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J u l y / A u g u s t 2008

i s s u e 51

Th e fo re m o st au tho rity on the In form atio n M a n ag em en t industry, t h c ^ ^ ^ ^ B h e e t provides new s, view s and te chn ical review s from arou nd the w orld.

SharePoint

S h a p e o f th e fu tu re ? W e lo o k at an a p p lic a tio n

Avis Case Study P e rc e p tiv e p ro vid e s re m o te d o c u m e n t a c c e s s

Scanning Part 2 C o n tin u in g o u r m a jo r s e rie s o f articli

RFID W h a t is it, and h o w d o es it w o rk ?

Healthcare Part 2 T h e fin al p art o f o u r re v ie w o f th e m a rk et

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f r o m the e d itors desk issue Issues The general feedback was that you enjoyed the 50th issue, and that the changes we have implemented were for the better. There is more to come too. We are expanding the page count in the future, which means we can bring you even more editorial, and will also allow us to expand on features which because of space constraints in the past, we have had to condense to a greater or lesser extent. We are also increasing the number of copies printed and the way we distribute the magazine.

In doing all of this I am conscious of maintain­ ing a balance in the ratio of editorial to advert­ ising. In this way, although advertisers benefit from more pages (and more readers,) the readers do not get swamped with ads.

We have so many recipients now, that we are drastically cutting the complementary copy side of our distribution. Starting with Issue 52, you will need to be a subscriber (or ad­ vertiser) to get the magazine. So sign up now so you don't miss out.

SharePoint Having attended the London venue of the AIIM Roadshow in early May, I was not in any way surprised at the crowds and attention given to the presentations in the SharePoint Solutions Theatre, or to any stand at the show with the merest mention of SharePoint.

In my view, what Microsoft have given us with SharePoint is the building blocks providing a solid infrastructure upon which to build our own SharePoint based solution. As not everyone is capable (or wants) to go and develop this themselves, a plethora of thirdparty developers and software vendors have sprung up to support this requirement. We cover just such a company in this issue, and also attempt to explain what SharePoint means to us.

questions have been asked of the information management industry by the Green Sheet, and we will attempt to unravel the mystery. This will begin with a regular fea­ ture Focus On: SharePoint starting in Issue 52.

BPO - Change is on it's way I recently attended a Gartner Group Summit where the key subject was outsourcing. I heard a term used there which was a new one on me: 'homesourcing'. This is where (mainly) call centre staff are set up to work from home. It's a great idea! Reduced carbon emissions, less traffic, lower costs than a 'do­ mestic' call centre member of staff who takes up increasingly costly office space wherever in the world your business is. The word on the stands at the show though, was about overseas call centres becoming increasingly unpopular with customers, and as costs in­ crease, unpopular with the accountants too.

A term that was not coined however was good old fashioned in-sourcing. This must be the opposite of out-sourcing. Many financial and other institutions in the UK are turning back to UK based call centres. Sometimes it is in response to language barriers, some­ times simply quality of service.

Case Study: Avis drives to success with Perceptive

HEDS Up!: UK university has secret weapon n, O ffice

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XML Publishing ASP ASP.N*t

Focus On: With more pages there is the opportunity for more regular features for our readers. The Focus On: series is the equivalent of a SIG (Special Interest Group,) and we will have the first of regular pages about Bureaus, SharePoint, Healthcare, RFID, Software and other subjects appearing in Issue 52.

It's Your Magazine All of us at GSM hope we are bringing you a better news and information experience.

Please let us know what you think: feedback@areenshRetmedia.com

I have found it hard to explain in detail what SharePoint is. Not only that, but also what it does and how important it is to an organisations way of doing business. These

Thank you all.

John Baker, Managing Editor iohnbaker@areensheetmedia.com ■

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Com m ent.... from the editor's desk

RFID: What is it, how does it work & do you need it?

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IM World:

News from around Nationwide Selects EDM Group EDM Group has announced that the UK's Nationwide Building Society has chosen EDM's Scan on Demand business solution for flexible access to archived customer data.

Managing 2.5 million customer files (200 million pages of paper) and over 1 million microfiche (40 million pages) at a dedicated site in Wolverhampton, EDM scan and upload archived documents to their online service as required. This gives Nationwide instant access to their archived customer data, enabling them to provide a more efficient and fully auditable service.

The scanning and online hosting service provides rapid access to client records for Nationwide staff, and further improves the service to the building society’s customers.

Customer documents are made available to over 3000 Nationwide employees via secure online access from any networked PC across the Society. The highly secure service also enables Nationwide to adhere to the regulatory requirements for data management and control, with full auditability on data access also provided.

The EDM online service allows businesses to view vital business documents hosted by the EDM Group, through web browsers located

anywhere in the world. Online access is secure, using technologies and techniques applied in online banking services, while powerful search facilities and display tools allow quick and easy access.

Sam Ferguson, EDM Group’s chief executive, commented, “The purpose built site was a necessary choice to meet Nationwide’s high regulatory needs, given the nature and volume of the customer documents they are required to retain. We are very pleased to have secured an initial five year contract to provide this service. The project is part of an ongoing Nationwide and EDM business strategy, with the initial phase going from concept to live service in only six months."

Chris Shott, Head of Business Logistics at Nationwide added, “Our objective was to provide a consolidated corporate-wide archive and retrieval solution that addressed current business needs, and regulation, as well as providing for future business trans­ formation." ■ EDM: www.theedmaroup.co.uk Nationwide: www.nationwide.co.uk

EDAC Systems Kodak Award EDAC Systems, Inc., a leading value-added reseller and integrator providing document imaging solutions and services to both government and commercial clients, has been named Number One Kodak Authorized Imaging Reseller (KAIR) for Federal Sales in 2007.

This award makes the ninth consecutive year EDAC has been its winner, and is recognition from Kodak for outstanding growth in revenue generation and overall sales performance. EDAC was also named a member of the “Million-Dollar Award Club”, an award presented to KAIR’s that exceeded $1m in Kodak equipment sales in 2007.

“Kodak products are known worldwide for quality and reliability. Although we work incredibly hard, representing a company such as Kodak, whose products speak for themselves, makes our job much easier,” states Ann Blevins, EDAC President and CEO. “We are truly honored to not only

Microsoft Stops Key Project As Bill Retires Microsoft is 'winding down' operations on its Live Search Books project, run in association with such astute organisations as the British Library. Reading through the Microsoft-speak IM W orld: News from around the globe

represent Kodak and its products, but to be recognized for our sales growth year after year.”

Said Don McMahan, Vice President Sales and Regional Business Manager US & Canada Region, Document Imaging, Graphics Communications Group for Eastman Kodak Company, “Our annual awards honor the tremendous commitment that our resellers and distributors make both to Kodak and to those that depend on our products and services every day. We recognize and appreciate the incredible accomplishments each of these companies contribute to our efforts to help businesses and organizations better capture, manage, deliver and archive critical information.” ■ EDAC: www.edacsvstems.com Kodak: www.kodak.com

blog, basically they were not making any money on the venture. Other news from the Seattle behemoth was that Bill Gates has retired from Microsoft so he can take up charity work. [Well done Bill. Good for you and thank you! Ed.] ■ Microsoft: www.microsoft.com w w w.greensheetm edia.com

( NEWS IN BRIEF

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Canon's 6 New Scanners

the globe Kardex Enhances Crawford API With User Interface .NET Support Crawford Technologies Inc., have announced the release of .NET support for its PRO Dynamic Document API to complement the existing Java and C/C++ API support.

The PRO Dynamic Document API (DD API) reduces customer’s overall development costs and time by shortening the design, development and implementation of solutions.

The PRO Dynamic Document API also delivers the capability for dynamic, interactive, personalized processing of very high volume business data. With PRO DD API now available for .NET, developers no longer need to write code around the Java and C/C++ APIs to gain access to the power and flexibility of the PRO Dynamic Document API. The PRO DD API is a cross-platform, easy-touse interface that allows programmers to create single and multithreaded applications to extract data from print files, transform print files from one format to another or create electronic display formats such as PDF and HTML from documents in print file formats.

Kardex, is enhancing the user interface of its document management systems. The work counter is now electronically adjustable, and users are able to switch between seated and standing operations quickly and comfortably.

Stringent regulations govern workplace ergonomics, and the work counter, which is the area where the user picks and chooses files, is a key part of the Human Machine Interface (HMI). Kardex has added electric adjustment for ease and speed of use.

“With multiple tasks of varying length, it is vital that the working environment should be adjustable,’’ says Richard Price, business development manager of Kardex. “For instance, i f the user is undertaking a larger task for a longer duration, then they would be more comfortable sat down in comfort. A quick task, on the other hand, would only require the user to be stood up. The ergonomic and productivity benefits are obvious," concludes Price. ■ Kardex: www.kardex.com www.greensheetmedia.com

“CrawfordTech has always been known for our platform-independent product families providing our customers with the flexibility to use our software anywhere within their entire enterprise IT infrastructure”, says Ernie Crawford, President of Crawford Technologies. “With the addition of .NET support we cover all widely used development languages.”

Using the PRO DD API, developers can easily and quickly integrate their print files within their computer applications.

Developers no longer have to become the experts on all of the different print format types such as Xerox Metacode, AFP, PCL and TIFF in order to harness the power of the information and formatting locked up inside print files.

“This new interface for the PRO DD API provides CrawfordTech’s customers with additional options for integrating our software into their environments” said Stephen D. Poe, VP of Product Management for Crawford Technologies Inc. “The family of PRO DD API platforms allows organizations to easily integrate the PRO family of solutions into many enterprise applications. The new .NET offering demonstrates our ongoing commitment to expand usefulness of the PRO technology to our customers.” ■ Crawford: www.crawfordtech.com IM World: News from around the globe

Canon USA have a set of six new monochrome imageRUNNER devices that bring high-quality color scanning and sophisticated document management to workgroups and small business owners. www.qsg.cgnpn.pQm

UK MD For Tier-3 With its operations in the UK now well established, Australian based security software company Tier-3 has appointed Steven Standring to the position of Managing Director - EMEA to develop and lead the growth of its burgeoning European operations. In this role Steve will be responsible for leveraging the reputation of Tier-3’s patented Huntsman™ technology as the leading Security Management technology available in Europe. www.tier-3.com New Fujitsu Scanners Fujitsu have released their next generation of workgroup document scanners which are being aimed at small to medium sized businesses.

They are the fi-6130 (with ADF) and fi-6230 (with ADF and flatbed). www.fuiitsu.com/emea

Q8 Go Contempus Route Leading Kuwaiti oil and petrochemical company Q8, has deployed an advanced, web-based invoice automation solution to optimise financial management across its European network of service stations and streamline the handling of the 120,000 invoices it receives annually.

The petroleum giant, which has a network of 4000 service stations and offices across Europe, is using Contempus.Invoice from leading software solutions provider Contempus to ensure that all invoices received at its headquarters in the Netherlands and Denmark are processed, approved and scheduled for payment automatically. vwYw.cpnternpiis-CQm

Green Sheet + CMS Watch We are pleased to announce we are now official resellers for CMS Watch reports. wyvw,qrPPn$heetnng(ji9,cp.qk

V____________________ J GSM:051.05

^NEWS IN BRIEF DRS Up Before UN! Global data capture specialist DRS has been invited to present at a series of international workshops by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD). As a trusted advisor, DRS will be delivering presentations on Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) and Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) data collection technologies and techniques.

DRS has presented alongside the UN at workshops in Qatar in May, Tanzania in June and the next workshop is for the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) and will be held in Bangkok, Thailand in September. www.drs.co.uk

China Success For Agfa Agfa's Healthcare division, a provider of IT-enabled clinical workflow and diagnostic imaging solutions, has been chosen to implement a second phase RIS/PACS program at The First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University in China. The selection is a follow­ up to a first successful co­ operation with Agfa Healthcare for the development and roll­ out of the hospital's original RIS/PACS in 2006. The project will support The First Affiliated Hospital's ambitions to bring its facility closer to a fully digital environment. www.aafa.com/en/he

IT Staffing A Top Problem After a recent international survey of CEOs and CIOs revealed that IT staffing was respondents’ top IT problem, five IT executives from around the world gathered to discuss IT staffing challenges and solutions. The nonprofit, independent IT Governance Institute (ITGI) has published the discussion as a complimentary download at www.itgi.org. The document, titled IT Governance Roundtable— IT Staffing Challenges, relates the experts’ views on topics such as outsourcing, compensation and retention. www.itai.ora

Green Sheet + CMS Watch We are pleased to announce we are now official resellers for CMS Watch reports. www.areensheetmedia.co.uk

V_______________ ) GSM:051.06

World:

continued _ _ Document Options On Trac Document Options, one of the longest established outsourced document scanning centres in the UK, has installed an IBML ImageTrac® III at its headquarters in Crawley, West Sussex. Document Options has experienced steady growth in recent years. The company decided to centralise its scanning business around one or two highvolume scanning platforms, rather than continuing to support a large number of disparate units. The ImageTrac enables Document Options to offer a range of valueadded services, such as invoice processing, to ease administrative processes and deliver accurate, timely results to its clients.

“The ImageTrac performs consistently well,

with impressive speed and utmost reliability’’ says Ray Pennington, Digital Services Manager at Document Options. “IBML holds an established position in the high-volume intelligent scanning market, and is most likely to remain at the forefront of technological advances in this area. It’s also reassuring to know that IBML support is provided by Kodak in the UK, who we are familiar with and have faith in.” Document Options has already placed an order for a second ImageTrac scanner, which will increase scanning capacity to 40,000 documents per hour. ■ Doc. Options: www.document-options.co.uk IBML: www.ibml.com

Solcara & ISYS Partnership Solcara, the provider of software for the control, management and searching of digital information, has partnered with ISYS Search to extend its SolSearch offering. SolSearch Indexer will deliver a powerful, comprehensive and cost effective enterprise search solution, which combines market leading federated search technology with an advanced indexing capability.

SolSearch Indexer provides a functional administrator interface, and can extract entities and concepts when indexing documents, web sites and databases. These entities and concepts can be used to support more efficient navigation of indexed content.

For users this means a complete and proven enterprise search solution that can be quickly deployed and deliver superior results.

said, “SolSearch has just got better. By adding the new indexing module to our federated search technology, we will be providing existing and new clients with an even more powerful integrated search solution. The new indexing module will enable clients to quickly, and cost effectively, apply advanced indexing techniques to content that is not already effectively indexed.”

Powered by ISYS Search, SolSearch Indexer can index content from document management systems (such as Interwoven), RDBMS systems (including SQL Server and Oracle), file systems, websites and email systems. ■ Solcara: www.solcara.com ISYS: www.isvs-search.com

Rob Martin, Managing Director of Solcara,

Basware & Neocol Partnership Basware has announced a key partnership agreement with solutions provider Neocol to expand the distribution of its range of financial process automation solutions in the UK market. The strategic appointment will see Neocol distribute Basware’s Enterprise Purchase to Pay software, and will play a key role in helping Basware to further boost its presence in the financial services sector.

Basware’s automation solutions integrate with finance systems and content management technology solutions to streamline overall financial management, increase visibility and optimise approvals processes. This enables Neocol to offer customers fully flexible automation software that is high in functionality and cost-efficient.

Steve Ellis, Managing Director at ► IM World: News from around the globe

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( NEWS IN BRIEF

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.... Neocol said: ’’The alliance with Basware allows us to bring further value to our clients in the area of Enterprise Purchase to Pay. Increased automation means increased efficiency, giving our customers a transparent accounts payable process and enabling them to optimise financial processes and strengthen supplier relationships” •

Paul Sandford, Channel Manager at Basware UK added: “Neocol meet the preferred Basware partner criteria: they have a strong customer base and have a solid understanding of financial and procurement 1 processes”

Neocol and Basware have agreed to partner following their collaboration on a project to streamline the handling of publisher John Wiley and Sons' supplier invoices, improving its overall financial management and boosting supplier relationships.

Neocol is a content consultancy that offers highly skilled Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Business Process Management (BPM) experts to solve content management problems, turning unstructured content into valuable and realisable assets. ■ Neocol: www.neocol.com Basware: www.basware.co.uk

New Manager At Tricorn Tricorn Document Management (Tricorn), a company specializing in the electronic management of legacy and current documents for a global clientele, has announced that Brian Johnson has joined the firm. Brian will serve as the Business Development Manager, ePublishing Division, and will report directly to Sameer Sheth, Tricorn Vice President of North American Sales.

Brian comes to Tricorn with more than 20 years of successful sales and marketing experience in the offshore BPO industry, with an emphasis on e-publishing and legal solutions. Brian’s initial duties will involve promoting Tricorn’s document management services to the publishing markets in North America and Europe. His primary coverage will be publisher and content aggregator verticals, with a focus on data capture, conversion and digitization, data tagging, and digital publications processing.

Before joining Tricorn Brian served as Director of Business Development, Legal Solutions, at Inventurus in New York, a

company offering a range of legal process outsourcing services. He established the LPO sales process for the firm, which was started by IT sales people venturing into LPO space. Prior to that Brian was President of BPO Startup Consulting, a company he founded to provide sales and marketing guidance to companies offering offshore BPO services. Brian also has held vicepresidential positions at OKS in Philadelphia and ASEC International, Los Angeles, a firm he co-founded.

In announcing Brian’s hiring Sameer Sheth said, “Tricorn has enjoyed steady growth during the past years. In order for us to meet the increased demand for our services, both domestically and internationally, it is important to add additional knowledgeable people to interact with current and prospective clients. We believe that Brian’s past experience and reputation in the BPO marketplace will serve us well in that regard.” ■ Tricorn: www.tricomdata.com

Green Sheet Changes Copy Policy For some years now Green Sheet has made a policy of sending magazines out on spec to recipients listed in their main database. This practice has been successful in promoting the magazine to both readers and potential advertisers alike. The result has been an increase in paid subscriptions and few mailing returns. The database has also been 'cleansed' as a result.

and continues, "We are now in a position where we are able to move to a mix of paid subscribers and strictly controlled circulation.

This is much more cost effective for us, as it target key individuals within the IM com­ munity, and with an increase in circulation and forthcoming increase in page count, we need to be sure we are getting to the correct audience"

The database has also changed over the past year, with many new recipients listed, so complementary copies will cease from now.

All of which means that if you are not a subscriber (or on the controlled list,) you may never see a copy of the magazine on your doorstep again. To be sure of getting regular copies, you can subscribe at: www.areensheetmedia.com and click the 'Magazine' menu item. ■

"We are working towards completing a total overhaul of our database," states John Baker, Managing Partner of Green Sheet, www.greensheetmedia.com

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IM World: News from around the globe

Research released by WorkLight indicates a strong desire for Web 2.0 banking tools among customers. The company, which enables secure use of consumer Internet tools for business, revealed that a staggering 1 in 4 Facebook users would consider leaving their bank to be able to obtain online banking through Web 2.0 gadgets. Polling Facebook users between the ages of 18 and 34, the survey also determined that nearly half of those asked would take advantage of secure Web 2.0 gadgets for online banking. www.mvworkliaht.com

History Uncovered Accessible Archives, Inc., a publisher of electronic full-text searchable historical databases, has announced two new and exciting enhancements to its online databases of 18th and 19th century American newspapers, periodicals and county histor­ ies. www.accessible.com Snowbound Bounds Forward Snowbound Software, a provider of document viewing technology, has announced record revenue in the first quarter of 2008 and a positive start to the second quarter with a strong sales gains in April, up 34.5 percent over the same period last year. www.snowbound.com

Chemicals Rule New EU rules for controlling chemicals will increase confidence in their safe use, but manufacturers, importers and users of chemicals need to get involved now.

People who manufacture in, or import chemicals from outside Europe in quantities over one tonne, are required to register these chemicals as part of the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals programme (REACH). Under REACH, chemicals will be fully evaluated and controlled to manage risks to people and the environment. www.echa.europa.eu

ISSUE 52: Will be available at Storage Expo in October as we are media partners.

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Avis Europe pic (FTSE: AVE) is the leading car rental company in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, operating the Avis and Budget brands in a network of more than 3,600 locations in more than 100 countries. Avis enjoys close commercial ties with Avis Budget Group, Inc., in the U.S., which owns the global rights to the Avis and Budget brands, including sharing technology and marketing initiatives and forming one of the largest vehicle rental networks in the world.

you can quickly scan, index, archive and retrieve them.”

ImageNow supports more than 200 file and document types and gives approximately 800 Avis users instant, single-click access to invoices, customer correspondence and all other documents, from hundreds of retail and rental station locations across Europe.

Steventon adds, “Without ImageNow, the transition from local operations to the shared service center in Budapest wouldn’t have been as success­ ful.”

As Avis were planning for a new Business Support Center in Budapest, Hungary, the company realised that implementing an enterprise document management, imaging and workflow solution would facilitate rapid information sharing between the new facility and rental and business offices across Europe. Such an application would also eliminate the need to spend time faxing/mailing paper documents. After considering several options, Avis selected ImageNow from Perceptive Software. “A big selling point is ImageNow’s flexibility in connecting with different business applications,” says Chris Soanes, ABC project coordinator and ImageNow project manager at Avis. “It was simple to integrate ImageNow with host systems in multiple departments.”

Faster, More Cost Efficient Operations With ImageNow, Avis employees no longer spend hours manually filing, distributing and retrieving paper documentation, allowing them to focus on other tasks.

Accounts payable procedures at Avis were once slowed by stacks of paper. Approving invoices involved employees physically taking documents to a manager’s desk and then waiting for him or her to sign the document and return it.

Now paper is scanned immediately into the ImageNow repository, linked to the financials application, and routed for processing.

ImageNow Mail Agent™ captures incoming invoices and other documents sent via e-mail, then imports them into ImageNow. They are automatically routed to the appropriate workflow queue and approved using an electronic stamp. “Using ImageNow to electronically send invoices between offices rather than sending them through mail takes about a week out of the process,” Soanes says. “With ImageNow, we share information instantly, which is particularly valuable for monthend processes.”

Using patented LearnMode technology, ImageNow seamlessly integrated with Microsoft Access, FoxPro and more than 10 of Avis’s legacy systems, without the need for programming. Integration with the Avis business systems eliminates the need to search for documents, as users pull up all associated documents with a single click from the host application record. This process contributed to a rapid return on investment in multiple departments, including customer service, accounts payable and treasury accounts. “Its simplicity and scalability make ImageNow effective in every department,” says Adrian Steventon, ABC project coordinator at Avis. “It allows you to effectively manage documents because

Eliminating postage has led to a reduction in office supply and shipping costs at Avis.

ImageNow also helps avoid additional storage costs, as some documents can be shredded after scanning. Avis can depend on secure copies of imaged documents that are stored remotely using ImageNow Content Server at facilities in London and Frankfurt. Full-text search

functionality enables users at any Avis location to immediately retrieve the exact documents they need from this server, at any time.

"ImageNow has provided time, efficiency and cost savings,” Soanes says. “It is helping us move toward a paperless environment.”

Avis will also automate the traffic offence process using ImageNow DataCapture.

When Avis scans traffic fine tickets into ImageNow, data such as ticket number, car registration number and date will be automatically captured and then fed into Avis’s traffic offence system. Eliminating the need to manually key in data from the tickets will speed the payment process and increase accuracy. With the efficiency gains, Avis can avoid late fees and easily submit information to the authorities.

Boosting Customer Service, Teamwork Avis uses ImageNow to immediately retrieve documents at the point of need. This enables customer service representatives to answer inquiries immediately from the Business Support Center in Budapest or any other Avis location, without the need to put people on hold.

WebNow™, the full-featured, browser-based complement to ImageNow, facilitates simultaneous viewing of documents from hundreds of remote sites. “ImageNow is essential to our shared services center because it lets us access information across Europe. Employees don’t waste time putting the customer on hold and calling up another country to investigate because everything’s available immediately in ImageNow,” Soanes says. “Having paperwork on your desk limits your collaboration options to whose desk you can take it to.

“With ImageNow, we can distribute information to colleagues in any location with a single click.”

Avis workers have responded positively to the benefits that ImageNow provides. The product's intuitive interface means new users learn how to operate it quickly, regardless of

their level of IT proficiency.

“Employees have taken ImageNow on board quickly because it’s so user-friendly,” says Steventon. “One of the main benefits of ImageNow is ease of use.”

Enabling Management ImageNow Workflow not only allows for instant routing of documents, but also comes equipped with workflow alarms that Avis uses to alert managers about their staff's performance. When documents sit in queues for more than three days, supervisors are notified via workflow alarm, allowing them to investigate the document.

Supervisors easily view documents in each employee’s queue and redistribute work as necessary with just a few clicks in ImageNow. “A lot of payables and travel and expense documents are time-critical, and using workflow alarms in ImageNow helps us keep SLAs and KPIs in order,” Soanes says.

Supporting Future Expansion In addition to being satisfied with the time and cost savings ImageNow provides, managers at Avis also enjoy dealing with the Perceptive Software sales and support teams. The company's unique, customer-focused approach includes hands-on implementation and training that has empowered Avis to administer ImageNow independently and without the limitations of a long-term maintenance agreement. “Avis has a great relationship with the Perceptive Software UK team because we feel they work with us, not for us,” Soanes says. “They’re very professional, knowledgeable and are always willing to help.”

Instant document access from any location, scalability, and the elimination of paper processes make ImageNow the perfect fit for Avis Europe's document management needs. ImageNow will help Avis maintain its tradition of offering quality car rental services and unparalleled customer care. ■ ImageNow: www.imaaenow.com Avis: www.avis.com

It feels good to feel safe.

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What makes a good family?

You can rely on every single member.

By partnering Fujitsu you are in safe hands and can rely on us and our product family members. With decades of experience, market and technology leadership', Fujitsu scanners are state-of-the-art.

Fujitsu has exactly the scanner that suits your specific needs.

i . m il k-and -ho ney.de

How can reliability be even safer?

By having the right assurance. By partnering with Fujitsu you w ill have the opportunity to opt into our Assurance Programme, the manufacturer supported warranty and maintenance offering available on Fujitsu scanners. In addition to the standard warranty provision a series of warranty options and upgrades w ill be available as well as Out of Warranty cover for existing scanners. Simply said: A good family unit.

For further information on regional coverage and all AP products please visit http://emea.fujitsu.com/scanners * Infosourcfl Scanner Market Report

Spring 2006

FUjITSU THE P OS S I BI L I T I E S ARE I NFI NI TE

All names, manufacturer names, brand and product designations are subject to special trademark rights and are manufacturer's trademarks and/or registered brands of their respective owners. All indications are non-binding. Technical data is subject to change without prior notification.

HEDS UP!

But it's not to be found in the physics department or the science labs, it exists on campus in the form of a specialist digitisation service.

Working within the University of Hertfordshire, HEDS is in­ volved in the scanning and capture of media such as books, maps, plans, manuscripts, photographs, rare documents, transparencies and even glass negatives. Originally known as the Higher Education Digitisation Service, HEDS is a self-funding but not-for-profit organisation which is becoming a centre of excellence for the specialist digital capture of rare, hard to handle, and difficult to read media.

Established in 1996, they provide a commercial service to any individual or organisation throughout the world. The business model they exist on, is outside of any 'normal' scanning or data capture bureau remit. A commercial capture bureau relies on its own ability to put as many documents through a scan or data capture process as possible. HEDS are driven purely by quality and their ability to extract information from seemingly impossible sources. With time on their side, this allows a dedication and focus on individual pages or items captured which is unheard of the in the bureau world.

Providing an initial no-cost evaluation of a client project, HEDS can further offer a variety of production services (including exam paper conversion,) as well as a specialist consultancy and on­ going project management services to ensure standards GSM:051:010

UK university has secret weapon!

are monitored and kept.

Recent projects of note include: -Ashmolean Museum (1,300 large format transparencies) - Imperial War Museum (55 microfilms of General Mongomery's private papers) - Old Bailey Online Project* * This relates to the historical research project on Old Bailey Proceedings, and is not related to the Central Criminal Court. See more details at: www.oldbaileyonline.org/

With a small and dedicated team, HEDS have built a reputation for obtaining readable results from difficult source documents, as well as other media such as microfilm, transparencies, glass plates and others. As quality and readability is extremely important to these projects, speed is not of the essence.

HEDS have the luxury of being

able to use specialist scanning techniques which are too slow for commercial operation, but do provide an excellence of quality. Although this means that the service does command a higher price than traditional business document scanning would for example, many clients are happy to pay that extra for the quality result.

Processing images in a variety of packages after an item is scanned, other services such

as OCR, data capture, tidy up work, annotation, indexing and other work, is carried out on the resulting images to client specifications. With HEDS recommending how to achieve best results and project managing the throughput, many clients have been able to achieve legible, readable and flexible results as a result of using the HEDS service.

HEDS Up

Working with a wide range of media and different types of content, means that the team have to be flexible in their approach to work management. For example while one team member is attempting to produce a readable image out of microfilm frames (which were possibly captured at a time when standards were not always adhered to,) another team member might be scanning glass negative

plates, and circumventing typical handling problems associated with glass.

(Fragility of original, Newtons Rings, etc.)

With the team having amassed many man years experience covering a wide range of skills such as photography and commercial bureau management, HEDS www.greensheetmedia.com

are ideally placed to cater for a wide variety of work and subject matter.

The HEDS reputation for producing quality imagery from difficult originals has sparked interest from learned institutions around the UK and the rest of the world. One diffi­ culty HEDS face in obtaining non-UK clientele (and perhaps also some UK clients) is that of persuading the institution or organisation to allow their documents or other media to be removed from the safety of their normal storage location for the capture process. If those clients can digitally capture their originals to the HEDS recommendations, they could simply send the raw files for HEDS to work on, rather than the originals. This would open up a whole new potential client list for HEDS, and allow

them to capitalise on their reputation and their position within the academic com­ munity. However clients man­ age to get their job to HEDS, they can be assured of the fact that when their project begins, HEDS staff have a diversity of

FACTOID The phenomenon of Newton's rings, named after Sir Isaac Newton, is an interference pattern caused by the reflection of light between two surfaces - a spherical surface and an adjacent flat surface. When viewed with a monochromatic light it appears as a series of concentric, alternating light and dark rings centered at the point of contact between the two surfaces. When viewed with white light, it forms a concentric ring pattern of rainbow colors because the different wavelengths of light interfere at different thicknesses of the air layer between the surfaces.

The light rings are caused by constructive interference between the light rays reflected from both surfaces, while the dark rings are caused by destructive interference. Also, the outer rings are spaced more closely than the inner ones. Moving outwards from one dark ring to the next, for example, increases the path difference by the same amount A, corresponding to the same increase of thickness of the air layer A/2. Since the slope of the lens surface increases outwards, separation of the rings gets smaller for the outer rings.

So now you know!

Sources - Information: www.wikipedia.com. Image: ©Harvard University www.greensheetmedia.com

knowledge which allows them to deal with most situations.

Meet The Team Ben Bergonzi HEDS Consultant Ben started as a museum curator and also spent many years working in the British Library. He then moved to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, as Head of Imaging Services. He has also worked in a range of senior roles in the public and voluntary sectors. He holds a degree in Film and Photography from the Polytechnic of Central London, and is an Associate Member of the Museums Association. He is familiar with the preservation needs of fragile originals. He is able to apply his experience of fundraising, people management, business planning and workflow to ensure that digital projects are planned and delivered successfully.

Asif Mohammed Farook HEDS Consultant Asif started his career worked as a financial analyst, and then managed a team of re-keying staff working on bibliographic coding in Chennai, India. The holder of a degree from the University of Chennai and an MBA in International Business from the University of

HEDS Up

Bedfordshire, he retains strong contacts in the Indian text editing and text coding industry. This enable HEDS to achieve keen prices and excellent customer care from a range of suppliers.

Ian Brearey HEDS Production Manager Ian has over twenty years' experience working in imaging. He started as a press photographer and later moved to fine art photography, working in large format as a photographer and colour printer. Then he joined the post processing industry and for the last ten years he has been working exclusively in digital imaging. Ian has deep technical knowledge of colour and greyscale scanning and post-processing techniques.

This ensures that all the images delivered to clients will always meet - or exceed their expectations.

Julie Mitchell HEDS Service Administrator Julie has been with HEDS since it began, and provides administrative support to the team, including management information and customer invoicing. ■ HEDS can be contacted at: www.heds-diaital.com GSM:051:011

Focus On: Data & Document Capture Bureaus We present here the first of Focus On series. The focus is on data and document cap­ ture bureaus of types, and all sizes, and features informa­ tion and news about bureau businesses around the world.

If you have specific bureau news you think might feature in this section, please send it to Green Sheet at: focus@areensheetmedia.com

Asia/Australasia AEL Data Digitisation of the 1911 Census and Old parish Records for The General Registrar Office of Scotland has been awarded to AEL Data in Chennai, India.

The General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) administers the registration of events such as births, deaths, marriages, civil partnerships, divorces and adoptions, and is responsible for the statutes relating to the formalities of marriage and conduct of civil marriage.

GROS takes the census of Scotland's population every ten years and prepare and publish demographic and other statistics for central and local Government, for medical research, and for the private sector. We also make available to customers public records about individuals, and maintain for the Scottish Government the National Health Service Central Register.

AEL Data has worked with GROS since 2003 for digitising the Scotland Census for 1841, 1851, 1861 and 1871. AEL is currently digitising the 1911 census records. AEL is also digitising 2 million Old Parish Records and several million historic NHS records for GROS. www.aeldata.com Tricorn (See also USA) Tricorn Document Management specialises in the electronic management of GSM:051.12

legacy and current documents for a global clientele, and has announced the acquisition of Godrej Global Solutions Ltd (GGSL) by its parent company, Tricorn India Ltd., subject to approval from the shareholders.

GGSL is a subsidiary of Godrej Industries Ltd, and a global BPO solutions and services company. www.tricomdata.com

UK/Europe DCS Lufthansa approached DCS in 2005 as they wished to automate the handling of their European service centre which handled all of their supplier invoices for the region. After substantial discussions and the agreement of a detailed workflow/process specification, DCS started to process the outsource handling of their supplier invoices. DCS now handle on a regular basis all of the invoices received and then upload the data to a common website. www.datacapture.co.uk EDM EDM Group, the UK’s leading document management solutions provider, has completed the digitisation and

temporary hosting of over ten million SPPA documents. The job, completed in just four months, was commissioned by leading pensions administration software provider heywood, which has been contracted to provide a complete technology platform for SPPA. The EDM Group cleared the entire SPPA document warehouse and scanned the images at its Wolverhampton facility. It is also delivering access to the files from a secure EDM website until all the information can be linked to members’ records on heywood’s software. www.theedmaroup.co.uk Graphic Data Group The document processing business of Graphic Data UK Ltd was acquired by MailSource UK Ltd on the 1st April 2008 MailSource UK is a subsidiary company of the Swiss Post and a well established and regarded supplier of innovative, technology driven solutions for outsourced digital mailroom management and document management ser­ vices. www.araphicdata.co.uk

Focus On: Data & Document Capture Bureaus

MailSource MailSource UK parent Swiss Post, has acquired Global Business Services Plus, which specialises in digital document management and has offices in France, Germany and Slovakia, to enhance its offering in the field of in-bound mail solutions. In addition to internal physical mail services, customers are increasingly coming to expect that documents can be captured electronically, processed and digitally archived - all from a single source. With the acquisition of Global Business Services Plus, Swiss Post is further extending its position as one of the leading providers of digital mailroom and document processing services in the European market, both up- and downstream from its core letters business. www.mailsource.co.uk

USA Tricorn (See also Asia) Tricorn Document Management has also announced the acquisition of Pacific Data Centers, Inc. (PDC), a data processing bureau providing labor intensive services to its clients so that they can better focus on their core competencies.

“The purchase of Pacific Data Centers is our third major acquisition in 2008 and markedly increases our business offerings in the domestic marketplace,” said Chetan Kothari, Managing Director of Tricorn India Ltd. and President of Tricorn Document Management, Inc. “In enhancing our capabilities to address the needs of clients whose data cannot be sent offshore we have laid the groundwork for additional expansion throughout North America and opened new areas for both our current and newly-acquired services.” www.triconinfo.com

www.greensheetmedia.com

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Supercharging SharePoint Since 2000, Datum International's K now ledgeW orker® has been in use around the world. Now with SharePoint integration, we lift the hood to see how this supercharger works, and w hat the 10,000+ users get out of it.

Datum International, a British PLUS Market company, was founded as a consultancy in 1997, focussing on the rapidly expanding KM market. CEO Les Paul, who has been in the IT industry for over 25 years, initially focussed on Livelink by OpenText, but by 2000, their in­ timate knowledge of the ECMS marketplace, prompted them to release their own offer­ ing in the form of Know­ ledgeWorker®.

cover the entire document and information life cycle, and every aspect of corporate know­ ledge can be held in a secure, yet easy to use environment.

Workflow within everyone's job is different, so workflow design and management must be flexible enough to cope with major and minor changes, without having to call in an army of IT consultants each time a screen needs tweaked

process by keeping it within the KnowledgeWorker® system boundary, although where required, third party or vendor specific software can be used with a scanner.

The most important aspect of KnowledgeWorker®, is its ability to retrieve and view documents and information with ease. With flexible indexing facilities, key word searches, a full OCR capability

Having the right management team is an essential part of any business today, and Datum are very strong in that respect. Amir Jamal, Opera­ tions Director, has extensive previous experience with two of the largest software com­ panies in the world, CA PLC and SSA Global Technologies.

Before joining Datum in 2007, he also worked for Protech as Client Development Director.

David Webber, Datum's Busi­

The suite of software allows users and their peers, groups and organisations, to work with information in a comprehensive and yet intuitive manner. With all of the basics provided for document and data capture and indexing, as well as records management, collaboration, contact management and an extensive workflow capability, take-up on KnowledgeWorker® has covered many industry sectors, earning Datum great suc­ cess and respect in a number of countries.

With a good reseller market for their product, as well as major OEM agreements, they have the ability to sell worldwide without serious growth pain.

The product now fills in the gaps left by Microsoft in SharePoint. SharePoint was never meant to be a true enter­ prise wide document manage­ ment product, so the corporate aspects of document (and in­ formation,) management are where KnowledgeWorker® comes to the fore, bringing ver­ satility and flexibility along with it. By allowing corporations and organisations to save costs and increase efficiency, the company has seen suc­ cess not only in the commer­ cial sector, but also with local and central government depart­ ments around the globe.

KnowledgeWorker® modules GSM:051.14

or a process altered. In Know­ ledgeWorker® the GUI for the workflow module is initially presented to the user in overview mode. This is defined graphically for the major steps along the workflow route. More precise details are available to finetune any process with minimal fuss.

There is a scanning module too, which allows integration with all of the usual suspects.

(SCSI, USB, Firewire and our faithful friend TWAIN). This eases the document capture

and an inherently intuitive interface, it has all the hallmarks of software written with care. More importantly however, it is software written with the requirements of the end-user (rather than the developer/programmer) firmly in mind. Datum have invested in over 40 man years of programming effort into the product (now in its 8th year).

With a team of 8 developers working on the software suite at any one time, the attention to detail is evident in the product.

SharePoint

ness Development Manager, came from LSI, where he was Sales and Marketing Director.

He has over 15 years in ICT, where apart from LSI, he also spent time with Cable & Wire­ less and Siemens.

Development Director Trevor Cole says of KnowledgeWork­ er® “MOSS users will find the ease of use and thq breadth of functionality in the KnowledgeWorker workflow engine a revelation to use, and this will allow the development of very powerful business processes through www.greensheetmedia.com

Dour browser based “drag-ndrop” interface. Our Workflow / BPM engine allows transactional processes to be automated, reported on and managed through a simple interface. This will be an attractive proposition for both end- users and Microsoft partners who are already selling MOSS 2007.” MOSS, (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server) is a part of the 2007 Microsoft Office system.

A continual appraisal and appreciation of the changes and nuances of not only the general information marketplace, but SharePoint in particular, are key to the success of

Knowledgeworker®. As the illustration shows, it is not a simple model, but it is well thought and well executed. As such, the model needs little explanation.

Datum still offer support and consultancy services to assist with KnowledgeWorker® implementations, although in the main, most clients find their own IT departments are quite able to install, set up, implement and launch their own installs, with only minimal help from Datum. Providing a client has the required SharePoint install already in place and operational, the Datum install hooks in to the various services with ease.

FOCUS ON: SharePoint In future issues, this section will be a focal point for SharePoint related news. In this issue where we present the first of 'Focus On’ articles, we take a look at what SharePoint, is, what it does, and try to help you decide if you actually need it!

Interestingly, the best definition of SharePoint was found at Wiki­ pedia. We say interestingly, as a 'wiki' is a term used within the functionality of SharePoint.

Wikipedia.com states: 'Microsoft SharePoint is a browser-based collaboration and document management platform from Microsoft. It can be used to host web sites that access shared workspaces and documents, as well as specialized applications like wikis and blogs from a browser. SharePoint does not intend to replace an entire file server (e.g., an imposed 5 gigabyte file size limitation). SharePoint functionality is exposed as web parts, such as a task list or discussion pane. These web parts are composed into web pages, which are then hosted in the SharePoint portal. SharePoint sites are actually ASP.NET 2.0 applications, which are served using IIS and use a SQL Server database as data storage backend.

The term "SharePoint" is commonly used to refer to one o f the following two products: - Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) - Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) In addition, previous versions o f this software used different names (SharePoint Portal Server, for example) but are referred to as "SharePoint".'

The Microsoft view of SharePoint is somewhat less informative.

They say: 'Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is a versatile technology that organizations and business units o f all sizes can use to increase the efficiency o f business processes and improve team productivity. With tools for collaboration that help people stay connected across organizational and geographic boundaries, Windows SharePoint Services gives people access to information they need. www.greensheetmedia.com

After installation, updates can be taken care of by the client, with assistance from Datum where required, but as mentioned, the software is intuitive to use, and this extends to the out-of-box philosophy apparent during the installation process. A recent Datum press release states that 'KnowledgeWorker® already have pre-built templates for applications such as Medical Enquiry Management, Case Management, Time Sheet Submission & Reporting and Invoice Processing. Built using Microsoft’s .NET technologies, KnowledgeWorker makes extensive use of Web Services

to provide a rich interface for third party integration.’

For the future, Datum sees KnowledgeWorker® continuing to evolve and prosper by adapting to change. In this way not only will Datum retain existing clients going through expansion of their own organisation, but as the Datum flagship, KnowledgeWorker® will continue to be attractive to newcomers to the knowledge management, information management, and the SharePoint market alike. ■ Datum: www.datumplc.com

Built on Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Windows SharePoint Services also provides a foundation platform for building Webbased business applications that can flex and scale easily to meet the changing and growing needs o f your business.

Robust administrative controls for managing storage and Web infrastructure give IT departments a cost-effective way to implement and manage a high-performance collaboration environment. With a familiar, Web-based interface and close integration with everyday tools including the Microsoft Office system, Windows SharePoint Services is easy to use and can be deployed rapidly.'

So now you know .... or do you?

The recent success of the AIIM Roadshow in the UK was under­ pinned by the fact that Microsoft sponsored the SharePoint Solutions Theatre. Always well attended, consensus was that despite the press about SharePoint, many were still unsure as to how and where it might fit their in to their organisation.

The other 'point' about SharePoint so to speak, is that it gives you the basics of shared working, but not the complexities. The tracks without the trains. To really make SharePoint work for you and your organisation you need to either invest in a third party solution such as KnowledgeWorker®, (see the Datum art­ icle on the previous page,) or you need to bite the bullet and build your own application.

If you already have a development team, the latter might be the best approach, depending on schedules and commitments of course. Your team will know your business, be able to guide you as to the best department or business process to start with to gain the best value up front, and be able to apply your organ­ isations own business rules to the application to make it work for you.

Case Studies: Green Sheet would be particularly interested to hear from any organisation that has implemented a SharePoint application. Please contact casestudies@areensheetmedia.com Focus On: SharePoint begins in earnest in the next issue. ■

SharePoint

GSM:051.15

GSM Document Scanner Guide (Up To A3) We are in the process of performing a major update of all of our guides. All items marked in yellow indicate where we have requested information, but it has not come through in time to meet this magazine's deadline.

BancTec Bowe Bell+Howell

Data requested from m anufacturer Data requested from manufacturer A3 BW SCSI3 No 500 60000 400 BW 60000 400 A3 SCSI3 No 500 BW + C No 500 60000 400 A3 SCSI3 A3 60000 400 BW + C SCSI 3 No 500 A3 BW SCSI 3 No 500 60000 400 A3 BW 60000 400 SCSI3 No 500 A3 BW + C SCSI3 No 500 60000 400 A3 BW + C SCSI 3 No 500 60000 400 A3 BW SCSI3 60000 400 No 500 A3 BW SCSI3 No 500 60000 400 60000 400 A3 BW + C SCSI3 No 500 BW + C SCSI3 No 500 60000 400 A3 BW SCSI 3 60000 400 A3 No 500 A3 BW + C SCSI 3 No 500 60000 400 A4 BW + C SCSI2 + USB2 No 120 4000 600 A4 BW + C 120 4000 600 SCSI 2 + USB2 No A3 BW + C SCSI 2 + USB2 Yes 200 600/400 A3 BW + C SCSI2 + USB2 No 200 600/400 10000 600/400 A3 BW + C SCSI2 + USB2 No 200 Data being collated ?

D BW + C USB2 50 300 No Ch ?

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483

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3.3 im ages/m in

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650

1000

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255

780

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290

200

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66

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670

540

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325

315

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8.5 im ages/m in

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325

315

110

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7X - 72X

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330

260

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Scanning Update: P art 2 Second in a series of articles on document and microfilm scanning and their commercial and archive applications About This Article "Thank you for all the feedback about the first part of the article.

As a technically minded person I am always consious of the fact that an article of this nature has to be pitched at the correct level in terms of technical con­ tent and readability.

It seems from what most of you have said, that the pitch is about the correct level to ap­ peal to as wide an audience as possible."

John Baker, Managing Editor Green Sheet will move on to cover all forms of scanning and all forms of archive, commercial and industrial applications in subsequent is­ sues.

The plan remains as: - Overview (Current Status) - Office Documents - Drawings & Technical Doco.

- Books & Newspapers - Microfilm Scanning - Microfilm Writing - Future Trends Feel free to contribute with: - press releases - opinion pieces - white papers - case studies Email contributions to: scanarticle@greensheetmedia.com The first of our SIG's will ap­ pear in the form of 'Focus On' pages in the next issue. This will be a mix of news, comment and techniques, as well as ad­ vice from those who have trav­ elled down the routes already.

Remember the next issue (52) will increase in circulation by an additional 600, as GSM are media partners with the Stor­ age Expo / Documation show in October, and the organisers (Reed Exhibitions) have asked us to provide copies for the peri­ odical stands.

In relation to this article, of spe­ cial interest in Issue 52 will be our test report on the Canon MS800 microfilm scanner, with more test reports to come be­ fore the year ends. Ed. ■ GSM:051.20

Scanning Overview In part 1 we finished by talk­ ing about common sense prevailing when deciding what to scan, what stand­ ards to adhere to, and con­ trols in the scanning envir­ onment. We now continue with Office Documents.

Office Documents Broadly speaking, office document scanning projects can be broken into the categories of archive or backscanning, regular scanning, scan-on-demand and special projects. Before discussing specific document types, lets first look at these project types in turn.

Archive/Back-Scanning The roof leaks, and your in a position where the company accountant has decided you all need to move to smaller offices to same money. Your storage company has just been taken over and long term secure storage costs are on an upward spiral. You have had such a successful past few years that you now have no space to store documents! Some, many, or in extremely rare cases aM of the preceding circumstances might be the call to action which you and/or your organisation needs to embark upon a scanning project.

The end result of each regular scanning job, will be data and images for inclusion of the new data into the system you use for retrieval. You might even have an arrangement with your scanning company where they store the images online for you.

Scan-on-demand Beginning a scan-on-demand project is almost always prone to problems which could not have been foreseen when the idea was originally discussed. It is good practice to do a trial run before the project begins in earnest. This should iron out most of the problems and saves money and effort in the long term.

Even if the resulting data and images are scrapped and not incorporated into the live sys­ tem, it is a good move.

There is another opportunity however, which makes use of the test data before it is

dropped and deleted from the system. Regardless of the project type, if a new system is being implemented this is an ideal time to use the test data and images not only to assess the business pro­ cesses involved, but also to use the data and images cap­ tured as training data, so that staff are familiar with the new service before going live.

There should also be a strict procedure in place to remove all data and all images from the system, and for database tables, images and other areas of the system to be purged by an administrator deletion sequence. This nor­ mally purges the actual files from the storage location and cache areas, and is a much better option than a global 'delete' from within the EDMS. [Do you really want a global delete option? Ed.] Once under way, one or more

Either at the end of the project, or incremental as the scanning proceeds, you will have CD's of images and data to be incorporated into (say) an existing dedicated EDMS, an EDM enabled system, or imported into a completely new system.

Regular Scanning If you are already scanning on a regular basis the preceding scenarios are, (or should be,) alien to you. You will have a good relationship with your scan company, and they will probably uplift documents from you on regular basis.

Scanning Update: Part 1

www.greensheetmedia.com

•

feedback loops from all concerned with the various input processes should be implemented. For example the procedure used for requesting that a document be scanned may need to be tightened up.

Management reporting may also require change to get the best out of the data. Other pro­ cedures such as those which generate the metrics behind what is retrieved (and the fre­ quency of thos metrics,) may need to be created, changed, or pehaps even dropped alto­ gether.

basis.

This process can sometimes be managed by the scanning company, if given access to the system.

Most of this is not possible with the sample data that will be gained from the test scans, mainly because the sample quantity will be too low to provide meaningful figures.

There again even that small quantity of test data can at least be used to evaluate the feedback procedure and en­ sure it is adequate for when scanning begins in earnest.

Special Projects The list of what may constitute a 'special project' is too long to cover within this article.

However it would basically consist of anything which is not normal 'scanner fodder’. Some examples might be: - over-width and over-length items such as you may get with certain types of drawing materi­ al - unusual media such as cartridge paper, thick card etc. transparent or semi­ transparent material such as xrays, conventional photographic film, transparencies (and even glass

Returning to Scan-on-demand, there is no end result as such, as this is very much an on­ going situation where documents and data are added to the system on an ad-hoc

plates) These can all be scanned these with (relative) ease using modern scanners. The problem with specialist scanning however, is throughput speed.

There must be a sound reason for paying extra to obtain digital images of the originals. (This area will be the subject of a future article within this series.)

The ROI is different with these special projects, and costs will vary wildly depending on the re­ quirements.

Note that billing for scan-ondemand should be monitored too, and incorporated into the metrics used for management reporting. More often than not, the perceived frequency of retrieval for a particular document type is different (normally higher) than that estimated. This has an obvious effect on any budgetary consideration.

There is another area of specialproject scanning which is fairly common these days - capturing specific data via OCR from with­ in documents and forms.

This is where the scan opera­ tion involves the capture of data from all or part of a form.

Mostly associated with stand­ ard application forms such as in­ surance or credit cards might is­ sue, it can also be applied to in­ voices or any document which carries standard information to be captured via an OCR pro­ cess.

The information might be in a consistant location such as on

GENU SV l I R K P R O V ID IN G ACCESS TO YOU R IN F O R M A T IO N

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a form, but in the case of (say) purchase invoices, would vary tremendously. In that case, sophisticated software can be 'trained' to find the information and capture it. As an example, the software might be trained to look for a post code or zip code on the document, then set parameters around that data so that an entire address might be captured.

Complex and expensive, this type of processing takes a huge investment to set up on the bureau/capture side, but once in place can reap huge benefits by reducing manual document processing costs. ■ The next part of this article will appear in Issue 52.

There we will look at what you need to do next in pro­ ceeding with your scanning project, and we will also take a closer look at the doc­ ument types and the manner in which they are processed.

We will also touch on some retrieval facts, and outline some ideas on how to keep your scanning proejct in check.

John Baker, Managing Editor

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gl' P e r f e c t B o o k ^ _ Part 2 Concluding our article on the Zeutschel 3D book scanner distortion correction technology We pick up from Part 1 in Issue 50, where we finished by talking about texture analysis.

The automatic OCR fault rate is significantly reduced and work rate is improved.

The result: the distorted characters near the fold in the book are aligned exactly straight in the scanning process, the pages are separated automatically and scanned in the correct format.

The software evens out the distorted characters near the fold in the book, corrects their spacing and width and removes the dark area at the centre.

Even characters “hidden” by the fold in the book can be captured.

Technological progress opens up new target groups In the opinion of Hans-Peter Heim, managing director of Zeutschel GmbH, with the introduction of “Perfect Book” the company is underlining its position as a prime mover in innovation in the high performance scanner market.

“By employing the novel 3Dbased process we have reached a significantly better position in the market, technologically a step ahead of

LED illumination system provides optimum light focussing. The result is a high processing speed and a low light exposure of less than 1 lux hour both for the operator and for the object to be scanned.

Clear, noise-free, true-colour images can be achieved thanks to the focussed light together with a high level of energy efficiency. Backlighting prevents the occurrence of shadows and interference from reflections and thus ensures the best possible illumination of the area towards the fold in

Zeutschel engineers and software developers are already working on other technological innovations under the direction of the managing director, Hans-Peter Heim. Automatic detection of the book’s position and size, also with automatic identification of the “region of interest” (ROI) are on the “road map”, as well as the development of an intelligent system for user guidance.

Heim summarises his plans thus: “Our aim is to contradict all those who maintain that book scanners are

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P erfec t B o o k The advantages for the operator are many: in addition to the fact that he will get high quality prints of the pages, the consumption of toner when printing out is noticeably reduced with the removal of dark or even black areas at the centre or edges. There is a further advantage for the user who would like to convert scanned texts from an image into a text format by means of optical character recognition.

GSM:051.22

the competition. By securing the technological basis for image correction the new OS 12000 surface scanner series will in future represent an outstanding scanner system in the international market for the capture of books and historic documents,” Heim explained.

In the past Zeutschel had already caused a sensation in the past with its revolutionary lighting concept. The patented

the book even with problematic documents.

A functionality from which “Perfect Book” benefits. No additional light source is required for the matrix camera.

While the development of “Perfect Book" enters its final phase the first high performance scanners incorporating “Perfect Book” will be available from specialist stockists from autumn 2007 -

"Perfect Book" Part 2

complicated, slow and expensive. We would like to win new target groups for book scanning, for example in the areas of copier design and electronic delivery services. In addition to libraries and museums these will also ever increasingly include public administration, insurance companies, lawyers and service providers.” ■ Zeutschel: www.zeutschel.de www.greensheetmedia.com

Long Term Test: A B B Y Y Fine R eader O C R 8.0 For some months now we have been able to use ABBY's Fine Reader OCR 8.0 software as a part of the Green Sheet magazine compilation.

Essentially the software is an OCR converter which is capable of reading a multitude of file formats and translating them into editable format.

On first install, the software was easy to set up, and has proven very easy to use from the beginning. Providing a number of useful facilities apart from OCR, the ability to load a PDF and break it into component 1 parts has been of particular interest to us. We receive PDF's and other file formats from all over the world, and on occasions we do have difficulty extracting text for placement in our publishing system.

The main screen gives you all of the main features on startup, and you can convert a document in less than a minute.

As a quick example: We took a scan of the back of an old postcard which was cream in col­

our, had brown stains and brown lettering, yet the software correctly identified the words within a defined text block.

All in all, there are too many fea­ tures and benefits to mention in a small update such as this, so we will keep testing and come

including PDF and MS Word.

(The new ABBYY Recognition Server takes these tasks to an­ other level and provides much

You can see in the illustration above the image panel on the left, with the green outline where the text lay, and in the right hand panel the OCR result.

back to you later in the year with more interesting results.

more in terms of automation.)

In other tests the package also correctly read the text within the stamp area, and highlighted the dotted lines adjacent to 'From', 'Name' and ’Address' as poten­ tial mis-reads. The vertical text on the right was a problem, but we did not really expect a read­ able result from that.

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Of particular note to larger organ­ isations and data capture centres/bureaus are two things likely to be of great interest.

Firstly the software can perform in batch mode, simplifying tasks such as page re-number/save etc., and secondly, in automated mode it allows the user to batch multiple operations such as scan, analyse, read (OCR) and then save to a variety of formats

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Basically if you have a simple or complex OCR requirement the ABBYY Fine Reader will.cope with it.

We will continue to put the pack­ age through its paces and provide another update and more in-depth review later in the year. ■ ABBYY: www.abbvv.com

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second article on healthcare $ | and its software from around the world

The US Perspective In general, healthcare in the USA is vastly different to the UK and most other countries around the world. This is for several reasons, but mainly because it is provided by several separate legal entities. Apparently the USA spends more on health care per capita, and as a proportion of its gross domestic product, than any other nation in the world.

As the only wealthy nation not to have a universal healthcare system, payment for healthcare required in the USA is based on health insurance. Some 84% of US citizens have health insurance of some sort. Mostly through their employer, but also purchased by individuals or through government programs.

There are some publicly funded programs, which mainly help with the aged, disabled, children, veterans and the poor. Federal law dictates the right to public access to emergency services regardless of whether or not the patient might be able to pay, and it is this law that drives the public funding programs.

Insurance in general is popularly cited as 'only expensive when you do not have it', but if you are clearly in a situation where you simply cannot afford it, problems ensue. In fact almost 50% of bankruptcies in the USA in 2001 were as a result of 'medical causes'.

There are many facts and figures surrounding the way in which healthcare in the USA is managed on the fiscal and funding side. Many more than is available to get a grasp of how the information management aspects of a large and often disjointed system of care, can operate cohesively and efficiently.

It is a well worn path that leads to debate about levels of care and need for medical staff to be divorced from the realities of funding (or lack thereof) and the battle for budget funding for

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replacement of or new technology.

In the UK the jury is out on the benefits (and success) of the huge funding provided by government to digitise and make patient record management more efficient.

With even more disparate systems and a much higher population in the USA, the need for attention to the detail of how any type of integration might be achieved would on the face of it, appear to be a more than daunting task.

Statistically, the chances of a US citizen requiring to have their medical records available in more than one location during their lifetime are the same as else­ where in the world, but given the size of the USA in comparison to (say) the UK, the sheer number of different organisations that might be involved is mind boggling.

There are success stories, of course there are, but most of the success stories enjoyed when implement­ ing patient record management systems outside the USA, are centric on one hospital, in one area, and often only applicable to a single department and not the whole integrated unit that a hospital should run as.

Given these circumstances, we go no further at this stage, but have asked a number of health profession­ als and healthcare information management providors, key ques­ tions as to what they have found when implementing their system(s). The subject for a future article once the results are evalu­ ated, it will be interesting to see just how close (if at all,) any or­ ganisation, in any country is, to the utopia of joined up thinking, let alone joined up systems.

"One party sees it as lagging other countries across a broad range of problem areas while the other party sees the system as the best in the world with a more limited range of problems."

says Robert Blendon, Professor of Health Policy and Political Analysis at the Harvard School of Public Health.

According to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the United States is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not ensure universal coverage.

The author for one, will not be holding his breath awaiting suc­ cess! ■ In future issues of the Green Sheet we will feature a Focus On: Healthcare section, where vendors and clinicians alike can vent their angst. healthcare@areensheetmedia.com

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Success for COA as Royal Cornwall NHS Trust rolls out PRM application

The Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust is rolling-out a ‘first of its kind’ patient-level resource management (PRM) system from COA Solutions (formerly CedarOpenAccounts). This new system, which uses barcode scanning technology and is costing in the region of £75,000, replaces inefficient and costly paper-based stock management processes.

replenish products when they were getting low, allow us to analyse ordering trends and importantly, enable us to determine how much each procedure and each surgeon is costing the Trust to ensure we are cost effective. We couldn’t find a system on the market which fulfils these criteria and so decided to work with COA Solutions, the provider of our EROS system, to develop a suitable solution from scratch. It took just six months from the initial specification of the system through to the June 2008 go-live and we’re delighted by the results.”

The new PRM system, developed following close collaboration between the Trust and COA Solutions, is currently being rolled-out out across 20 of the Trust’s theatres. Once all theatres are live, it will be rolled-out to other high cost areas including the Clinical Using PRM’s barcode technology, the serial number and cost of every product Imaging and Intensive Care Departments. used on and implanted into a patient is By providing instant costing and usage scanned and recorded. This stored information on up to 4,000 product lines, information, which can be accessed at a the new PRM system will enable greater touch of a button, dramatically improves control over product requisitioning and stock management, reducing wastage expenditure. With up-to-the-minute stock whilst enabling the Trust to more effectively information always to hand and by monitor spend per patient and procedure. eliminating over-ordering and reducing The system also provides quick and easy wastage in addition to standardising on product traceability in the event of a products and ease of reporting, the Trust is product recall. expecting to make significant savings.

Renfree comments, “COA Solutions’ PRM Steve Renfree, Clinical Lead for system opens up tremendous possibilities Procurement at Royal Cornwall Hospitals for the Trust. Obtaining patient-level NHS Trust, says “We required a solution product information used to be time i that integrated with our existing EROS consuming. Using PRM, we can now eProcurement system and could quickly quickly determine the exact cost of and easily provide product information at a procedures so we can address areas patient-level as well as at a theatre and where we are overspending.” surgeon level.”

Renfree adds, “For the first time, we have Renfree continues, “The system needed to an accurate view of stock levels across the produce stock reports, automatically Trust. In the past, theatres have paid for

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expensive overnight deliveries to obtain stock, which may have been available elsewhere in the Trust. Using PRM, we can instantly see which products are located where to avoid duplication and cut waste.

As the system also automatically re-orders products at agreed stock levels, staff are freed-up to concentrate on more value-1 adding activities.”

In time, the Trust hopes to integrate COA I Solutions’ PRM system with its theatre f system, which monitors factors such as each patient’s length of time in the operating theatre and recovery room. This will determine a true patient-level costing as well as an overall cost for each area of | the Trust.

Renfree says, “By using PRM with our theatre system and the introduction of the electronic patient record, we will be able to calculate exactly how much each patient and each hospital area is costing us at any | given time. This is our ultimate goal, enabling us to run the Trust as costeffectively and as efficiently as possible.”

Furthermore, PRM will support the Trust in its application to become a Foundation: Trust. Providing accurate patient-level! costing in key clinical areas supports the i implementation of Service L in e 1 Management, which is a key requirement (as set-out by independent regulator, Monitor) for all Foundation Trust applica­ tions.

COA: www.coasolutions.com

ffiiSL address key data loss issues w ith irueCfr *

David Nicholson, the UK’s NHS Chief Executive, has directed that there should be no -transfers of unencrypted person identifiable data held in electronic format across the NHS. This is the default position to ensure that patient and staff personal data are protected. Any data stored on a PC or other removable device in a non-secure area or on a portable device such as a laptop, PDA or mobile phone should also be encrypted. This is also now a requirement across all public sector organisations set by the Cabinet

Secretary. This directive also applies to all public sector organisations to use encryption for all patient data stored in a non-secure area or on any portable media.

In response to this directive, Micro Imaging Services Ltd now utilize TrueCrypt to provide all data referred to above back to its clients. We believe we are the first bureau to roll this service out across the board and in line with the policy of MISL we do not charge an additional premium for this service ensuring that

confidentiality and security of records is in no way jeopardized by budgetary restric­ tions.

UK Government Reference (all one line): httDs://www.iat.connectinaforhealth.nhs.uk/WhatsNewDocuments/Encryption%2QQuitjance% 2031.1.2008.doc MISL: www.docscannina.co.uk

W h a t is R F ID , h o w d o e s it w o rk , a n d d o y o u n e e d it?

To many of us, RFID is just another FLA (Four Letter Acronym). To some of us it is Radio Frequency IDentification, and to a select few in the world of business and commerce, it is absolutely essential!

The basic principle is that an electronically readable 'tag' is attached to, or embedded with­ in an item whichs allow it to be tracked by a 'reader'. This spe­ cialist equipment which works on a modulation/de-modulation basis, used to be very expens­ ive and affordable by those com­ panies and organisations who had a need to track large and in­ herently valuable items.

item' for a tag is now below 3p (3p UK, 6c US, 4c €,) there are opportunities to track a much wider range of items as they have become commercially viable to track in this way.

In 2003 the Gillette company was reputed to have ordered 500 MILLION units from a com­ pany called Alien Technology. At that time the price was under 10 cents.

One of the main differences between RFID and conventional bar-code systems is that the sensor does not

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requirement can be used instead, and tagged items can be passed through much more quickly.

Typical applications for RFID are the tracking of: - files (see next page) - packages (such as those handled by TNT, DFIL etc,) - merchandise (in your local Wal Mart, Asda, HMV. (Look for the RFID stuck onto the pack­ aging of a DVD or CD.) - passports - animals (and humans!!)

- transport systems - lap scoring (track and hare) and many others.

There are a variety of flavours of RFID tags: - passive, which has no internal power supply - semi-passive, with a power supply for the chip, but not the signal - active, which has its own power supply and does broad­ cast a signal to the reader

More recently this has been extended to large unit count ap­ plications such as in libraries, hospitals and even golf balls!

[Does this mean my handicap improves? Ed.]

Although the Russian Leo Theramin was credited with invent­ ing what is thought to be the pre­ decessor of RFID in 1946, the component parts have been around since the 1920's.

(Theramin invented a 'passive' listening device, so it was not Rafsec tag. Image courtesy of really an ID tag.)

It is only in the past 10 years that the cost of the reader, and more importantly (where high quantities of units are involved,) the cost of producing the elec­ tronic tag has come down considerably. As the cost 'per

also increased over the years and now extends to yards rather than what was originally inches.

need to actually see the tag.

With a bar-code, the laser reader needs line of sight to the label to read it, with RFID the tag just needs to be within the vicinity of the reader. The read­ ing range of RFID scanners has

As there is less manual intervention than with bar-code, and as the tag only needs to be within the range of the RFID scanner, there is no need for complex conveyor systems with robotic arms or special mechan­ isms which orient the items with the bar code facing a certain way. A dumb conveyor system with no mechanical orientation

There is also a variety of an­ tenna used on the tags, with variances in operational (radio) frequency and depending on the application requirements.

The method of tag attachment is important too. The terms at­ tachable, implantable and insertable all seem self-explanat­ ory. There is a fourth tag type, 'digestible'. Kodak have filed two patents for this, where in medicine it would be used to track ingestion and digestion of medicine. ■ More soon on RFID. Meantime, if you have a case study or art­ icle on RFID, please submit to: rfid@areensheetmedia.com

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NEW GENERATION RFID TECHNOLOGY PUTS PAPER IN ITS PLACE Ian Keers OBE, Managing Director, Cave Tab Ltd

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Being found non-compliant due to poor control of records is an uncomfortable place to be, especially when avoidance of this awkward situation is actually quite easy. A failure to be able to locate critical records, or uncertainty as to whether your organisation even has certain records can have not only commercial consequences, but also statutory implications in the areas of Freedom of Information and Data Protection. Lost or missing records, even temporarily, causes uncertainty, potentially wrong decisions being made and uncontrolled creation of duplicate records, so when the original does turn up, double confusion is caused. The problem is exacerbated when remotely stored archived records are considered. If these are not under proper control from Headquarters, there is an even higher chance of non-compliance than with records lost or missing within an office complex where there is at least a chance of locating them.

Many organisations have endured an historic struggle with accurate tracking of records as they pass through a working environment. Tracking systems that rely on memory fail for obvious reasons and those utilising ‘Tracer’ or ‘Out’ cards, are generally poor due to their dependency on human intervention. Many organisations have set up databases for their file movements, but these are usually dependent on manual key entry which is time consuming and subject to keystroke error. Even those organisations that have made the relatively advanced step into using barcode technology for capturing file movements still hav^to contend with the manual action of scanning each file to each location as it passes through the workflow process, i.e. there is still reliance on human and thus fallible, intervention.

Furthermore, if a large quantity of records such as a trolley load have to be moved, then www.greensheetmedia.com

just as in a supermarket checkout, the trolley must be unloaded, the barcode on each item scanned and the trolley re­ loaded again, all very time consuming. Using RFID technology to track records overcomes all of these problems.

RFID Technology Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is by no means new technology. Transponders which emit their own unique identity were invented during World War Two in order to identify friendly (and thus enemy) aircraft. The system was called IFF (Identification, Friend or Foe). The system is still used in aviation today and allows air traffic controllers to know which aircraft is which on their radar screens displaying dozens of dots. However, transponders of this type are bulky, electronic ‘boxes’ and thus unsuitable for Records Management applications.

The technical breakthrough that changed things for our industry was the development of small, passive transponders carrying a world-wide unique identification code and an antenna that could be built into a self-adhesive label. These new transponders, or ‘Tags' do not have a power source and remain passive until they come within range of transmitter that is ‘looking’ for them. Once engaged by the transmitter, or ‘Zone Tracker’ the tag affixed to a file immediately identifies its code. The Zone Tracker passes this code to the File Tracking database which relates it to the human readable index information on the file and immediately updates the location to that Zone. There is no human intervention, indeed, staff need not even know that the RFID system is in operation. Outside our own specialist area, RFID Technology is being increasingly used in the Supply and Logistics industries.

First generation RFID systems use High Frequency (HF) radio technology which does have a major drawback in that the

reading range is very limited, probably only 20cm, which means that records must be placed very accurately on a desk, otherwise they will not be ‘seen’ by the tracking device.

These systems have been used in Libraries for some time where books are placed literally on top of a reader for checkout. However, the latest and most exciting systems use the new, Ultra High Frequency (UHF) ‘Generation 2’ technology which provides reading ranges of up to four metres. This means that Gen 2 RFID systems can deploy Zone Trackers above ceiling tiles and in other discrete locations thus providing full coverage throughout a building if required. Zone Trackers will cover quite large areas, but often will be used in pairs on either side of doorways w H | required. Desk Trackers, their name suggests, are designed to operate in smaller, specific areas and will be positioned according to operating requirement.

Tests have shown that Desk Trackers are capable of accurately reading 32 files fitted with Gen 2 Tags inside an archive box within 10 seconds.

It is clear how RFID can significantly improve productivity in operations of this nature. The third and possibly most interesting hardware device used is the portable RFID tracker. This hand-held device, coupled to a PDA allows users to perform a number of mobile tasks such as auditing records and more particularly, searching for missing records. Details of missing records are keyed into the mobile RFID Tracker, which is then pointed at filing units or piles of files on desks, immediately sounding an alarm when a missing item is located.

The database then updates the location automatically.

Background tracking software Whilst the RFID technology used to capture movement and location of records is hugely important, the ultimate key to success of any Records

N E W G E N E R A T IO N R F ID

Tracking system is in the background tracking software.

The most effective, modern software tools today will be web-based, capable of working in Access, SQL or Oracle environments and should be able to handle barcode as well as RFID inputs. The reason for this is that a large organisation may decide to deploy RFID tracking in the most important areas where critical records are in very active use, but to use less expensive barcode tracking in quieter zones and record repositories. The software should be able to handle both immediate and scheduled requests for records made by users and must be simple and intuitive to use so that staff are keen to make the maximum use of the facility. It should be capable of Panaging physical as well as ectronic records, thus ■fering users a one-stop s io p ’.

Records Managers and Filing Room Supervisors should have information in real-time showing precise location and movement of all records under their control even if the records are in other buildings or even other towns and cities. The system should also be capable of supporting both active and remotely stored archived records as well as managing Retention Periods, to ensure compliance. It must also be able to manage secondary tracking applications such as equipment and other assets.

The Future RFID technology offers great opportunities to Records Management due to its passive ability to track records when they move. Future developments in near-field systems and the introduction of more convenient hand-held devices such as RFID cell phones will make the technology more and more accessible in the business en­ vironment.

Cave Tab: www.cavetab.co.uk

G S M :0 5 1 .2 7

BOLD events are likely to be attended by Green Sheet Editors

2008 AUGUST

Location: Olympia, London Organised By: Reed Exhibitions For more information visit: www.storage-expo.com October 16-18, Streaming Media Europe Location: London, UK Organised By: Information Today, Inc. For more information visit: www.streamingmedia.com

August 19-20, destinationCRM 2008 Location: New York, NY Organised By: Information Today, Inc. For more information visit: www.destinationCRM.com

October 20-23, ARMA International 53rd Annual Conference and Expo Location: Las Vegas, NV, USA Organised By: ARMA International For more information visit: www.arma.org

August 23-31, SAA Annual Meeting Location: San Francisco, CA Organised By: Society of American Archivists (SAA) For more information visit: www.archivists.org

October 23-24, 5th International Conference on Knowledge Management (ICKM2008) Location: Columbus, OH Organised By: American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T) For more information visit: www.ickm2008.org

SEPTEMBER September 9-11 INFOIMAGEM-2008 Location: Sao Paulo, Brazil Organised By: CENADEM For more information visit: www.cenadem.com.br/arquivos/portfolioJngles_web.pdf

NOVEMBER

September 9-11 DMS Location: Koelnmesse, Cologne, Germany Organised By: Koelnmesse GmbH For more information visit: www.dmsexpo.com

November 12-13, InfoSecurity Netherlands Location: Utrecht, Holland/Netherlands Organised By: Reed Exhibitions For more information visit: www.infosecurity.nl

September 11-12, 2nd European Conference on Information Management and Evaluation (ECIME 2008) Location: London, UK Organised By: Academic Conferences, Ltd. For more information visit: academic-conferences.org

November 17-18 SPARC Institutional Repositories Meeting Location: Baltimore, MD Organised By: Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition SPARC) For more information visit: www.arl.org

September 14-16, ASIDIC Fall Meeting Location: Boston, MA Organised By: Association of Information and Dissemination Centers (ASIDIC) For more information visit: www.asidic.org

November 19-20, InfoSecurity France Location: Paris, France Organised By: Reed Exhibitions For more information visit: www.infosecurity.com.fr DECEMBER

September 18-19, infolreland Location: Dublin, Eire Organised By: AIIM Europe For more information visit: www.infoireland.net

December 2-4, Online Information Location: Olympia, London Organised By: Incisive Media For more information visit: www.online-information.co.uk

September 26-28, 1st World Summit on the Knowledge Society Location: Athens, Greece Organised By: Open Research Society For more information visit: knowledge-summit.org

December 2-4, IMS (Information Management Solutions) Location: Olympia, London Organised By: Incisive Media For more information visit: www.ims-show.co.uk

OCTOBER

2009

October 7-9, InfoSecurity Russia Location: Moscow, Russia Organised By: Reed Exhibitions For more information visit: www.infosecuritymoscow.com

MARCH March 3-8, CeBIT (Germany) March 24-25, Business Continuity Expo (UK) March 25-26, InfoSecurity Belgium

October 11-12, 2nd International Conference on Metadata and Semantics Research (MTSR ’07) Location: Corfu, Greece Organised By: Open Research Society For more information visit: www.mtsr.ionio.gr

March 31 - April 2, AIIM Expo (USA) APRIL

October 14-15, Softworld Location: Olympia, London, UK Organised By: Incisive Media For more information visit: www.softworld.co.uk

April 28-30, InfoSecurity UK April 28-30, Internet World (UK) JUNE

October 14-17, 2nd International Symposium on Information Interaction in Context (IliX) Location: London, UK Organised By: British Computer Society, Information Retrieval Specialist Group (IRSG) For more information visit: irsg.bcs.org

June 1-5, AIIM Roadshow 2009 (UK) June 10-11, Library Show (UK) DIARY DATES - INFO REQUIRED To help keep us up to date, please let us know if you have any corrections, news of new events, or know of any changes or cancellations to the events on this page.

Thank you. diarvdates@areensheetmedia.com

October 15 - 16th, Documation Location: Olympia, London Now mergedwith Storage Expo. See below entry.

October 15 - 16th, Storage Expo (incorporating Documation) ► GSM:051.28

Diary Dates

www.greensheetm edia.com

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Show Time!

A round-up of recent IM related events around the world

Image ©Element 903

Internet World UK: 29th A p ril-1st May A lively, entertaining and extremely busy show, Internet World has outgrown it's co­ habitation with the Direct Marketing show, and the organisers have announced that the show will be getting it's own venue in future, and moves from London's Earls Court to Olympia for 2009.

Covering a huge range of subject matter it was hard to get around the show and see everything which may have been of in­ terest to Green Sheet readers. With over

AIIM Roadshow UK: 28th April - 2nd May The 2008 AIIM Roadshow was yet anoth­ er success for AIIM. This years venues covered Glasgow, Bolton, Coventry, Bris­ tol and London, and numbers were up across the board on last years attend­ ance. 35% up in fact, which is a great boost for the UK's IM industry show cir­ cuit, in the face of the demise of Documation in October.

grips with the concept of SharePoint and what it can do for their organisation. Many will have gone home knowing much more about SharePoint, and at the very least, will now know what questions to ask of the many vendors now providing solu­ tions suitable for an increasingly wide vari­ ety of business sectors. The SharePoint Solutions Theatre was sponsored by Mi­ crosoft, who also provided the keynote opener on each day.

According to Doug Miles, Managing Director of Roadshow organisers AIIM,

Outsourcing & IT Services Summit UK: 2nd -4th June Green Sheet was privileged to attend Gartner Group's London event which covered contract development, evaluation and selection of suppliers and vendors, IT outsourcing to onshore and offshore, gen­ eral IT services, offshore services, how to manage outsourcing, relationship man­ agement and sourcing strategies.

Another well attended event, the summit appealed to anyone looking to utilise a third party for whatever business reason.

13,000 visitors trying to see over 300 exhib­ itors and attend over 200 seminars, you can appreciate the problem.

HotSpot: Specific to IM however, GSM met up with Theresa Imregli who is a prin­ cipal of USA based CMS Watch. After dis­ cussing (since agreed) deal which means that Green Sheet are now authorised re­ sellers of the entire range of CMS Watch reports, the conversation turned to SharePoint, and how the education of the IM community (as to what SharePoint is and does,) is key to having it's applica­ tions used in organisations. Defined by CMS Watch as 'the new Lotus Notes', it is seen by them as a key influence in the way wq. do business and manage informa­ tion. A CMS report on SharePoint has re­ cently been released.

Email: reDorts@areensheetmedia.com

“We’ve had a tremendous event this year with very high attendance. The arrival of Microsoft’s SharePoint application has generated renewed interest in collaborative document sharing with colleagues, partners and customers. The latest ECM suites make this much easier to set up and manage, but this brings with it policy issues of control, compliance and archive management. Many of our new delegates were IT people struggling to understand these issues before rolling out collaboration platforms enterprise-wide.”

The London venue which Green Sheet at­ tended at the Novotel West was consist­ ently busy and it was good to see some of the big names there.

HotSpot: The SharePoint Solutions Theatre was very busy as visitors got to

Smart Healthcare UK: June 10th - 11th Aimed at professionals driving IT change in the UK's healthcare sector, the show covered a wide variety of subjects and ex­ hibited a wide range of vendors wares.

The exhibition and associated conference allowed public servants at all levels to as­ sess new products and services, and to discuss strategies and opportunities for improved healthcare provision. ■

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Hotspot: Of particular interest and for vis­ itors to future Gartner events to consider, is the availability of a Gartner analyst on a one-on-one basis. With consultancy nor­ mally coming at such a premium cost these days, this must surely be a worth­ while exercise.

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D O C U M E N T M A N A G E M E N T AND IMAG ING IT'S SHOW TIME

GSM:051:029

Relationship Management Many large organisations these days employ a Relationship Manager to liaise between their own company and partnering companies. Through all of the various exploits I have had in my (various) careers, the most difficult one of all was not that of managing a large company, but that of managing a small one. It seemed to me when running that small company of just under 100 staff, that every move, action, or turn in the business was exaggerated. For example; if a customer dropped away from us for whatever reason, it was a fairly serious problem. Usually it represented a not inconsiderable part of the years revenue, there­ fore urgent replacement was required. Relationship management may have prevented, or at least fore­ warned the business of the departure of the customer With a larger business you can normally ride the storm and pick up in other areas as soon as possible. For small companies, action, re-action and success in finding a replacement customer quickly, is essential. You can al­ most never predict when you might lose that customer, but you can plan ahead so that when you do, replacement is an easier task.

Losing a customer is one of those situations where having good salespeople working with you is essential. They in turn should be unofficial 'relationship managers'. Notice I said working 'with' you and not 'for' you, as team-work is a must. When in business you need to trust people, and they need to trust you too. This applies equally to customers, suppliers, staff and anyone else who comes into con tact with your organisation.

People after all, will generally do business with people they know and have trust in. Seldom have I found a customer coming to any business I have been involved in, that hasn't liked and become friendly with, at least one GS:051.30

member of my staff.

In this day and age it is all too easy to lose sight of the fact, that however busy we think we are, there should always be time set aside to meet contacts, discuss the ways of the world with them, and nurture the relationship. Ultimately, either directly or indirectly, that relationship will benefit all parties. 'People who know people’ etc.

So keep that in mind when you see your sales team sitting around the office. Unless they only deal with telesales or support distributors in far flung places, why are they in the office? The kettle or the water cooler is not where your cus­ tomers are, it is out there in the big wide world. All the time you or your sales people are sitting in the office, smart opposition are out there meeting and stealing your prospects, and possibly even your existing customers.

Not the best way to motivate!

(Source Unkown)

Management Levels I had a guy who worked with me once who was an absolute whizz on the shop floor. Let’s call him Bob! As production manager of our small 'widget' manufacturing company, Bob was efficient. He organised everything extremely well, and he always brought production plans in on time (or

early). Having started with us as an assistant storeman, he had moved up through various departments, soaking up all of the company knowledge required to allow him to do an efficient job.

I was the production director, and when I moved to another organisation, Bob was promoted to the board - as production director. Profits fell within two months. The replacement production manager that was brought in, was not only from another company, but from another industry entirely, (against Bob’s wishes by the way,) so all of the intimate shopfloor knowledge Bob had, all of the tricks and tips and methods of getting the job done efficiently and on time, was lost to the company. The directors could never hope to fully use his knowledge at board level, at least not in the same way Bob had applied it to the day to day production control. The term I think which fits this situation, is that he was 'promoted to a level of incompetence'. It was no slight on Bob himself, he was still as bright as ever, it is just that in the boardroom, he was diverted and remote from the reality of production.

The solution they found, was down to Bob's tenacity for getting things right. He suggested and implemented a plan to remedy the situation.

Bob asked to be removed from the board as an executive member, but retained as a nonexec director with a speciality in production control. He negotiated with the new production manager (who by now had realised he was out of his depth and floundering badly,) and came up with a plan of some elegance. The production managers' title was changed to 'Production Manager Designate', (retaining his interest and commitment,) Bob then resumed control of the production facility as 'Acting Production Manager'.

PENultimate

Bob's 6 month plan was to analyse his own knowledge of the business, train and continually assess his replacement’s ability to do the job, and to educate him in any way possible so the chap at least had a sporting chance of doing the job properly. As the months went by, Bob and his replacement worked side by to get production back in line, aiming for the day when the designate manager would take full control. At about the 5 month point, Bob apparently 'fell ill' (it was all part of the plan) and was off work for three weeks. His under-study immediately took control and ran the production lines perfectly. When Bob returned to work, there was a further one week handover then Bob once more left the shop floor for the board room. This time happy in the knowledge that unlike previously, the transition had been properly planned and that production was in good hands.

Bob is now managing director of that company, which has expanded three-fold in the last twenty years and is set to grow further under his guidance. The valuable lesson learned during that awful year was that it is an absolute must to listen to those who are doing the actual work.

There is a world of difference in perspective between board room (or manager's office) and the shop floor. Talking to the people at the coal-face, the sharp end of the business, is where you get a feel for the real problems, and it is also where the seeds of ideas for growth and improvement are nurtured.

(For which staff should be rewarded, otherwise they stop thinking!) Remember that nothing lasts forever. People leave, things change, and as with losing a customer, losing a staff member you rely on heav­ ily, is never a good thing without protection. Practice safe management at all times, and always expect the unexpected!

CRUSTY w w w.greensheetm edia.com

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