The 2008 Laserfiche Institute Conference was our largest and most successful ever, with nearly a thousand attendees and more than eighty classes, presentations and hands-on labs. The conference also marked the launch of Laserfiche 8™, the most versatile and scalable solution we’ve ever offered.
This month’s issue of the UserNews includes summaries of two of the conference’s keynote addresses, as well as reports from several of the sessions devoted to Laserfiche 8. In next month’s issue, we’ll continue our coverage by sharing three of the success stories presented by Laserfiche users.
You don’t have to wait until next month, though, to learn how organizations use Laserfiche to streamline business processes and reduce overhead costs. Simply check out the most recent issues of our Global Municipal Exchange to learn how Laserfiche helps the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and the St. Tammany Parish, LA, Sheriff’s Office serve their constituents more effectively.
The Worldwide Laserfiche Community
CEO Nien-Ling Wacker opened the 2008 Laserfiche Institute Conference with a keynote speech devoted to the Laserfiche community’s past, present and future.
In the 1980s, she explained, she dreamed of creating a digital document management system that would enable people to find information in seconds, without requiring them to change the way they work. With Laserfiche, she knew she’d created an easy-to-use, highly-scalable system that would help people better manage information. She now had to get the word out.
"We had to educate people about Laserfiche, and show them how easy it is to use, install and administer," she said. She praised the hard work of the company’s employees, who traveled around the country to meet with prospects and conduct Laserfiche workshops. She also explained the important role user innovation has played in the company’s success: Both Workflow™ and Quick Fields™, for example, were created to meet specific needs she observed when visiting Laserfiche users and learning about the day-to-day problems they faced.
As the Laserfiche community grew, Wacker noted, users began to take an increasingly active role in working together to share best practices and solve common problems. She specifically mentioned the many users who currently contribute to the forums on the Laserfiche Support Site, and she invited users to share integrations and customizations by posting them to the Laserfiche Code Library™.
Photos from the 2008 Laserfiche Institute Conference
Place your cursor over each thumbnail for a larger view.
No matter how large the Laserfiche community becomes, Wacker said, one of the keys to the company’s success will always be the enthusiasm of individual Laserfiche users. "I’m always pleased when I hear about users who tell their friends and colleagues about Laserfiche, and about how the software can help them work more productively," she said.
Wacker ended her address by inviting attendees to become Laserfiche Luminaries. Luminaries, she explained, will play an important role in helping Laserfiche gain even greater critical mass in the years ahead. "At this conference, we’ll have a number of presentations and labs devoted to Laserfiche 8," she said. "I know that everyone is excited to learn about all the enhancements and to upgrade to the new version of the software. But we can’t forget the people who are still ‘in the dark ages’—meaning that they’re still digging through filing cabinets to find information or shuffling paper documents from one department to another.
"Luminaries can really help these people to ‘get connected,’" she continued, referring to the conference’s theme: Power Up and Get Connected. "By working together, we can not only spread the word about Laserfiche and help everyone work more efficiently; we can also create an even stronger worldwide community, which ultimately benefits everyone."
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Riverside, CA, Bridges the Digital Divide
The conference’s second keynote address was delivered by a Laserfiche user—Steve Reneker, the CIO of the City of Riverside, CA.
Riverside was named one of the top ten cities in the nation by the Digital Cities Survey, which recognizes American cities that are committed to integrating technology with citizen service. Riverside is currently in the final stages of Smart Riverside, an initiative to provide free Wi-Fi access citywide. The city also runs the Community Computers program, which provides free computers to households with incomes under $45,000, upon residents’ completion of an 8-10 hour computer training class. Smart Riverside is intended to bridge the digital divide for Riverside’s 275,000 residents.
"Laserfiche has helped us leverage our existing resources and products to enhance our technology investments," Reneker explained. "We’re improving information access city-wide."
Riverside began using Laserfiche in the police department to manage audio and video clips, as well as associated case files. The system has now spread throughout the city—and so have its benefits. By implementing Laserfiche in the finance department, for example, Riverside has streamlined the payment process and improved document tracking, resulting in $1.5 million in savings.
Looking ahead, Reneker said that he wants to take advantage of Laserfiche’s ease of integration.
"Our plan is to integrate Laserfiche with our key applications to deliver content robustly over the Web," he said.
One way Reneker intends to do this is through an integration between Laserfiche and ESRI® ArcGIS® that will enable city staff to access information related to land parcels through their Web browsers. "For example, construction staff might need more information than what’s on a map," Reneker said. "With this integration, they will be able to drill down to associated content stored in Laserfiche, such as drawings and permits."
City residents will also benefit from the integration, by using the parcel layer of the GIS system to identify their lot and pull up associated documents. This way, they can see exactly what construction permits were issued in the past—offering enhanced transparency and greater insight.
"We want to give access to everyone with our Web-based tools," Reneker commented as he closed his address. "By improving information access, we deliver better public service."
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This year’s conference included a number of classes and hands-on labs devoted to Laserfiche 8, all of which proved popular with conference attendees. Here are reports from three of these sessions:
Using Laserfiche 8
This lab covered the basics of the Laserfiche 8 Client, discussing everything from security and searching to metadata and annotations.
In fact, much of the class focused on new annotation types, with attachment annotations proving one of the most popular. Using an attachment annotation, you can link electronic documents directly to information on the scanned image. For example, police departments can attach an audio recording of a 911 call to the corresponding police report. Other users might attach voice over internet protocol (VOIP) voicemail message recordings stored in Microsoft® Exchange to pertinent documents stored in Laserfiche.
Users were quick to offer suggestions to make the new annotation type even more useful, such as adding titles to ease searching. Laserfiche Development staff made note of the suggestions, and once the conference is over, will look into the feasibility of implementing them.
The class covered other new annotation types, including strikethrough and underline annotations. With a new two-way sync feature, strikethrough, underline, redaction and highlight annotations are selectable from either the image pane or the text pane, with the corresponding annotation appearing in the other pane. (This feature can be turned on and off in the Administration Console.) Users were also impressed by the image annotation, which is similar to the stamp, but affixes a full-color BMP, JPEG or GIF file to the image. These image annotations are both resizable and draggable.
Another popular concept introduced in the lab was protected annotations. Protected annotations can be edited by the creator or the "document owner," a new concept in Laserfiche 8. The document owner has the ability to both edit protected annotations and check in documents they created but that are currently checked out by other users.
Attendees were also impressed by the enhancement to sticky notes. In Laserfiche 8, sticky notes have a trackable history and their text is fully searchable. Also, URLs entered in a sticky note become clickable hyperlinks.
Implementing a Security Policy in Laserfiche 8
This lab covered the basics of setting up security in Laserfiche 8, from creating users and groups to assigning access rights to working with security tags. In addition to providing tips and tricks for minimizing build time and streamlining security administration, the lab introduced attendees to several new features:
Windows® accounts as trustees. In Laserfiche 8, you can treat a Windows account like any other trustee, and assign rights and tags to it directly. This enhancement will greatly simplify repository setup, given that administrators will no longer need to link a Windows account to a specific Laserfiche user or group in order to use Windows Authentication.
New metadata-related privileges. To provide administrators with more granular control over user activity, we’ve split Laserfiche 7’s Manage Metadata privilege into multiple privileges in Laserfiche 8—Manage Templates and Fields, Manage Tags, Manage Stamps, etc. Attendees remarked that this change will enable administrators to reassign some of their duties—such as creating stamps—to managers, without giving managers control over all types of metadata.
Default security. In Laserfiche 8, you’ll be able to assign each trustee default rights—such as read, modify and delete—for new templates, fields and volumes. Whenever you create one of these objects, the trustee will automatically be assigned (or denied) the rights you’ve specified. If necessary, you can then quickly make any modifications that are needed for a particular object.
The lab also covered security related to the Recycle Bin, which is a new feature in Laserfiche 8. Users will be able to see documents they’ve sent to the Recycle Bin, but they will not be able to see documents other users have placed there. Administrators, however, will be able to see all the documents in the bin. They’ll also be able to filter this list to see documents placed in the bin by a particular user.
In addition to deleting documents from the bin manually, administrators can schedule regular purging of the bin’s contents. For example, an administrator might specify that documents should be deleted once they’ve been in the Recycle Bin for seven days. Administrators can also allow users to purge documents they (but not other users) have placed in the bin.
An Insider’s Guide to Workflow 8™
Given that Workflow 8™ is arguably the most eagerly-anticipated addition to the Laserfiche platform, it’s easy to see why this session was so popular. Because Workflow 8 is an almost entirely new product, there was a lot to cover, from server set-up to designing workflows to troubleshooting. Here’s a recap of this session’s major points:
New Terminology. In Workflow 8, you build Workflow Rules in the all-new Workflow Designer. Starting with a pattern of activities, such as adding a sticky note or assigning metadata, you create Workflow Definitions, which interact with Laserfiche entries. Next, you assign a Starting Rule, which triggers Workflow Definitions. After publishing a Workflow Definition to the Workflow Server and assigning it a Starting Rule, it becomes an active Workflow Rule, ready to automate your organization’s business processes the moment its Starting Rule conditions are satisfied.
Workflow 8 Architecture. Workflow 8 is built on the Windows Workflow Foundation and the .NET 3.0 framework, which provide a flexible platform for designing workflows involving Laserfiche and your other line-of-business applications. The Workflow Subscriber monitors the Laserfiche repository for changes, then relays those changes to the Workflow Server, which executes the appropriate Workflow Rule(s). Windows Message Queuing, a separate component, routes communications between the Subscriber, Workflow Server and Laserfiche Server.
Administration and Troubleshooting. Workflow 8 provides a detailed graphical representation of the path documents will follow throughout a workflow, which helps with troubleshooting and design. To simplify enterprise-wide expansion, you can save Workflow Rules as portable XML files. For ease of auditing and troubleshooting, it’s recommended that you dedicate a Laserfiche user solely to Workflow actions, so that you can more easily track document changes and routing.
In addition to these new features, attendees had many suggestions for improvements in Workflow 8, such as triggering a workflow by applying specific metadata, or starting workflows from outside Laserfiche. Members of the Laserfiche Development team were on hand to take note of these suggestions, and said that many of them would be included in either the initial Workflow 8 release or version 8.1.
Document Management Made Simple
At the conference, we debuted a revised and expanded edition of our Document Management Overview guide. In addition to providing a concise description of the technology behind digital document management, this comprehensive guide:
- Describes the business-critical problems that a digital document management system helps you solve.
- Provides worksheets to help you assess your needs and determine how your organization can make the best use of the system’s components.
- Includes specific advice for creating an implementation plan or for expanding your system to include additional users and departments.
- Discusses records management functionality and explains the benefits of automating record retention and disposition.
- Explains how you can maximize return on investment by integrating your digital document repository with your other line-of-business applications.
The guide also includes a variety of client stories to illustrate important points, as well as an expanded glossary and a Frequently Asked Questions section.
The new edition of the Document Management Overview is ideal for those new to document management or those who are seeking to fully capitalize on the functionality of their Laserfiche system. To request a hard copy, please click here.
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Countering Compliance Confusion
The conference also marked the release of Countering Compliance Confusion, the third in our series of white papers for financial services firms. This new paper provides an overview of SEC and FINRA (formerly NASD) regulations regarding document retention, storage and destruction; explains how a digital document management system helps you meet compliance obligations; and includes a worksheet to help you develop document management compliance policies and procedures that you can then include in your firm’s compliance manual.
In addition, securities lawyer Oren M. Chaplin provides a legal analysis of the issues surrounding digital document management for financial advisors.
You can download the new compliance white paper, as well as our ROI for RIAs white paper, by visiting the Financial Services Portal on the Laserfiche Website.
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.
New Knowledge Base Articles
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Tech Tip: Multi-Value Template Fields
Note: For the next several issues, we’ll continue to preview new functionality in Laserfiche 8. Because this is a preview, note that the details and appearance of certain elements may change between now and the final release of the software.
Among other template and field enhancements, Laserfiche 8 will feature multi-value fields. A multi-value field enables you to easily store more than one piece of information within a single field. For instance, you could create an Author field as a multi-value field. Then, if you needed to store a report or other document that had been worked on by more than one person, you could simply save each author’s name as a value within that field. Multi-value fields automatically expand as you fill them to contain as many values as you need.
If you search for a value that is contained within the multi-value field, the document or folder will be returned if any of its values match your search. For instance, if you have an e-mail with many e-mail addresses stored in a Recipients field, you can search for any one of those e-mail addresses and retrieve the original e-mail. Additionally, any length limitations or constraints for the field will be applied to each value within the field. If you have set up a constraint to force all phone numbers to be stored in 123-456-7890 format, this constraint would be in effect for each of the phone numbers stored in that field. All field types can be set to be multi-value fields.
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Laserfiche UserNews January 2008