Save the Date! Training Conference dates announced

The 6th Annual Laserfiche® Institute Training Conference will be held in Los Angeles, CA, January 14-16, 2008. To be notified when more information is posted, please send an e-mail to user-feedback@laserfiche.com.

Last year’s gathering was the largest training conference in our history and drew hundreds of attendees from all over the world to Los Angeles. The conference was a unique opportunity for the Laserfiche community of clerks, records managers, IT professionals, healthcare administrators and other users to share their experiences, view product advancements, get hands-on training and learn from each other. Laserfiche also presented the annual Run Smarter Awards and left plenty of time to socialize, too.

Attendance at this year’s conference promises to top last year’s with even more opportunities to network and learn. Stay up-to-date on the latest information by checking the Conference Home Page regularly. Don’t miss this incomparable event!

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Focus on Records Management

Recognizing April as Records Management Month, the UserNews features two articles that demonstrate the advantages of Laserfiche® Records Management Edition™ (RME). This month’s Product Focus concentrates on RME as a tool to ease compliance with legal and best-practice mandates.

The National Marine Fisheries Service Safeguards
Permits with RME

There are reasons some fishermen in the United States value their commercial fishing permits more dearly than their boats.

Boats can be replaced. Lose your permit, and you lose fishing rights that can date back generations.

So, when the federal agency that issues those permits, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), needed a computer system to safely store them, it turned to the only company with the software to do the job, Laserfiche.

Not just any software. NMFS needed Laserfiche’s Records Management Edition, specially designed to keep those all-important permits current.

Federal commercial fishing permits can be worth millions of dollars each, depending on where the permit allows a fisherman to fish—some fishing spots are a lot better than others. If a permit expires and is not renewed on time, the rights to work those spots are opened up to a long line of fishermen itching to get their hands on them.

Legal battles over those jealously guarded permits have generated mountains of paperwork that date back to the 1800s. Keeping those records straight and up-to-date is top job at NMFS.

“Many government agencies have mandates for keeping their records up to date. RME is there to ease the compliance with those mandates.” said Laserfiche software engineer Andrew Schoonmaker. “It’s sort of an add-in for the Laserfiche server, but a very important add-in for many government agencies with document retention schedules.”

There are 1.5 million commercial fishing vessel permits —worth several billion dollars— that are on such schedules in NMFS offices across the country, according to John Montel, director of document management at General Dynamics Information Technologies in McLean, VA. A Laserfiche server armed with RME lets the authorized NMFS staffers know when a permit is up for renewal as reliably as an alarm clock.

But the folks over at the Southeast Regional Office of the NMFS, St. Petersburg, FL,where Montel installed Laserfiche with RME, had a more pressing concern: hurricanes. After Hurricane Katrina, they realized their offices would be underwater should such a storm visit them and that would create a tidal wave of problems.

General Dynamics installed Laserfiche with RME and the agency soon was scanning its permits into an electronic database hardwired to computers throughout the Southeast Region’s offices. Now staffers can instantly retrieve documents without leaving their desks.

“Katrina showed them that they had no real data recovery system in place and, with the value of these permits, there could have been a tremendous amount of litigation if those permits ended up underwater,” Montel said. “Now, with Laserfiche installed, everything they do is double-redundant. They can’t lose their records.”

This is a system the Southeast Regional Office of NMFS has searched long and hard for. Since 1996, the agency’s office has spent millions of dollars trying to install a records management system. First they tried Filenet, then Docushare, but neither system seemed to do the job, Montel said. After Katrina, those folks knew it was time to look elsewhere and fast.

General Dynamics was tapped for the job and in a week’s time a Laserfiche server with RME software was on the job. Scanning is now going full tilt and Laserfiche is working so well, there’s talk at the Southeast Regional Office of installing the system in NMFS regional offices nationwide, Montel said. Permits at the NMFS Southeast Regional Offices are now always up-to-date and instantly available for all authorized staff working right from their desktops.

“The staff doesn’t have to leave their desks to get these documents and they can respond quicker and handle more work at the same time,” Montel said. “Laserfiche is saving them a tremendous amount of time and agency response time for John Q. Public is much quicker, especially in relation to litigation cases.”

And the attorneys have taken note. General Dynamics is now at work installing Laserfiche for the lawyers at the NMFS Southeast offices. They, too, need instant access to the legal papers, charts and open-ocean surveys that fill the files of so many of the vessel permits NMFS holds and they can’t wait to get a Laserfiche system of their own, Montel said. And that will mean fishermen will be able to spend less time worrying about their permits and more time on their boats.

“A lot of people around NMFS see what we are doing and they are very interested,” Montel said. “It’s nice to see that after struggling for so long, NMFS sees that this technology can work and they don’t have to spend $10 million to make work. For me, it’s kind of nice to be able to say: ‘I told you so’.”

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RME: A Terrific Tool for a Records Manager

By Evelyn Boggess, Records Management Officer, Schertz, Texas

Here in Schertz, the Records Management Office oversees how all the city departments keep their records. Practices and retention schedules are mandated by the state of Texas. As a records manager, I find a lot to like about Laserfiche Records Management Edition (RME).

We’ve had Laserfiche in the city now for about five years. We originally went to document imaging to make searching easier and more efficient. Just last fall we converted to Laserfiche RME. Moving what we had over to the new program was simple—just drag and drop. But we’re taking some extra time to identify more efficient ways to use Laserfiche for records management. We’re making changes to take advantage of the records series features of RME.

The great thing about setting up a records series in RME is that the system is flexible enough to set up different criteria in different departments, according to what they need, but also meets our requirements from a records management perspective. For example, for financial records or ordinances, we set up folders by year. Currently we have 24 departmental folders, including the city secretary, the city manager, economic development and human resources. As new departments branch off from existing one, we can add folders for them, too.

We have one folder with information for all employees, such as the employee handbook, but not every employee has access to every folder. It’s easy to set it up so that employees have access only to what they need. For HR, only four people have access to the files. We’re narrowing the access in the police department, too. In one case, only the police chief, the deputy police chief, and the records management department would have access to that folder.

My favorite thing about RME is the ability to generate a report. I’m still learning, but I can already create a report that tells me who has been on the system, how many documents have been created and whether documents have been deleted. We haven’t reached the point yet where anything needs to be destroyed, but I can pull a report based on the retention schedule, too. And according to state law, we have to keep an index of the retention schedule and with RME, the schedule, the entry date and the destruction date are all established and attached to the primary folder. From the administrative side, that’s a big plus for a records manager because it’s all automated.

From the standpoint of a records manager, Laserfiche RME has a lot of features that make the job easier. It’s a great product.

Chula Vista Integrates with ESRI

By Bob Blackwelder, Lead GIS Programmer/Analyst, City of Chula Vista

During the past 5 years, the City of Chula Vista, California, has been one of the fastest growing cities of its size in the nation. With increased development and pressure on staff to review additional construction applications, easier access to documentation was necessary. Using Laserfiche and ESRI’s ArcIMS software, the City Of Chula Vista created an in-house browser-based viewer with hyperlinks that search for and display related documents stored in Laserfiche. With this added functionality, users can not only query basic GIS data but also view scanned documents related to the GIS feature.

Typically, Chula Vista Engineering or Public Works staff needs to know basic information about a GIS feature, such as pipe size or material, but occasionally, they need more detailed information such as slope that only a detailed drawing can provide. In years past, engineers would have to search the map room for a particular drawing, check the drawing out and take it to a desk for review. Now, using the ArcIMS Viewer (CVMapper), they can identify a GIS feature, then click on a hyperlink to open a separate window to display the related Improvement Plan.

New Laserfiche Webinars for Law Enforcement

Join us for the “Get Tough on Paper” webinar series specifically designed for the public-safety sector. Webinars range from entry level to mid-range to more advanced sessions showing end to end solutions.

Attend these informative sessions right from your desktop computer. Several dates and times are scheduled for your convenience.

Document Management for Law Enforcement 101
Learn how Laserfiche document management software streamlines processes, strengthens security and increases effectiveness.

• Wednesday, April 11, 8:00 A.M.   Register Now »
• Wednesday, May 2, 10:00 A.M.    Register Now »
• Wednesday, June 6, 11:00 A.M.  Register Now »

Get the Laserfiche Edge - Share Information to Ensure Public Safety
See how Laserfiche software integrates with CAD, RMS and GIS applications to create a secure digital network that gets the right information to the right people.

• Wednesday, April 25, 8:00 A.M.    Register Now »
• Wednesday, May 9, 11:00 A.M.     Register Now »
• Wednesday, June 27, 10:00 A.M. Register Now »

Laserfiche and Cardinal Tracking^® – Interoperable Solutions for Better Service Delivery
View an in-depth demonstration of Laserfiche software’s integration with Cardinal Tracking’s BADGE SE police records management system and TickeTrak parking management system.

• Wednesday, May 16, 8:00 A.M. – Laserfiche and BADGE SE     Register Now »
• Wednesday, June 20, 10:00 A.M. – Laserfiche and TickeTrak   Register Now »
• Wednesday, July 11, 11:00 A.M. – Laserfiche and BADGE SE   Register Now »

Attendance at these Webinars is limited, so reserve your spot today.

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Register for Regional Training

Hone your Laserfiche skills with hands-on training taught by the experts. Learn to maximize efficiency with the latest version of Laserfiche. Don’t miss these upcoming sessions:

May 7-10, Long Beach, California

5/7/2007 Using Laserfiche 7.2

5/8/2007 Administering Laserfiche 7.2

5/9/2007 Using Laserfiche 7.2

5/10/2007 Using Laserfiche 7.2

June 6-7, Memphis, Tennessee

6/6/2007 Using Laserfiche 7.2

6/7/2007 Administering Laserfiche 7.2

For a full course schedule, details and registration, visit the Regional Training Home Page.

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Run Smarter Awards Deadline Extended

Now you have more time to let us in on your cool Laserfiche innovations. The deadline for the Laserfiche Run Smarter awards has been extended to June 29, 2007. Winners receive free entry into next year's Laserfiche User Conference. Details are available on the Laserfiche Website.

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RME Eases Compliance

Regulatory compliance has become an essential part of records management. From federal mandates such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the USA PATRIOT Act and SEC regulations to state mandated retention schedules, compliance must be built into any records management system worth its salt.

Laserfiche Records Management Edition (RME) eases compliance by tracking and enforcing regulatory processes associated with creating and retaining records and managing their lifecycles. RME delivers the ability to comply with necessary regulations but also enables records managers to create a folder structure and records series that can be customized to serve the needs of various departments.

RME ensures that support lifecycle management of records series and strict security measures are part of the records management system. In addition, records managers can create reports that indicate whether records have been properly managed and protected. Managers can run reports to view which records have reached the end of their lifecycle.

Managing records throughout their lifecycles and establishing a retention schedule that adheres to consistent and mandated procedures requires a unified system that minimizes human errors by uniformly tracking processes and enforcing regulations. Many aspects of RME can be administered through a thin client, simplifying management of physical, scanned electronic and email records through a single unified solution. RME manages the document lifecycle from creation to retention to disposal of documents.

Records managers can set access controls to make sure that only authorized users have access to protected information, insuring compliance with privacy and security mandates. And like all Laserfiche products, RME enables users to capture and access information from multiple locations, delivering the flexibility to ease compliance and streamline records management.

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New Support Site Materials

The following publications are newly available on the Support Site. You must have a Support Site account to view these materials. Register your new account at https://support.laserfiche.com/reg/register_form.aspx or https://support.laserfiche.com/RegisterNewUser.aspx

New items in the Laserfiche Code Library

Using the Records Series Setup Utility
The source code for the Laserfiche Record Series Setup Utility.

Adding Basic Error Logging Functionality to your Custom Application
Use the ErrorLog class to troubleshoot your application.

Transferring Redactions on Image Pages to Text Pages
Keep redactions consistent between images and text.

OCRing All Un-OCRed Pages In A Folder
Automatically OCR your documents. See also https://support.laserfiche.com/CodeLibraryFrames.aspx?id=522 and https://support.laserfiche.com/CodeLibraryFrames.aspx?id=520.

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Using versions in Laserfiche 7.2

Versions in Laserfiche allow you save modifications to a document as a new, related document. When you create a new version of a document – either by saving or importing a modified existing document as a new version or by linking one existing document to another – Laserfiche creates a version group. Both the original document and the new document are considered versions of the same document within that version group. Laserfiche keeps track of the date the new version was created, the user who created the version, and the optional comments that can be set when a new version is created or linked; you can use this information to help you track modifications to a document.

Why Use Versions?

• Prevent information loss. Creating a new version of a document does not overwrite existing versions of the document. It simply adds another document to the version group. The original document remains untouched. This allows you to review the previous version, or return to the older version if you decide not to keep the changes.
• Maintain different versions for different purposes. You may wish to keep different versions of a particular document for use in different circumstances. For instance, you might want to format a particular report differently to meet the requirements of different recipients. You could use a version group to create and keep track of different versions of the report.
• Ease of retrieval. Laserfiche 7.2.1 and up allow you to choose – in the Browse options and in the Versions search – to display only the most recent versions of documents. If you need to keep multiple revisions of a document – for reference purposes, or for compliance – you can use versions to display only the most recent by default, and therefore to make your folders and searches more manageable.

Using Security to Enforce Versioning Policy

You may decide that you want your users to always save changes to an electronic document as a new version rather than overwriting the existing document. You can enforce this policy using Laserfiche entry access rights. Saving a document as a new version requires the Create Document right, and saving the changes to the existing document requires the Modify Contents right. Therefore, you can ensure that users will always save changes to electronic documents as new versions by denying the Modify Contents right for that document but allowing the Create Document right.

Please see the white paper Versions and Version Groups for more information.

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