Laserfiche Community Shines at 2009 Laserfiche Institute Conference
January 20th, 2009 Comment on this article
Nien-Ling Wacker with Run Smarter Winners Kristin Nace and Bob Hensz of Texas A&M
“Yes, we can!”
That’s how Gary Agira, IT Manager for Uganda’s Ministry of Finance and Planning, concluded his 2009 Laserfiche Institute Conference presentation, “Blazing the Trail for Document Management.”
Agira used the timely quote to detail successfully scanning and storing 10,000,000 pages of documents despite initial end-user resistance, government bureaucracy and even the unique problem of vermin lunching on paper files stored in rented warehouses. Agira’s story was humorous and poignant, emphasizing as it did that classic combination of pre-planning, faith, and follow-through to successfully manage, as he put it, “the horror of the heaps.”
But “Yes We Can” could just as easily have been the motto of the whole Conference, marked as it was by the palpable presence of the Laserfiche community. “When we put our mind to it, we can accomplish anything,” said CEO Nien-Ling Wacker in her keynote address, pointing out that in the year since being introduced at last year’s Conference, the Laserfiche Luminaries program had evolved into a forum for 250-plus of Laserfiche’s most outspoken and committed users—including all of this year’s Run Smarter Winners—and had its own online presence, the Luminary Lantern.
Nien-Ling challenged the nearly one thousand users, resellers, developers and staff who attended the conference to “go enterprise wide,” as she put it, “to extend your success from your department to your whole organization.”
The Conference’s 107 labs, demos and presentations empowered the Laserfiche Community to do just that. Moshe Schneider, IT Project Manager for CMS (HHS Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for the US Government), explored ideas for managing his national healthcare project, spread out over 10 regional sites and repositories with 1,500 users. “The labs were all excellent,” he said, “I’m especially interested in Laserfiche 7 to 8 migration. I got all the information I need to make this thing work.”
Attendees at the Wednesday general session
Teri Hern, Program Coordinator from the University of Western Ontario, was attending her first conference. She took the enterprise-wide challenge to heart. “Just hearing all the other ways people are using Laserfiche has been really helpful,” she said. “We’ve been learning about Workflow. We even want to make it possible with e-forms, so we can eliminate paper forms altogether.” Her department, she added, is in the midst of a backlog conversion project before a move to a smaller office space. She’s counting on Laserfiche to lessen the need for a storage room. “Space is at a premium for us right now.”
Hern’s sentiments echoed many users’ throughout the conference: the need to do more with less in the face of constricted budgets and greater demand for services.
Laserfiche products like Workflow and Quick Fields, as well the integrated solutions offered by Laserfiche Professional Developer Partnership (PDP) members, all pointed toward the kinds of automation essential to improving efficiency and maximizing resources.
Key to extending user success enterprise-wide, Nien-Ling said in her keynote address, was to “be IT’s sweetheart” in 2009. She cited an Economist Intelligence Unit survey showing that, especially in challenging times, the IT department’s need for central control and users’ need for local flexibility can at first seem hard to reconcile, even though organizations ultimately benefit from both.
Nick Van Valkenburgh, management information analyst for the US Army Cargo Helicopters Project Management Office, agreed: “Nien-Ling hit the nail on the head when she was talking about how IT looks at the situation differently,” he said. “We’re going through that right now setting up our repositories.”
Communicating and inspiring solutions to shared problems was central to the success of the Conference, so much so that questions not directly answered in classes could be brought by Users to “Office Hours,” where Development, Support, User Education, and Presales staff could address specific areas with users one-on-one.
“The Office Hours room was a big success,” says Manager of User Education Tammy Kaehler. “During breaks between sessions, the room was nearly overflowing with Laserfiche users, resellers, developers, and support staff discussing a wide variety of topics. During the sessions themselves, we saw a steady stream of Laserfiche customers engaging in more detailed discussions about our products.
“One exchange stands out,” Kaehler adds. “A Laserfiche user with questions about how to set up complex security in her repository stopped by. She ended up talking with security experts who gave her at least two solutions for how to configure her system. I can tell you definitely that Office Hours will be back next year with even more to offer!”
Hot-button topics like enterprise content management, Workflow 8 and transparent records management were addressed not just in classes and labs, but, in a new twist, also by the keynote presentation on the final day of the conference. The Laserfiche Players offered a live-action depiction of the HR onboarding process, teamed with a software demonstration. In a humorous way, the demonstration showed how Laserfiche can help satisfy the needs of everyone involved in every phase of that most universal of business processes, hiring, while simplifying the duties of all involved, from sunny recruiters to more pragmatic records managers.
Kelvin Ono, Information Systems Analyst for the Prosecuting Attorney, County of Hawaii, was anxious to repeat the success of other Hawaiian municipal offices in the document-heavy legal environment. “We’re really looking into getting everyone comfortable and confident using Workflow,” he said. Even Agira, having conquered “the horror of the heaps,” was looking to what’s next. “We’re still in the infant stages of setting up workflow,” he said. “I’m looking forward to taking a lot of what I’ve learned back home with me.”
Attendees benefited from 107 classes at this year's conference
The power and scope of the Laserfiche community in action was most evident in Rosalind Collins’ class “Forming and Leading a Laserfiche User Group.” There, the Deputy Commissioner of the Revenue for the City of Charlottesville detailed the added value of forming user groups to share best practices, and offered insights and tips from her experience. Her two helpful hints for a successful user group meeting? “Have everyone come up with a clear, simple mission statement. And serve food—that way people will show up.”
Collins also pointed out the helpfulness of Laserfiche staff, who set up a User Group Forum where user group leaders and members could share information. “It’s just an example of how supportive Laserfiche is of our efforts,” she said.
Attendees at Collins’ session ranged from a self-described “technologically illiterate” user inspired by the idea of learning from her peers to Laserfiche reseller Ken Woychesko of Ontario, Canada. “I want to know what it would entail if a user asks me to help them set up their own user group, so I can help them get started,” he said.
Even more direct with his reason for attending was the City of Anaheim’s Ron Smith, who was counting on user groups to do the heavy lifting as the City deploys Laserfiche to more departments. “We’re looking at a user group as a training resource during the next phase of our roll-out,” he said, echoing the conference’s twin themes: going enterprise-wide, but also doing more with less. Power Forward, indeed.
Tags: user groups