This summit brings together IT leaders looking to redefine what’s possible. From scaling AI, simplifying infrastructure to unlocking data-driven decisions and leading with empathy, you’ll explore how to drive meaningful change across people, platforms, and performance – while keeping your organization resilient, agile, and ready for what’s next.
The Summer Higher Ed CIO Congress will focus on 75 c-level executives on the technology side of higher education (CIOs, CTOs and VPs of Technology). These leaders are mainly focused on cybersecurity, maximizing student success, and the quality and practices associated with undergraduate, graduate, and professional study at the college/university. Conference sessions will address how technology leaders can improve their institution’s technology programs, support services, and organizational design to drive innovation and help students from all backgrounds succeed.
Bringing together the brightest minds in state and local government, this summit empowers public-sector leaders to explore cutting-edge technologies, modernize operations, and solve pressing challenges. From cybersecurity and AI to data governance and digital service delivery, sessions are designed to spark insight, foster collaboration, and accelerate real-world results. Whether you’re shaping strategy or implementing solutions, the Summit delivers valuable peer connections and actionable guidance to help move your mission forward.
This summit brings together IT leaders looking to redefine what’s possible. From scaling AI, simplifying infrastructure to unlocking data-driven decisions and leading with empathy, you’ll explore how to drive meaningful change across people, platforms, and performance – while keeping your organization resilient, agile, and ready for what’s next.
California Baptist University (CBU), a growing private university in Riverside, California, faced a common higher education challenge: relying on paper-based systems that made it difficult to establish a single source of truth for student records.
The registrar’s office at CBU manages all documents related to student academic records and oversees multiple student services, from online course scheduling to withdrawals, reinstatements, policy approvals and academic exceptions. The university relied heavily on fillable PDFs, email attachments and physical student records folders, which resulted in misplaced documents and delays.
Adding to the challenges, many documents moved across departments and required multiple approvals before reaching the registrar’s office for processing. For example, fulfilling substitution requests and student record updates required staff to locate physical files, verify information and route documents between offices for approval. This often took several days to a week or more, especially during busy registration and graduation periods.
With more than 11,000 students and a diverse range of academic programs, maintaining accuracy, regulatory compliance, and responsiveness related to student records was increasingly difficult.
“We depended on paper-based processes that required constant coordination between offices,” said Adam Martinez, assistant registrar. “It created bottlenecks, and errors such as misplaced forms or missing signatures caused delays that affected both staff and students.”
With a mission to serve students with excellence and efficiency while stewarding resources wisely, the registrar’s office needed a more efficient and scalable way to manage and share information. This new system needed to reduce paper handling, automate routine workflows and improve transparency across departments.
Automating and Centralizing with Laserfiche
CBU began its digital transformation nearly a decade ago by adopting Laserfiche to replace paper-based processes in the registrar’s office. Over time, the university has expanded its use of the platform, creating a secure, automated records environment.
“Laserfiche gave us a system where everything lives in one secure, searchable place,” said Rich Simpson, university registrar. “It moved us from just storing documents to truly managing records, complete with automation, routing and lifecycle tracking.”
The first step was to digitize the university’s paper-intensive student records. Staff had previously printed new student records from Salesforce and filed them in hard copy folders.
During the transition, an API automatically moved enrollment files from Salesforce to digital student folders in Laserfiche. The team also scanned more than 8,000 existing student records, replacing all physical files with digital versions in a single year.
The registrar’s office then turned its attention to digitizing high-impact workflows such as student record updates, program and major change requests, substitution requests and direct study registrations. Each of these forms previously required multiple handoffs and manual updates between offices.
“It was hard to know if a student’s withdrawal form was sitting on someone’s desk or lost in an inbox,” said Simpson. “Now we can see every stage.”
Laserfiche’s flexibility and ease of use enabled CBU to redefine the management of records and processes across departments. Among the key achievements:
- Automated approvals: Forms now move instantly between advisors, the registrar and students, with built-in routing and notifications. Clear audit trails provide full visibility into every step, for faster, more accurate approvals.
- Smart data capture: Key student information is now automatically extracted and validated from digital forms and uploaded documents. This reduces manual entry, minimizes errors, and ensures data integrity across systems.
- Digital records access: Staff can retrieve any student document within seconds through a centralized, searchable digital repository. This instant access eliminates manual searches through paper files, dramatically improving responsiveness to student and faculty inquiries.
- Compliance confidence: Automated retention schedules and approval workflows help maintain records securely and dispose of them in alignment with accreditation and regulatory requirements. The registrar’s office now operates with greater assurance and audit readiness.
Together, these advancements streamlined day-to-day operations and elevated the university’s overall student and staff service experience. Staff work more efficiently and collaboratively, while students benefit from faster, more reliable support.
Laserfiche’s no-code platform further simplifies complex document processes and approvals. “I’ve built dozens of forms,” said Martinez. “From withdrawals to graduation processes — anything that used to be paper, we’ve turned into a workflow.”
Delivering Results and Empowering Staff
Many requests that required students to print, sign and hand-deliver forms to multiple offices for approval or involved hands-on intervention from staff are now automated, including:
- Directed study form: Automates multiple approvals between students, faculty and deans.
- Withdrawal workflow: Routes through student accounts, financial aid and registrar in real time.
- Course variance and substitution requests: Faculty and chairs can approve electronically with full audit trails.
- Retention alerts: Faculty report student engagement issues via a single form instead of two legacy systems.
- Reinstatement forms: Streamlined coordination between financial aid, student accounts and the registrar for dropped students returning to class.
- Graduation and retention: Automatically stores all active and archived student files with retention set for five years.
“Tasks that once took days or even weeks, such as program or major change requests, substitution approvals, and registration adjustments are now completed in mere hours,” said Simpson. “Our staff no longer waste time chasing signatures or tracking down files. Instead, they’re focused on what matters most: supporting our students.”
Staff report that automation boosted morale by freeing them from repetitive, time-consuming tasks. They can easily monitor progress through dashboards, cutting down on email follow-ups and enabling them to assist other departments in expanding their own automation initiatives. Automation also reduced the potential for human error and data inconsistency.
“Laserfiche completely changed how we work,” said Martinez. “We’ve moved from reactive to proactive, anticipating needs and streamlining every step.”
Looking Ahead: Building on a Culture of Continuous Innovation
CBU’s success with Laserfiche in the registrar’s office created a ripple effect across the university. Departments identified additional paper-heavy and manual processes — ranging from accounting requisitions and HR student worker forms to facilities access and key requests — to further enhance the campus experience.
The registrar and accounting offices are now nearly 100% paperless and CBU is planning deeper integration with the university’s new Banner student information system.
“The beauty of Laserfiche is that it grows with us,” said Simpson. “We started with records management, but the platform’s capabilities mean we can continue to improve and innovate campus wide.”
“Laserfiche helped us redefine what’s possible,” added Martinez. “We’re building a foundation for a more connected, efficient and student-centered future that continues to evolve with every new process we automate.”
Ghost content refers to the data your organization technically owns but can’t find or use effectively — or may not even realize exists. The first step in unlocking the potential of your ghost content is to turn it into structured data.
After uncovering ghost content, and extracting and structuring it with a content management system, you can leverage that data for impactful business process automation. Process automation ensures that valuable information doesn’t just sit in a repository but actively drives productivity.
Why Intelligent Workflow Automation Matters After Unlocking Your Data
Strategically, automating process is a natural step after uncovering ghost content. Not only can you leverage AI to structure and classify your ghost content but this structured data is the foundation for meaningful automation. With AI-powered workflows working to not only structure your ghost content, but can also enable workflow automation to reduce the time and effort employees spend on repetitive tasks or even outdated or disparate automation processes. The benefits of intelligent workflow automation are significant: you can streamline your workflows, improve accuracy improve your compliance and audit readiness, increase your operation visibility and transparency, and empower your employees to focus on higher-value work.
With Laserfiche, these advantages are amplified; workflows are scalable, secure and accessible from anywhere, enabling enterprise-wide workflow automation that connects teams and systems seamlessly. Once you transform insight into action, you can harness the value hidden in your data to drive real results across the organization.
The Three Key Areas Where Automated Workflows Drive Impact
Automated workflows don’t just save time; they transform the way work gets done across an organization. By streamlining processes in the right areas, businesses can maximize efficiency, accuracy, and insight-driven decision-making. Three key areas where automated workflows drive impact are:
1. Repetitive, manual operational tasks
Tasks like data entry or routine approvals are prime candidates for automation. By letting workflows handle these processes, you can free employees from tedious work, reduce errors and run processes faster and more consistently.
2. Cross-functional or siloed workflows
Workflows that span departments or teams often get slowed down by handoffs, miscommunication or siloed information. Automating these processes ensures smooth coordination, visibility into progress, and accountability, making it easier to achieve enterprise-wide alignment and efficiency.
3. Unstructured workflows
Even workflows that rely on unstructured or semi-structured data, like documents, emails, or scanned forms, can be automated. Laserfiche, combined with AI-powered tools like Smart Chat, enables natural language querying of content, allowing automated decision-making and reporting, so you can act on insights quickly and accurately.
How Automation Transforms Data into Actionable Workflows
Process automation brings the value of structured data to life. Once information is organized, employees no longer need to spend time and effort extracting data to access what they need; automation does the heavy lifting.
At the heart of this transformation is intelligent orchestration, a holistic approach that integrates enterprise processes, data, technology and operations into one connected ecosystem. Like a conductor leading an orchestra, intelligent orchestration ensures every part of the business moves in sync, harmonizing data and workflows to deliver consistent, high-quality outcomes. By integrating processes and data intelligently, organizations can deliver personalized customer experiences efficiently and at scale. This allows organizations to not only meet customer needs in the moment but anticipate them, ensuring every interaction is relevant and engaging.
AI-powered tools within Laserfiche, like Smart Fields and Smart Chat, make this even more powerful. Smart Fields intelligently extracts information from documents, regardless of the document’s source or format, while Smart Chat delivers information and insights directly through natural language querying, so that employees can quickly receive concise and tailored responses.
This combination of automation and AI allows organizations to move faster and make smarter decisions without requiring deep technical expertise. This impact spans every department.
- Legal teams can automate contract reviews and approvals;
- Finance departments can streamline purchase orders and quarterly reporting
- Engineering and project teams can ensure documents move smoothly through revisions
Across the enterprise, employees spend less time on manual work, teams collaborate seamlessly, executives gain visibility, and the organization scales more effectively.
Ultimately, intelligent orchestration transforms structured data into synchronized action.
The Path Ahead: From Insight to Impact
The journey from uncovering ghost content to achieving intelligent workflow automation represents a complete transformation in how organizations manage information. It begins with bringing hidden or unstructured data to light, using AI tools to structure information into usable, actionable insights, and finally, using process automation to turn those insights into positive benefits for your organization.
With Laserfiche, this transformation is not only achievable but scalable. Cloud-based, AI-enabled automation makes it possible for organizations to access, manage and act on information from anywhere. What was once hidden or siloed becomes part of a unified and strategic system that drives productivity, transparency and innovation.
New intelligent features automatically organize and classify documents, transforming how organizations manage information at scale.
LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA, Jan. 28, 2026 – Laserfiche — the leading SaaS provider of intelligent content management — today announced major enhancements to its AI-powered data extraction tool, Smart Fields. The update introduces automated document classification and tagging, allowing organizations to move from unstructured content to informed decisions in seconds.
Using natural language prompts instead of rigid, ruled-based OCR, Smart Fields can now identify document type — such as invoices, taxpayer identification forms, or student transcripts — and automatically apply the correct metadata template using AI. Users can also use Smart Fields to automatically add informational and security tags to files that meet certain criteria, defined using a natural language prompt. Users can capture key details, route documents, and apply the proper metadata tags instantly and at scale.
“Success in today’s AI-driven landscape is defined by speed to insight,” said Michael Allen, chief technology officer at Laserfiche. “By using AI in Laserfiche content management, we are transforming organizations’ digital repositories into active engines for business intelligence. Smart Fields allows users to bypass the friction of manual data entry, saving time for more high-value decision-making.”
Redefining Document Capture for the AI Era
Traditional capture methods often require specialized technical knowledge and complex configuration. Laserfiche Smart Fields, first launched in 2025, eliminates this barrier by allowing users to describe the data they need using natural language. Key updates include:
- Automatic classification: Smart Fields recognizes document types and matches them to the appropriate template.
- Intelligent auto-tagging: Administrators define tags once, and the Smart Fields applies them during ingestion to help organizations with consistent security and findability.
Smart Fields has helped customers capture metadata from content such as financial documents, vendor forms and legal contracts, cutting document management processes down from months to seconds. These enhancements reduce operational overhead and human error, and support enterprise-wide data consistency while freeing up technical resources.
Key benefits include:
- Automated organization: Smart Fields eliminates manual sorting by classifying documents on entry.
- Dynamic security controls: Auto-tagging supports both informational and security classifications, enabling organizations to automatically protect sensitive content.
- Simplified automation: Classification data can trigger workflows, like approvals or retention schedules, without complex coding.
“The true value of AI in the enterprise is its ability to shed light on dark data, or what Laserfiche calls ‘ghost content,’” said Andrea Malick, principal advisory director at Info-Tech Research Group. “By automating the foundational work of document organization, organizations can finally bridge the gap between content silos and actionable insights, making sure that information is not just stored, but systematically ready for the AI era.”
For More Information
- Learn more about Laserfiche’s AI-powered document management capabilities at laserfiche.com/products/ai.
- Explore insights into automation, document management and digital transformation in AI era by downloading the Laserfiche report, “The State of Document Management and AI.”
- Find out more about ghost content and how it impacts your data strategy in the Laserfiche Blog.
About Laserfiche
Laserfiche is the leading enterprise platform that helps organizations digitally transform operations and manage their content with AI-powered solutions. Through scalable workflows, customizable forms, no-code templates and AI-enabled capabilities, the Laserfiche® document management platform accelerates how business gets done. Trusted by organizations of all sizes — from startups to Fortune 500 enterprises — Laserfiche empowers teams to boost productivity, foster collaboration, and deliver a superior customer experience at scale. Headquartered in Long Beach, California, Laserfiche operates globally, with offices across North America, Europe and Asia.
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