Welcome to Laserfiche UserNews. This month’s issue spotlights three organizations that have used Laserfiche to develop efficient, ecologically-sound business processes. For these organizations, reducing or eliminating paper-based operations has proven beneficial to both the working and natural environments. In addition, this month’s issue offers a preview of the educational tracks to be presented at the 2008 Laserfiche Institute Conference.

For more ways Laserfiche users are advancing environmental causes, we invite you to read the latest edition of the Global Municipal Exchange. This month’s issue spotlights the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, which has used Laserfiche to increase efficiency and shrink their environmental footprint.

Thinking Green on the Ocean Blue

Not all of the Lone Star State is cattle country. There are over 600,000 commercial- and personal-use boats cruising the Texas coastline. For the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Boat Titling and Registration Division, that means managing an equal number of registration forms and operating permits.

All those documents have been digitized and archived in a Web-accessible Laserfiche system, which, according to IT manager Julia Gilmore, has helped the division conserve both staff and natural resources. "It gives us more expedient access to all our available data," she says. "It’s great not just for us, but also for other state agencies, such as law enforcement. If they need to check the history of a vessel or captain, they have immediate access."

It’s all possible thanks to Laserfiche WebLink™. Texas marine patrols, and other authorized users, can instantly access boat registration and licensing information on suspect vessels—whether they’re on the high seas or on terra firma.

Laserfiche has also dramatically improved operational efficiency at the division office, says Gilmore. Registration and licensing files can be up to 50 pages long, and every week, the division receives dozens of requests for such files. Before installing Laserfiche, staff had to manually retrieve, copy and then fax or mail requested files—often to multiple recipients. Now, they instantly call up electronic versions, then e-mail them to requestors.

"Once the documents are in the Laserfiche system, requests are so easy to process, " Gilmore says. "It saves a lot of time and effort in logistics alone."

That’s not discounting the positive environmental impact the division has made since installing Laserfiche in 2003. In addition to active documents, the division stores licenses and registration documents dating back ten years, in accordance with Texas law. That translated into piles of paper and microfilm, which have been gradually reduced as more and more of these documents are stored and processed electronically.

Says Gilmore, "We’ve cut down dramatically on the amount of information we provide in hard-copy form, so there has been a big reduction in the amount of paper we use. That’s the primary benefit to our environment that Laserfiche has enabled."

Of course, the division’s ultimate goal is to provide better public service. And Laserfiche has certainly helped in that department. "Now we can provide assistance right over the phone," Gilmore says. "When a customer calls, we can get their information right then and there, whereas we once had to pull the information and call them back. That’s the thing I like most about Laserfiche, that it’s so easy to use."

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Head Over (Tar) Heels for Laserfiche

Along North Carolina’s coastal marshes, development is booming. And along with this new construction comes new pollution, which the state Department of Natural and Environmental Resources is tasked with curbing. The department’s Division of Water Quality (DQW) relies on Laserfiche to track development on North Carolina’s coast, helping them achieve their environmental and operational goals.

According to Information Services Officer Beverly Strickland, Laserfiche Web Access™ is changing the way the DWQ’s regional offices do business, enabling multi-site access to large-scale maps and building permit applications. 

State law requires developers to obtain development permits before moving forward with a project. Sound planning is critical to building new facilities while preserving local wetland ecosystems. With that in mind, the DWQ reviews building permit applications to ensure that developers follow environmentally-friendly policies before, during and after construction.

Prior to installing Laserfiche, this was a cumbersome process that involved filing development plans, supporting documents, maps and photos of all sizes in the DWQ’s central office in Raleigh, the state’s capital. Before the central office could issue approvals, however, all these documents had to be physically transported to regional offices, where staff could review them and provide locally-relevant information not available to staff in Raleigh.

Due to the large size and complexity of the documents, circulating them between offices was costly and time-consuming. A 41-cent stamp can’t cover maps of wetlands and storm water-runoff patterns, erosion control proposals and wetland restoration plans. "The size of the file depends on the scope of the project, but if, say, a project involves a road crossing 50 streams, the application could be huge," says Strickland. "If a project involves restoration, it requires a restoration plan, which can be 300 pages long."

With an eye towards preserving the environment—in terms of both local construction and natural resources—Strickland implemented a Laserfiche solution, and staff immediately got to work scanning and indexing applications as they were received.

Web Access enables staff in regional offices to open entire application files from a password-secured Website. That means no more copying, faxing or mailing documents the size of the state flag. "We process 2,000 applications a year," Strickland says. "Photographs, topographical maps, large-scale engineering maps, storm and flood maps are all now instantly available to the regional offices as soon as we scan them in."

While the Laserfiche Client and Web Access have made for a lot less paper and time spent handling it, Strickland says the DWQ has greater plans for Laserfiche. The next step is for regional office staff to map development-affected areas with handheld GPS devices, and then upload that information into maps stored in Laserfiche.

"Being able to pull GPS points on-site will give us a better feel for where the affected areas actually are," Strickland says. "That will help us make better-informed decisions about what’s going into our water, how much damage is being done, and how to correct the problem."

In addition, Strickland hopes to install Audit Trail™ to keep a running tab of who accesses the DWQ’s files and when they do it. But for now, she says, the DWQ is happy to have improved its quality of operations—and thus, the quality of the local environment. "Right now, we’re just trying to make our business processes quicker with Laserfiche, and I have been very, very pleased so far."

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Shades of Green in Orange County

For the City of Anaheim, California, "going green" is more than just a catchphrase—it’s a way of doing business.

While a single city may only play a bit role in the larger mission of saving the planet, Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle noted in his State of the City address that "there is no doubt that we can play a major role in our neighborhoods and community by practicing good stewardship, conserving resources and providing leadership."

The Green Connection started with a federal mandate encouraging municipalities to move toward green power. The city then adopted a resolution framing goals for a city-wide initiative grounded in the principles of environmental soundness and sustainable development. With programs such as Sun Power for Schools, the Green Building Program and the popular TreePower program, which has distributed over 35,000 trees to residents, Anaheim is at the forefront of municipal green programs. The initiative has proved so popular that existing programs are expanding while new ones are being added regularly.

The Anaheim Public Utilities Department is working particularly hard not just to provide innovative programs to residents, but also to operate more environmentally friendly themselves. Using Laserfiche Records Management Edition™ to eliminate paper records is an important part of this strategy. Ron Smith, the department’s records and information administrator, says that, as part of the green initiative, the department will improve its records management practices, beginning with the way records are stored and accessed. By linking the Laserfiche repository to network drives and implementing GIS integration, the department will reduce dependence on paper and limit duplicated efforts—saving both paper and electricity. In recognition of its success, the department will receive a Run Smarter Award at the 2008 Laserfiche Institute Conference in January.

Smith says that the advantages of going green extend beyond the fact that it creates opportunities to review and streamline business processes throughout the department. It also promotes innovative government that affects real change. With its Green Connection program, Anaheim is working hard to provide clean, renewable energy options and minimize environmental impact.

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2008 Conference to Host Broadest Curriculum Ever

This year’s Laserfiche Institute Conference features our largest offering of classes, presentations and labs yet. These sessions provide you with a unique opportunity to consult with the people who develop, implement and support the software every day. If you’ve already registered for the conference, read on for an overview of the upcoming sessions. If you haven’t registered yet, don’t stop reading—take a look at what you’ll be missing if you don’t attend:

The Product Overviews track showcases the many ways Laserfiche can improve the way your organization runs. Suitable for new and experienced users of varying technical abilities, these sessions will show how each Laserfiche product helps you meet your organization’s most pressing information management challenges. You’ll get your first look at the powerful, all-new features of Laserfiche 8™ and prepare yourself for migrating to the new platform. In addition to previewing Workflow 8™ and Web Access 8™, you’ll get tips and tricks on searching, shortcuts and integration that will help you maximize Laserfiche 8’s new functionality.

The Processes and Practices track covers best practices for designing, implementing and maintaining a comprehensive Laserfiche solution. These classes are ideal if your organization is in the planning or implementation stage, or if you’re looking for new ways to make Laserfiche work for you. You’ll learn how to analyze your organization’s needs, then develop Laserfiche-powered business processes that support and enhance the way you work. And as your organization grows, you’ll be prepared to expand your Laserfiche system to support a larger workforce and multiple offices.

The new Architecture and Administration track features sessions designed to simplify the installation, maintenance and troubleshooting of your Laserfiche system. Suitable for systems administrators, integrators and developers, these courses provide a "developers-eye" view of the architecture of Laserfiche products, as well as advice for achieving optimal performance. Sessions cover such topics as enhancing system performance, migrating to Laserfiche 8 and integrating Laserfiche with third-party applications. In addition, you’ll have the chance to delve into the details of Workflow 8 that make it ideal for solving your most complicated routing and workflow problems.

Every year, conference attendees comment on how much they enjoy our hands-on labs, so this year, we’ll be presenting more of them than ever before. To illustrate how Laserfiche 8 will help you improve the way your organization runs, we’ll hold a series of Quick Start labs to get you up to speed on its new features and functionality. Other labs will address hot-button issues such as disaster recovery planning, implementing a security policy and image-enabling primary line-of-business applications.

Whatever sessions you attend, you’ll come away with new knowledge and skills that you can start applying right away when you get back to work. Sessions fill up fast, so visit the schedule of classes and reserve your seat to ensure that you don’t miss out on any of the sessions that interest you. And if you haven’t registered yet, please visit the conference home page now to sign up before the registration period closes.

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New Business Continuity White Paper Available

When people hear the word "disaster," they often think of fires, hurricanes or earthquakes. But there are a variety of other events that can disrupt business operations, from power failures and computer viruses to network outages and pandemics. Given all the threats businesses face, it’s critical that every organization has a plan in place to protect its information and to resume operations quickly in the event of a disaster.

We’ve just released a new white paper, "How Digital Document Management Streamlines Business Continuity Planning," to help you understand the key role that Laserfiche can play in such a plan. From protecting documents from damage to making these documents readily accessible after an event occurs, Laserfiche is well-positioned to help an organization of any size, in any industry, ensure continuity of business operations, as well as recover quickly from a disaster of any type.

Please visit our Disaster Recovery page to download the paper. Also, be on the lookout for the latest in our series of 18 Minute Webinars, "18 Minutes to Comprehensive Business Continuity Planning," coming early next year.

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Quick Fields™

Laserfiche Quick Fields™ enables you to automatically capture, classify and organize documents in a Laserfiche repository. Its intuitive interface and collection of image processing and enhancement tools were developed specifically to integrate with the Laserfiche platform and to work with most production scanners.

Quick Fields includes the Universal Capture plug-in and the Laserfiche Capture Engine, which allow you to process images either from Windows^® or from your Laserfiche repository. With this capability, you can to take advantage of automated image processing, even for images that have already been scanned or otherwise imported into Laserfiche. The Laserfiche Capture Engine also provides the ability to distribute the image capture and classification processes, or to move documents and data between separate Laserfiche repositories.

Quick Fields offers a variety of image enhancements and processing tools. Image enhancements, such as crop, deskew, despeckle and smooth, allow you to clean up images before processing and storing them. Processing tools, including Zone OCR, Real-Time Lookup, and the Bar Code plugin, automatically extract information from documents, and then use that information to populate template fields.

In addition to image processing, Quick Fields provides the ability to dynamically name and file documents in a logical, nested folder structure. Quick Fields can use information about documents to find and even create Laserfiche folder structures, so you can better organize your Laserfiche repository while eliminating the need to manually locate or create destination folders.

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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 here.

Our Presales group recently created three new video tutorials on Quick Fields 7, which are now posted on the Support Site. Links to the tutorials are located on the site’s main page, in the Latest Education Resource Articles section. You can also reach them by clicking the Education link at the top of the page. These tutorials will help you better understand how to automate document processing to increase efficiency, and can also serve as a refresher course for veteran Quick Fields users seeking to keep their skills sharp.

New Knowledge Base Articles

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Tech Tip: Web Auditing in Laserfiche 8™

Note: This article previews new features in Laserfiche 8. Because this is a preview, please note that the details and appearance of certain elements may change between now and the final release.

Audit Trail 8™ introduces a new Web-based audit reader. This Web reader enables you to configure and create audit reports, view them in your Web browser, save report configurations to run in the future, and export reports as a comma-separated list for archiving. This Web interface provides a way to easily create and read audit reports. Furthermore, it's no longer necessary to have an Administration Console available to view an audit report.

Audit Trail 8 also reduces the performance load that auditing previously placed on the server. The new audit method stores audit data in binary logs. Because audit data is no longer stored in the repository database tables, the audit report process no longer needs to query the Laserfiche repository to generate the report. Furthermore, the repository database size will grow more slowly. Finally, because the Web reader does not need to be installed on the same computer as the Laserfiche Server, audit reporting can be distributed to another server to reduce load.

In Laserfiche 8, you can create and constrain audit reports just as you would have in Laserfiche 7. You can select the events you would like to report on or limit the report to a particular timeframe or set of users. You can also create advanced constraints; for instance, you can create different reports for different Laserfiche products (for instance, the Laserfiche Client or Web Access), or to report on a particular error.

When the audit report has been created, the user creating the report can preview the report, reorder and resize the displayed columns.

An audit report in Web Audit. Please note that this screenshot is of a development prototype. The appearance and functionality will change before the product is released.

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Copyright Notice © 2007 Compulink Management Center, Inc. Laserfiche and Compulink are registered trademarks, and Laserfiche Software Assurance Plan and LSAP are service marks of Compulink Management Center, Inc. All rights reserved. All other marks are properties of their respective companies.

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Laserfiche UserNews December 2007