ECM Lifecycle Management

Rational

In the current market there a number of common issues facing organizations of any size in relation to document management including ever increasing storage costs and disparate information sets. Limiting; collaboration and productivity, whilst requiring an excessive administrational overhead to support compliance, reporting and 'per item' storage cost, which has no relationship to the actual value of the item.

The rationale behind the solution described in this document is to supply an end-to-end process, which is both scalable and cost effective, that resolves these issues by combing 'best of breed' components from a number of leading software vendors. In short, to deliver a solution that manages documents in all formats; emails, office documents and physical documents, through their entire life-cycle, from inception of a project to disposal, maintain a consistent and secure environment for the end user.

All of the components detailed in this document are already market leaders; this solution looks at combining these technologies to supply a complete solution.

Strategy

The goals of the customer's future environment solution are to provide:

· Controlled storage costs, preventing the need for continuous investment just to maintain current levels of performance.

· Improved productivity by supplying an interface that simplifies the retrieval of documents and enhances collaboration.

· Automated security and processing, controlling both storage costs and compliance requirements.

· Reduced risk, and the costs associated, by supplying simple methods to collate and retrieve ALL information related to a project.

· Reduced costs; by allowing resource to be targeted at current information, less expensive storage and service can be used for 'inactive' documents.

· A fast ROI, with clear and tangible benefits demonstrated from day one.

How does the solution work

In overview the solution takes information captured during the inception process of any new project, and then uses this information to manage both the access and management of documents stored against that project. Once the 'core' information has been captured the system creates and maintains a user interface that allows controlled access with minimal administrative overhead, automatically moving information between storage utilities based on its status within its own defined life-cycle.

In essence, as the organization takes on a new piece of work, the solution creates a virtual container that will be used to hold and manage any document related to it.

The key information captured during inception is: -

Classification – which project, for which client
Security & Compliance – Is there a requirement to control access to a specific team or group
Life-cycle – What stages, and for how long, do documents related to this project need to be managed for: -
Open – The period the project is active, normally set from initiation to closure within the billing system.
Closed – From the moment the project is closed for a set period (e.g. 5 years) during which the information is useful for research.
Historic – The period during which documents must be kept for compliance reasons, but the information is no longer useful to the end user.
Disposal – The age at which the information should be destroyed.

In many environments, the information required is already captured during project inception by the accounts system, and for organizations with a standard retention policy, default periods can be set that completely automate the initiation process. For more complex environments, with mixed workflows and multiple retention policies, the system still provides a simple method of recording and enforcing policies on a project by project basis.

Once initiated, the system automatically creates a folder structure for the project that is accessible to authorized users through their existing applications; MS Office, MS Outlook, Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer, mobile devices such as Blackberry etc.

The folder structure created supplies a portal to all documents related to the project: -

Emails
Electronic documents; MS Office, Adobe PDF, Image files, rich media (Avi, Wav, HTML etc)
Physical document references (links to third party storage provider locations.
Authorized users can either subscribe to a project they are working on, or automatic subscription will take place when they create or edit a document related to a project they have never worked with before. The system also supplies state of the art search and research facilities to help users interact.

Automated processes move and control the documents related to a project as the project status changes during its life-cycle: -

· OPEN – Open projects are held on high availability servers with fast storage integrated directly with desktop application.

· CLOSED – Closed projects are moved to secondary storage, with PDF conversions ensuring that research can be safely carried out without risking contamination of data. Giving users fast, but read-only access for research.

· HISTORIC – Historic data is moved to low availability equipment, with access limited to defined groups, such as risk managers and compliance officers

· DISPOSAL – As a project reaches the end of its life-cycle, folder subscriptions are generated allowing the appropriate users/groups to confirm the disposal process.

What Are The Benefits to customers

Customer Benefits Include:-

· Minimize the complexity of the total IT environment with maximum control and security functionality

· Minimize support and management costs, allowing resource to be focused

· Maximize users ability to find, create and collaborate

· Supply a controlled infrastructure cost, as new projects are added, old projects are disposed of, resulting in hardware updates only being required in line with growth

· Minimize risk and reduce both the processing costs associated with data recovery (disclosure, FOI requests, eDisclosure etc.) and the potential for punitive punishment related to data control.

· The ability to deploy and demonstrate a consistent security/compliance process.

Potential Cost Model

Based on the provision of the core services integrated with an existing desktop environment (E.G. Email, MS Office, Web Access and a Standard Finance Application) the solution would be expected to cost somewhere in the region of £500 per user, with an annual support and maintenance cost of £100 per user per annum.

However scale growth models and existing infrastructure suggest that costs could reduce to around £250 per user. For the delivery of customer specific applications there would be an additional charge which will need to be calculated based on the specific application requirements.

1.) Analyse

2.) Reconcile (Physical and ECM)

3.) Rationalize (Physically held documents with current retention period)

4.) Certified Disposal planning – Permanent out Costs amortized by third party

5.) Amortize cost of permanent out & certified disposal and move to new storage provider.

6.) Recover ongoing cost benefit

7.) Re-Invest in automated annual disposal

8.) Re-Invest in scan on demand technology

Savings are relative to number of documents held in physical storage and cost per box currently paid for a bench mark price look I.T.R.O. 18p per box

Technical Overview

User interaction Overview
From a user perspective, the solution integrates seamlessly into their existing environment, allowing them to interact from within their existing applications.

The core differences for users are: -

Silos of information are removed, supplying a single point to access all information relating to a project
Automated folder subscriptions ensure users have almost instant access to relevant information
Security is fully automated, ensuring compliance is maintained
Completed projects are only available in read-only format, preventing corruption or contamination while enhancing access for research / best practice
Collaboration is enhanced, as all information related to a project, regardless of where it was created in the enterprise, or in what format, is instantly available
The creation, storage and retrieval of documents is simplified, as simple drag-and-drop facilities allow information from any source to be instantly incorporated
Logical Architecture Overview
The essence of the design is to provide a fully automated, feature rich, environment, which manages documents based on their status within their life-cycle with minimal manual administration.

The automation is supplied through the integration of market leading vendor software: -

OpenText - Core document management functionality through the use of eDOCS, giving both a highly scalable infrastructure as well as a completely integrated user interface.

ECMConnect – Space management and movement between libraries or repositories

DocsCorp – Server based PDF conversion, ensuring compliance and risk reduction.

Wincanton- Integrated third-party physical document management

Documents are routed between locations based on the status of the project they belong to, allowing both resource allocation and security processes to meet requirements.