactly what outcomes
you are looking for, then challenge them to explain, how
whatever solution or combination they are suggesting,
solves for those outcomes. In a perfect world, you will know
what those outcomes are worth to you in dollars, and the ROI is
simple math.

Steve Mordue, a Microsoft Dynamics MVP, is the CEO of Forceworks,

a 2014 Microsoft Partner of the Year. https://stevemordue.com

48 | Image & Data Manager

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