Lab/Development Environments – RightFax Simulation & Testing

At our company we have a lab environment that we utilize to replicate a large number of our customer implementations.  This environment runs on Virtual Servers in order to keep the cost and maintenance down for our organization.  Here are a few of the many advantages for us to maintain this type of environment for our customers;

1. The ability to reproduce issues and in turn expedite resolution and impact to the customer
2. A proactive approach to determining the impact (positively or negatively) of new patches, builds, and versions of software
3. Through development procedures (testing, QA, QC) can take place without affecting customer environments
4. The ability to give our support technicians, engineers, and developers a thorough understanding of the solution implemented

One issue that does arise on occasion is the ability to reproduce an issue that is occurring in a customer environment where we don’t have the underlying hardware or software.  This can be due to a proprietary product the software is interfacing with or a solution that is not realistic for us to manage internally.  One such case is with OpenText RightFax (formerly Captaris RightFax).  We have customers with all types of configurations from analog and digital fax boards to fax over IP (FOIP), and it doesn’t make sense for us to maintain all types of solutions.

The good news is that RightFax provides an “out of the box” capability to setup a RightFax solution without requiring fax boards or phone lines.  The power of this functionality is that it allows you to send and receive faxes internally to your RightFax system in order to simulate the real world functionality of the software.  This capability is referred to as running RightFax in simulation mode.  The following information takes you through the steps to enable simulation mode on your RightFax v9.4 (older versions of the software also have simulation mode, but the configuration is slightly different) system:

1. Install RightFax and get it functional, with the exception of the Board Server
2. Launch the Enterprise Fax Manager (EFM)
3.  
4. Open the RightFax Server that you want to configure
5. Right click on the “RightFax DocTransport Module” and choose “Configure Service”
6. 
7. When the DocTransport Module opens, click the Add Transport add the bottom of the window  
8. In the Transport Select window, select Simulation Device and click the Select button
9.  
10. You will now notice that you have a Simulation entry in your DocTransport configuration
11. The Simulation entry can now be configured as if you are setting up a fax board (e.g. setup the Fax ID for routing)
12. Next, you will need to create a dialing rule.  In EFM right click “Dialing Rules” and choose “New” to bring up the Rule Edit configuration.
13. 
14. Simply accept the default pattern of “+” to apply the rule to all numbers.
15. Go to the Destination tab, choose “Receive into Fax Server”, and set the name to your RightFax Server.  Click OK to close the Rule Edit configuration screen.
16. Lastly, you need to save the dialing plan.  In EFM, click on the File Menu and choose “Save Dialing Plan”
17. You are now ready to send and receive faxes on your RightFax Server.  The faxes can be sent to any of your configured users utilizing their routing codes.

The ability to run RightFax in simulation mode is a great trick for setting up and testing a RightFax server in your development or lab environment.  If you have any questions on this functionality or other topics related to this post, please let me know.  Thank you.

Ryan Keller

ImageSource, Inc.

 

The Unkown Security Risk In Your Office

The topic I wanted to touch on this week has to do with the security of documents in your organization.  Specifically, the security risks posed by printers, copiers, and multifunction devices in your office.   I have travelled around the country implementing document capture solutions, like ILINX Capture, that leverage the use of typical office multifunction devices and it amazes me how many companies do not know of this security risk.

How it started…

As technology advanced and data storage became more cost effective the internal workings of printers and multifunction devices changed.  The processing of documents for printing, scanning, and copying was offloaded from the computer or print server to the actual printer/copier device.  To handle the onboard processing for these devices, manufacturers began adding hard drives to printers, copiers, and multifunction devices.

What’s the risk…

In most cases, the hard drives in the printer, copier, and multifunction devices store a copy of every document that is printed, scanned, or copied.  This can be no big deal as long as the device is located in your office, but when the device is retired the documents on the hard drives are usually not wiped off and they go with the device.  Now you have a hard drive floating around with any number of confidential documents creating a huge security risk and possibly compliance violations.  The devices usually are packaged up and shipped overseas for a fraction of the original purchase price.  This is a scary thought because anyone could have access to your documents now.

The following is a recent news report that CBS News did on this very subject:     http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6412572n

What can you do…

• If you are leasing these devices, understand the contract between your company and the vendor/manufacturer.  Many times it is detailed in the agreement that the customer is responsible for the documents on the hard drive.  If it is up to your company to dispose of the records, take responsibility and ensure that this is done prior disposing of the device.
• Many manufacturers offer disk security and cleanup features for these devices.  It will most likely cost extra money, but the few dollars may be nothing compared to outfall of losing sensitive and confidential information.  One thing to keep in mind is that not all manufacturers will bring this topic up at purchase time.  Their number one objective may be to keep the price down and close the sale.
• Help spread the word of this risk.  Again, it amazes me how many organizations have no clue about this risk and with the publicity it will be getting in the near future we should see some progress in this area.

Please feel free to leave comments and let us know about your experiences and knowledge related to these devices and the risk they pose.  Thank you.

Ryan S. Keller

ImageSource, Inc.

ProStor and Oracle IPM — First Look

ProStor Systems sells a line of disk cartridge archival systems with some very compelling features. A representative of ProStor attended Nexus 2009 to demonstrate their systems, and as an Oracle IPM architect I was intrigued to see how well ProStor’s InfiniVault® would work in an IPM environment. So an associate and I visited ProStor’s headquarters in Boulder, Colorado with an Oracle IPM test system to put the InfiniVault system through its paces. 

We hooked up a direct network crossover cable to the archival system in the same NT Workgroup, and then attempted to configure IPM to talk to it. We found we had to set the IPM services account name and login to be exactly the same as configured in InfiniVault. Note that InfiniVault requires at least an 8 character password so the IPM services account must follow suit.

Once we had communication, images and universal documents flowed quickly into the archive system. Retrieval of objects from the archive system was very fast. We think setting IPM to archive older objects from expensive RAID 5 magnetic storage to InfiniVault can provide an opportunity to utilize the faster storage for current daily object retrieval, while placing less often accessed objects into long term storage. 

The ProStor system comes with a built in full text indexing feature we thought might be useful with IPM but unfortunately IPM stores all universal documents in a proprietary binary, with no file extension, which is what InfiniVault keys on to apply IFilters in order to index the data from many common file structures. 

InfiniVault also comes with a sophisticated records management capability but this can’t be used with IPM in any meaningful way due to the way IPM stores and tracks objects. However, the records management system could be used with many other common activities in an enterprise since InfiniVault can be used for all general archival tasks within an organization. 

Many more features are available with ProStor archival systems and we will be recommending them to our customers for IPM object archival. Feel free to contact me or  ImageSource for more information.

Clint Lewis
Senior Technical Architect
ImageSource, Inc.

Business Process Optimization

For those of you who attended my breakout session at the NEXUS ECM Conference on automating business processes this topic will be familiar to you.  If you missed the session, this blog will provide a glimpse into the world of automating and optimizing business processes. 

There are many different ways to approach process automation and optimization and the purpose of this blog topic is to provide information based on my industry experience.  I will discuss identifying processes within an organization and then automating those processes utilizing a number of valuable implementation strategies.

Why Automate?

From my experience in the Enterprise Content Management industry, I have found the main reasons to automate or optimize a business process are as follows:

• Gain Process Efficiencies
• Process Quality Improvement
• Improve Reporting, Tracking & Auditing

Process Identification

Let’s take a look at identifying a business process that could be automated.  When looking at processes to automate or optimize, the starting point is to identify a process and then extensively research the process to get a clear understanding of the current state.  A good place to start with this research is to look at all of the inputs and outputs of the current process.  This can include documents, data and communication associated with accomplishing tasks in a process. 

Next, we will want to evaluate the identified process to determine what manual steps in the process can be automated.  From identifying the steps we then can determine which ones will provide the best return for the business and/or user.

The last key to identifying and evaluating business processes is the inclusion of the user community in the analysis of the current process to determine; 1) what is currently working well, 2) what could use improving, 3) what are the major deficiencies and 4) what is on the user’s wish list for the process.

By following these steps in identifying and evaluating a business process you will set yourself up for success when architecting and implementing a solution for automation or optimization.

Implementation Strategies

Now that we have discussed identifying business processes let’s take a look at some implementation strategies to assist you in automating/optimizing the process.

• Understand the Business Process: As discussed earlier in the post, it is critical to fully understand the process that you are automating.
  • Evaluate current bottlenecks
  • Determine the user interaction with the current process
• Require Ownership at All Levels: In order to get full acceptance of the solution you are implementing you should ensure that the entire team is on board and understands the benefits to them and the organization.  This includes:
  • Executive Level
  • Departmental Management
  • End Users
• Know what to Automate: Don’t automate every manual process for the sake of automation.  Determine the return value associated with the re-engineering of the process.  In some cases it will make more sense to keep the process manual.  For example, in a customer service organization, it may be more beneficial to provide human interaction to a customer instead of sending an automatically generated email.
• Educate Yourself on Existing Systems: Understanding the current infrastructure in place can be critical when determining the return on investment and initial cost of the process re-engineering. 
  • If there is already an Enterprise Content Management system in place, you should be able to leverage this for tasks associated with document capture, document management/archival, workflow, etc…
  • Line of Business systems (Oracle E-Business, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, MSFT Great Plains, etc…) can be leveraged for storing metadata associated with the documents you are capturing.   Using software like ILINX Integrate, these LOB systems can then be image enabled to retrieve documents directly from your document management system without ever leaving the LOB system.
• Promote Ongoing Analysis & Optimization: This strategy is key to creating and maintaining truly efficient and optimized processes within an organization.  Let’s take the following example:
  • A manual process is identified to automate
  • The process is automated with success using the above implementation strategies
  • Everyone is happy and uses the new and improved process
  • Now that the process has been improved it is common to call the project a success and never look back.  This may work for some time, but eventually the process will need to be evaluated again to determine if additional automation or optimization needs to take place.  Over time business processes evolve and technology changes, so this step can be imperative to keep your business process streamlined.

 In summary, we have taken a quick look at the process of identifying business process to automate and optimize, as well as, some strategies for success when taking on the task of business process re-engineering.  Please feel free to post comments related to this information or your own experiences related to this topic. 

Ryan S. Keller

Project Manager

ImageSource, Inc.

  

ECM Best Practices: Document Capture & Metadata Collection

The term “Data Strategy” and can be used to understand strategic requirements for enterprise metadata concepts and best practices.  Why is this important for an ECM solution?  The simple answer is why contribute to the disarray of an organizations data management when implementing an ECM solution.

The key to a successful ECM system is the ability for users to easily and quickly find information within the repository.  If specific information cannot be easily and quickly found, users may not be enthusiastic about using the system.

The biggest stumbling block in the way of finding specific or relevant information is when the search returns too many documents that the user will have to physically look through before finding the specific document or set of documents that exactly meet their requirements.

In order to prevent this impedance to effective document retrieval, organizations have to be able to refine the population of documents that are searched so that irrelevant information is not selected and returned in the query result set.

In a well designed ECM system, this is accomplished by using metadata (or taxonomy’s) to limit the search result set to items which meet  the user’s selected parameters (i.e. date range, case number, document type, etc.).  Metadata is used to describe content that the ECM system intakes.

Metadata not only provides a way to index (and therefore retrieve) content but also it provides the means of managing content throughout its lifecycle.  For a document or item of content, this means data about it such as its author, its title, the issue date, and other information which can usefully be associated with it.

Whether you are using ILINX Capture, Kofax Ascent Capture, or Captovation users will have to enter some metadata, though as much as possible should be created and collected automatically if possible given the document sources, types, and available databases linked to documents.  It is important to get the balance right, too few mandatory elements may result in little metadata being entered, too many mandatory elements may be seen as a tedious chore.

Consistency and accuracy of metadata values is crucial to the value of metadata.  Controlled vocabularies, pick lists, default values and inheritance are all important tools and techniques in this context.

When designing a system the recommendation is to apply metadata to all documents that are expected to be found easily in a query and all documents that are stored as “final” archived records in the ECM repository.  This process will be essential in the user adoption and success of the system.  For more information please visit the North West’s premier conference at http://nexusecm.com and register for one of the ECM break out sessions.

Jon Sutherland
Sr. Systems Engineer

ImageSource, Inc.

 

 

 

  

Implementing Content Management Systems with Multiple Environments

A common recommendation we have when designing Enterprise Content Management systems is the use of multiple environments.  I am referring the use of Development, Test, and/or QA environments to complement a Production environment.  There are many advantages to deploying systems with multiple environments, and I would like to discuss the role of multiple environments and the advantages to implementing them for your ECM system.

Depending on the size and complexity of the solution different supporting environments are recommended.  For, example with a smaller departmental level solution with little or no custom development, it is common to only recommend one supporting environment used for development and testing.  Now let’s take another example where a customer has an enterprise level ECM system with custom development and a requirement for minimal system downtime.  The following is a common layout for this type of system:

• Development Environment – Used for custom development and preparation for testing changes to the ECM system.  This environment is usually much smaller than the Production Environment and is commonly running on virtual servers/machines.
• Test Environment – Used for end to end testing of changes to the system.  Changes are certified in this environment prior to moving to the QA or Production.  This environment is usually smaller than Production, but it is imperative that the functionality is consistent to ensure proper testing and certification of the changes.
• Quality Assurance Environment – This environment serves a couple of purposes and it closely mirrors the architecture of the Production Environment.  Performance load testing and client acceptance are performed in this environment.  In some instances, this environment can also serve as a disaster recovery environment in the event of a Production outage.
• Production Environment – Used for the ECM Production System.

This environment configuration is representative of a common layout for multiple environments, but depending on the organization and solution it can vary.  The ECM solution architects play a valuable role in recommending the optimal configuration.  At ImageSource, we have extensive knowledge and experience with ECM architecture and take a great deal of pride in designing the correct layout for the customer and the solution.

Now that we have discussed the role that different environments can play, I would like to touch on some key points to implementing multiple environments for your ECM System.  These points are based on my many years of experience implementing these types of solutions.

• It is imperative to put in place and enforce the procedures for implementing changes in these environments.  It is very common for us to find ECM solutions implemented with multiple environments, but all of the changes are being implemented directly into Production and the other environment(s) are out of date with Production. It takes additional time to follow the procedures and keep all environments in sync, but it is the key to mitigating the risk of Production issues, such as downtime.
• It is not a requirement to match the horsepower and server structure of your Production Environment with your Development and Test Environments.  There are scenarios where this makes sense, but for the most part a scaled down version is sufficient.
• The time and investment that it takes to implement and support multiple environments will pay for itself by mitigating risk and system downtime.  There are many items that can adversely affect a Production system, e.g. operating system patches, ECM software patches or upgrades, the addition of new functionality, the modification of existing functionality.  Being able to test and certify that the changes will not adversely affect the Production system prior to implementation can completely eliminate a company’s exposure to security or compliance issues, as well as, avoid the cost of having the Production system go down.
• The Development or Test level Environments can provide valuable training for your technical staff.  Having environments that will not affect the Production Environment give a company’s ECM technical workers the ability to hone their skills and make mistakes without the negative impact of bringing down the Production system.

In summary, I would highly recommend the use of multiple environments when implementing or supporting an Enterprise Content Management system.  It is an investment of time and money to implement and maintain multiple environments, but the payoff will quickly be realized through risk mitigation.  If you already have an ECM solution implemented without multiple environments, I would recommend evaluating the cost that Production issues cost your business and use that information to make the case for implementing an additional environment or environments.  If you have multiple environments but they are not synchronized with or being used to complement the Production Environment, now is the time to re-evaluate your procedures and leverage your company’s investment to support the health of the system.

 

Ryan S. Keller
Project Manager
ImageSource, Inc.

  

SharePoint for the Enterprise

Microsoft has created a major presence in the enterprise content management arena with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.  Is SharePoint best suited to serve as a single ECM solution for the Enterprise?  The real question is what does it take to have a successful SharePoint implementation.  From my perspective, here are the things one should consider:

• Implementations must be carefully planned. Incorrect installations lead to a lot more time and money spent later on down the road to fix the problem. Where are the cost savings then?
• Tame the data chaos by defining document libraries based on content types. Be sure to not use a one solution fits all approach when defining metadata and requirements.
• Administration is critical from an IT perspective in terms of its support, maintenance, and updates.
• Have a roadmap, design documents, and a detailed project plan that defines roles and responsibilities, along with a risk assessment.  Don’t try to do it all at once and make sure everyone knows the plan and the timelines.

Organizations such as ImageSource are using SharePoint for managing active electronic content and supporting collaboration.  SharePoint can be easily used as a bolt on to existing ECM systems like Oracle IPM (Imaging and Business Process Management).

The value of implementing a duo like this increases exponentially with the ability to store fixed paper based content with in the Oracle IPM content repository and to leverage the SharePoint repository for your active electronic content and team collaboration portals.

Jon Sutherland
Sr. Systems EngineerImageSource, Inc.

 

  

Leveraging ECM Software APIs

System Engineers must to be able to choose from a menu of technologies in order to solve ECM business problems. While ECM software vendors often strive to provide a complete set of tools for any anticipated business challenge, in reality, technology advances almost always outpace product release cycles. 

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Extensible Markup Language (XML), and many other similar, and often interoperable, technologies have and are being developed in an effort to provide the ability to glue disparate systems together using  published, standards-based mechanisms. While extremely useful, these technologies suffer from some of the same issues as vendor software such versioning, bloat, vendor specificity, and so on. 

As an engineer in the field, it’s critical to choose best-of-breed products that solve a core purpose extremely well, then extend the product with other current technologies until a complete solution emerges. Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), whether COM, Web Service, or something else is what makes this extensibility possible. The most useful ECM products provide rich APIs and callable interfaces. 

I’m currently finishing a project that uses Oracle’s Imaging and Process Management (OIPM) product. The customer’s version of OIPM targets Microsoft Visual Basic 6 .dlls for custom scripts, and Microsoft .NET 1.1 framework for web development. However, I wanted to target the 2.0 .NET framework for the process scripts, and the 3.5 SP1 framework for the web interface. The web interface solution in particular takes advantage of LINQ, XML data stores, implicitly typed variables, jQuery, and AJAX. 

Fortunately, OIPM, while using a fairly old COM-based codebase itself, provides mechanisms that allow an engineer to retain the proven usefulness of OIPM image storage and workflow, but extend to .NET managed code for scripts and web development. The sum of the parts becomes a much more useful solution then if all development was restricted to a closed ECM system that did not provide APIs or was completely COM based. 

If you wish to dig deeper, or need a solution, ImageSource  provides training, custom development, and field services for many of the popular ECM products.

Clint Lewis
Senior Systems Engineer
ImageSource, Inc.

  

Managing Multiple ECM Systems at an Organization

A trend that I have been noticing more and more is the presence of multiple Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Systems at organizations.  There are many reasons why the scenario of multiple ECM Systems can occur; 1) mergers & acquisitions, 2) strengths of the ECM products, 3) lack of internal communication and/or understanding of existing systems in the organization, 4) division of dollars at departmental levels, and so forth and so on…

One issue that can arise from having multiple ECM solutions within an organization is the difficulty of accessing information stored in the different systems.  Let’s look at an example of an organization that has two ECM systems used for content archiving and retrieval.  The first ECM system is used by the Human Resources department for storing documents and data related to employee on-boarding and personnel management.  The second ECM system was installed at a later date by the Accounts Payable department.  This system is used for managing documents related to payroll, as well as, acting as portal for employees to find information related to their pay.  The presence of multiple systems within the organization creates a number of headaches (i.e. managing of storage, security/permissions, what information is where, etc…), but for now let’s focus on the fact that there are users that need access to the documents and metadata stored in both systems.  The user’s have the ability to log into the first system and run a search to find HR documents, and then to find Payroll documents they have to switch over to the second system, log in, and run another search.  This requires the user’s to have knowledge and an understanding of both systems to perform their job functions, and the laborious nature of this task creates inefficiencies within the departments.

There are a number of ways to get around the issue of having documents and data, that user’s need access to, in multiple locations:

• Consolidation of the systems.  This can be an arduous task, but in the end there will be only one system to manage.  Consolidation is most commonly the option when multiple ECM solutions are the result of mergers & acquisitions.  This may not always the best solution because of business requirements and product strengths.
• Link the data and documents between the systems.  This functionality varies between products, but a good example of how this can be done is through the utilization of the ILINX SharePoint Connector software.  This software gives users that ability to search multiple content management systems through SharePoint.  The users have a single access point to all ECM related content using SharePoint, which alleviates the required system knowledge and consumption of time associated with searching through multiple systems.
• Leveraging the investment in one of the ECM systems.  Almost any top tier ECM system can be used to retrieve content from an external system.  For example, using Oracle Imaging and Process Management linked servers can be created to access content from external data sources.  Keep in mind that most native functionality for linking content within ECM systems has limitations.  When this is the case the use of middleware products, like the ILINX AIK, can alleviate these limitations.

 It is rare that companies have the horsepower to take on these tasks themselves, so there are solution integrators out there, like ImageSource, which can assist with this work.  Advantages of going with an experienced ECM integrator are that they can evaluate the current business requirements, assist in streamlining the current process, provide recommendations (if needed) on optimizing the solution, and provide risk mitigation throughout the configuration/redesign process.

The utilization of multiple ECM solutions within an organization can be a cumbersome endeavor.  By evaluating the overall business requirements and optimizing the organization’s ECM architecture these pains can be easily overcome and will make Enterprise Content Management a more valuable asset to the organization.

 

Ryan Keller
Project Manager / Sr. Systems Engineer
ImageSource, Inc.

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