Getting Started with Laserfiche is your quick start guide to using the platform with ease.
This guide walks you through the most commonly used features to help you easily master the basics
This resource provides a high-level overview of Laserfiche’s interface and platform capabilities, plus bonus tips to make the platform even more intuitive.
In this eBook:
Tour of Laserfiche to get you familiar with the user interface
Quick guide of the most popular features
Tips & tricks to customize the settings for your organization’s needs
Located just north of Detroit, Oakland County, MI, has more than 60 cities, villages and townships with over 1.2 million people living within its borders.
The county’s ongoing commitment to innovation—led by CIO Phil Bertolini, who was inducted to the CIO Hall of Fame in 2017—has resulted in award-winning initiatives such as the G2G Marketplace (an online resource for governments to research, purchase and implement technology solutions and professional services), and Automation Alley, the state’s nonprofit technology and manufacturing business association.
“At the end of the day, my job is about working with a team that provides innovation and collaboration for Oakland County to improve customer service,” Bertolini says.
Oakland County’s IT team recently assessed its document management system, which was becoming time- and cost-intensive to maintain and update in order to keep up with the county’s constant state of digital transformation.
Increasing Information Access and Automating Processes
After evaluating a number of options, the county selected a Laserfiche enterprise content management solution to replace its legacy system. “The Laserfiche team was able to prototype and show us exactly how we would be able to use the software in our organization,” says Kevin Bertram, IT Applications Services Leader. “That was a key factor for us.”
Oakland County is now implementing Laserfiche across departments and business units including the county courts, to provide better access to information and automate key government functions.
“We want to make those processes more efficient, more automatic and better for the public,” says Bill Jobes, Program Manager at Oakland County. “In order to grow, we have to innovate.”
Empowering Employees and Citizens
By using Laserfiche to digitize information and automate processes, Oakland County aims to empower government employees to streamline operations and improve citizen services.
Benefits include:
Reclaimed IT staff time previously spent maintaining and supporting the legacy system
Increased access to information for authorized government employees
Around-the-clock access to public information and services for citizens through online portals
Better reporting and analytics for department leaders, leading to more informed decisions about resource allocation
Enhanced transparency of processes for citizens who want to be kept informed of how their service requests are progressing
“We’re always looking for opportunities to be more effective and really bring that cost for service or cost per unit down,” Bertram says. “Not for a bottom-line profit like in the private sector, but to try to reduce the cost of service to our constituents, and use their tax dollars appropriately and as wisely as possible.”
The North Carolina Division of Water Resources’ mission is to protect the state’s surface water and groundwater resources, which includes ensuring safe drinking water, issuing pollution control permits, evaluating environmental water quantity and quality, and enforcing environmental regulations.
The division’s functions—from day-to-day operations to long-term initiatives—require the collaboration of multiple agencies, communication with citizens and the relaying of time-sensitive decisions and documents.
“When it comes to project-related decisions, we have a 30-day turnaround, and sometimes we need to send information across the state,” says Beverly Strickland, Laserfiche Administrator for the North Carolina Division of Water Resources. These deadlines, coupled with the growing need to operate more efficiently, led the division to examine how it was managing information.
Changing Tides
“When we used to snail-mail documents, it was really hard to meet deadlines,” Strickland says. “If the mail gets lost or delayed, you’ve just waived a project. It doesn’t matter how big it is.”
To facilitate faster review and decision-making, the division digitized documents with Laserfiche enterprise content management software. Using Laserfiche, employees can now perform quick searches for information, automatically archive records and easily share documents with other employees or the public by simply sending a link.
Even employees who work in remote areas benefit from the division’s digital transformation. “We have people in the mountains and on the coast that have small bandwidth,” Strickland says. “Laserfiche enables them to view necessary information without having to download an entire PDF.”
The Wave of the Future
The division recently began automating business processes using Laserfiche, which will unlock even more efficiencies as managers gather data on workflow and resource allocation. The Laserfiche Business Process Library, which provides downloadable templated solutions to automate hundreds of common business processes, has been a starting point for the division.
“What I love about the Business Process Library is that I’m not having to reinvent the wheel,” Strickland says. “I can sit with people involved with the process and say, ‘What do you need to see?’ and make adjustments to what Laserfiche has already created.”
Benefits include:
Shortened response times to requests for information from days to minutes
Reclaimed staff time that is now used for tasks such as writing permits and enforcing environmental regulations
Digitized information that enables the division to automate processes for even more efficiency
“It’s the wave of the future,” Strickland says of the division’s digital transformation. “If we want to work toward processes that are more efficient for citizens as well as staff members, we have to find those time savings.”
The Alabama Department of Mental Health provides critical services to over 200,000 patients annually at hospitals and clinics across the state. With medical archives dating back over 150 years, the agency must manage patient data in a manner that enables staff to easily and quickly find the information they need.
Implementing Agency-Wide Records Management
“The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act asked all organizations, such as ours, to demonstrate meaningful use for information and have electronic health records to keep funding with Medicare and Medicaid,” said Cindy Shrum, Director of Information Systems. “We want to maintain our Medicare or Medicaid funding, but having an electronic records management system is also just easier. We’re able to get the information when we need it.”
Upon the recommendation of the State of Alabama, the agency selected Laserfiche as its records management solution. Laserfiche’s ease of use and competitive pricing meant the department could more productively use federal funding to create an agency-wide records management system for patient records.
Improving Patient Care through Staff Efficiency
The department partnered with the state, which was already using Laserfiche, to procure the software; this partnership also shortened implementation time and improved data sharing. The department has since digitized all medical records at Bryce Hospital, the state’s oldest and largest inpatient psychiatric facility.
“We’ve got them organized so you can see the physical history, the summary, and the progress notes,” Shrum says. “What I like about Laserfiche is that in just three clicks, we’re in the electronic health record. For a clinician, especially our doctors, that time matters to them.” Benefits include:
• Eliminated the need to build a warehouse for patient archives, freeing up additional funds for patient services
• Created efficient process to automatically digitize, organize and file full charts of new and archived patient data in a shared repository accessible to clinicians and nurses across departments
• Integrated document management with the agency’s CoCentrix medical system eliminates repetitive data entry
• Increased compliance with federal laws, ensuring continued Medicaid and Medicare funding
These financial and operational improvements have ultimately enabled the Alabama Department of Mental Health to provide better quality health care and a greater volume of patient visits. “We started out small, but the potential is unlimited,” Shrum says.
As one of the largest urban school districts in Missouri, the St. Louis Public School District oversees 70 schools and 4,700 employees. For the district’s HR office, transparency and quick communication between hiring and budgeting teams is critical for efficiently allocating staffing resources to classrooms throughout the year.
Reducing the Paper Burden
The district maintains over 4.5 million documents dating back to the early 1900s. To find files, staff previously had travel to a storage facility 10 miles away. This paper-intensive search and retrieval could often delay hiring decisions that require multi-department reviews.
“If the request for a new position involved funds outside of what the district was allocated, the information could really go a million different places,” says Clarissa Buckley, Coordinator for Human Resources Information Systems. “We had almost eight levels of approval built into the previous process that made having a paper form extremely difficult and cumbersome. And we never want to reach a point where we’re asking, ‘Do we let this classroom go without a teacher because we’re waiting on this paper form to get approved?’ ”
Streamlining Staff Requisitions
The district began using Laserfiche to digitally organize its archived and active paper storage, and quickly moved on to automate new hiring, benefits enrollment and other core HR services.
Staff requisitions are now completed in hours, with all involved parties able to share information and collaborate on decisions. “Laserfiche helps everyone stay on track,” Buckley says. “We can always see and monitor where our requisitions are caught up in the process.” Instant information access also means the HR department can better service teachers and staff with timely W2s, emergency information, student transcripts and more.
Benefits include:
80 percent of the district’s HR active records and historical archives have been digitized
HR documents are instantly accessible, where previously staff needed to wait 48 hours to retrieve a file from a storage facility
Staffing requisitions are completed in three hours instead of three weeks
“Our teachers are beginning to see when they bring other records to us, not only are we able to receive that information and quickly digitize it, but we’re also able to retrieve it for them if needed in the future,” Buckley says.
It’s said that the wonderful thing about standards is that there’s so many of them. But when it comes to records management, one in particular stands out: Department of Defense 5015.2 (DoD 5015.2).
Formally known as Design Criteria Standard for Electronic Records Management Software Applications (you can see why most people call it 5015.2), the standard is recognized not only in government, but also in the private sector, writes David Roe in CMSwire. “By being certified, records management solutions can assist corporations to achieve compliance and reduce risk by enabling them to control how and for how long enterprise content is retained. It also ensures destruction of that content when this time has elapsed.”
DoD 5015.2 Background
DoD 5015.2 came about in the early 1990s following Congress’s investigation into the Gulf War Syndrome, a debilitating illness affecting many soldiers who fought in the war, according to the Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC) Records Management Application (RMA) website. This mean DoD officials had to produce millions of records from Operation Desert Storm. “Congress concluded that the Defense Department did not do a good job of managing the records and as a result, many of the needed records had been destroyed or lost,” JITC notes.
Congress ordered the Defense Department to improve its records management capabilities, so the DoD created a task force in 1993, including representatives from several military branches and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The task force published its report, specifying functional requirements and data elements for an electronic RMA, in 1995, and later developed into a testable and measurable design criteria standard by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA).
In 1998, NARA endorsed DoD 5015.2, which meant that federal agencies other than the DoD could adopt it as a baseline standard for records management. NARA noted, though, that this was not an exclusive endorsement—meaning it could endorse other protocols as well—and that more was required than just the standard itself. “DoD 5015.2-STD defines only a baseline set of requirements for automated records keeping,” cautioned John W. Carlin, then Archivist of the United States. “There are a number of additional questions that must be resolved in order to satisfy all the established requirements for managing federal records. Each agency must address some of these questions to fit their own environment.”
What is the purpose of DoD 5015.2?
The purpose of having DoD 5015.2 is so users have some assurance that products support records management in a standardized way as they work toward compliance with the 2012 NARA/OMB Managing Government Records Directive, OMB 12-18. That mandates that all permanent records be managed in digital format by 2019, as well as calling for management of email in electronic format by 2016.
Electronic records management software enforces organization-wide records policies and reduces the cost of regulatory compliance. Records management systems let organizations centrally, securely and electronically manage their records. This kind of software lets records managers track and store records in a variety of formats, including: · Imaged documents · Electronic documents generated by programs (e.g., Microsoft Office) · PDFs · Scanned and digital photographs · Audio and video files · Output from legacy systems · Physical records stored offsite
Other incentives for improving electronic records management include a 2010 requirement that U.S. agencies move to the cloud when possible, other initiatives to streamline business processes and prepare for audits, and concerns about security. Having all federal agencies supporting DoD 5015.2 makes it easier to perform such overarching tasks as populating metadata in records.
“DoD 5015.02-STD marked the beginning of the transition from paper-based systems to electronic-based systems to manage records,” writes JITC. “DoD 5015.02-STD made it possible to transfer records management responsibility from the file room to the front office, from the hands of a few, to the hands of virtually all employees.”
Now on Version 3, DoD 5015.2 includes features such as establishing requirements for managing classified records, as well as requirements to support the Freedom of Information Act, Privacy Act, and interoperability. In particular, Version 3 was endorsed by NARA as meeting the agency’s criteria for transferring permanent electronic records to it.
Vendors certify their products against DoD 5015.2 through JITC’s software testing program for the standard. After they pass, their products are put onto a list. DoD organizations can purchase only the records management products that are on this list.
Other opportunities for record management
All that said, DoD 5015.2 isn’t a panacea. It has been criticized by some as being overly complex and unwieldy (well, it is a government standard) and outdated.
“Why is it assumed that what may be required and workable for Defense will also be viable for the civilian federal government?” writes Ron Layel, a records management contractor for NASA, noting there are several examples where the 170+ functional requirements in 5015.2 are either irrelevant or over-engineered, particularly for civilian agencies.
But as we also know, the wheels of government standard development tend to grind pretty slowly, so chances are we’ll have DoD 5015.2 Version 3 with us for some time to come. And knowing a DoD-certified system has been tested against the DoD’s rigorous standards provides reassurance to records managers at thousands of organizations across a wide variety of industries.
Unless you work for the State Government of Victoria, Australia, or the United States Department of Defense or one of its components, you are not required to select a records management system that meets the specifications of either standard. However, the downside of not complying with recordkeeping requirements on organizational reputation and value highlights the importance of investing in a records management system that helps ensure an organization’s information assets are safe and well-managed.
Texas A&M University System is one of the largest university systems in the United States. Coordinating, managing and archiving documentation is an intensive task for such an organization—yet the university system has found an efficient way by offering Laserfiche enterprise content management (ECM) as a shared service through its central IT office.
One of the university system’s members, Texas A&M AgriLife, adopted Laserfiche in 2008. Texas A&M Health Science Center (TAMHSC) followed shortly after. While the individual deployments cut paper-related costs, saved filing cabinet space and secured content in repositories, the university system as a whole was not leveraging those benefits across the entire institution.
Texas A&M University System’s central IT office was determined to break down silos through implementing a shared services model, so that all schools and departments could efficiently leverage ECM knowledge and resources, and eliminate the need for individual departments or schools to purchase their own software.
Texas A&M Health Science Center adopted Laserfiche ECM in 2008 to streamline contract management.
Implementing a Shared Service
While individual schools and departments within Texas A&M University System had implemented Laserfiche for various reasons (AgriLife sought secure storage for records after enduring a flood, fire, collapsed roof and hurricane; TAMHSC wanted to combat costly contract management inefficiencies and eliminate file cabinets), users experienced similar benefits: increased efficiency and accuracy, improved records management, reduced costs and business continuity.
Texas A&M University System’s procurement office provides shared services so that schools and departments can share documents, file structures and workflows, building on each other’s efforts. Shared services also consolidate IT functions from several system members to one location, reducing costs and time spent on maintenance.
To that end, in 2010 a committee selected Laserfiche as the preferred vendor for a new shared ECM system to avoid hardware and software purchases at the department level, reduce costs by eliminating redundant systems and make it easier to share data, file structures and workflows between schools and departments.
“By providing a feature-rich implementation at an affordable price point, Texas A&M is able to make available economies of scale and document sharing that individual departments could not approach by themselves,” explains Judith Lewis, Senior IT Manager at Texas A&M. “This is value delivery at its best.”
In addition to accomplishing the original goals, the shared system provides:
Consistent framework to support compliance
Risk mitigation through disaster recovery capabilities
Ability for different departments and system members to leverage the cumulative accomplishments of their colleagues
Internal and remote access to electronic documents
Reduced printing and physical paperwork, minimizing requirements for physical file space
Two other campus-wide communities in addition to central IT are intimately involved with the Laserfiche shared services offering: a steering committee of senior management representatives who evaluate and promote best practices and appropriate conventions for Laserfiche; and a user community of practice that provides input and training for the end-user community.
Other customers of Laserfiche shared services include the Texas A&M University Office of the President, Prairie View A&M University and Texas A&M University – Kingsville.
Laserfiche automatically classifies reports and their contents, facilitating easy file management and the ability to search through keywords to retrieve information. Account processing and purchase processing are faster and records management is more efficient and secure, allowing Texas A&M to adhere more closely to state compliance requirements and institutional procedures.
“In addition to the Laserfiche talent, our IT department brings a broad skill base to support a shared services offering,” Lewis adds. “From application development and administration, risk and policy assessment and project management to networking and infrastructure services, our IT department is able to provide the level of support that an enterprise shared service demands.”
Texas A&M University’s College of Engineering is consistently ranked among the nation’s best public programs. Amid a constantly changing marketplace, the college remains rooted in its mission to provide the world with top engineering graduates.
Texas A&M University’s College of Engineering’s “25 by 25” initiative prompted the school to examine many of its processes so that it could handle an influx of students.
The school has more than 15,000 enrolled students and is currently working on an initiative deemed “25 by 25,” in which it aims to increase enrollment to 25,000 students by the year 2025.
“Our dean looked at the current economic and employment conditions and determined that we must grow our enrollment numbers to meet the large demand for engineering graduates,” explains Ed Pierson, the college’s CIO. “The goal is to increase accessibility to engineering education at all levels and deliver that education in a cost-effective manner. Educational institutions’ budgets are always tight, so doubling our staff along with the enrollment growth wasn’t an option.”
This meant that the school needed to hire additional staff to handle the growth, but also needed to ensure efficient business processes such as those surrounding employee onboarding were in place to keep costs down. To do so, the school deployed Laserfiche ECM to reengineer some longstanding HR processes, encourage new ways of thinking and increase efficiency.
Texas A&M University’s College of Engineering’s “25 by 25” initiative prompted the school to examine many of its processes so that it could handle an influx of students.
On Board With 25 by 25
Texas A&M University System offers Laserfiche ECM as a shared service through its centralized IT office, so the College of Engineering implemented it to reengineer paper-driven processes such as employee onboarding.
Onboarding new employees used to require an in-person meeting between the potential employee and a business administrator, the completion of paper documents and physical routing of those documents to relevant departments. Christopher Huff, Network Systems Administrator for the college, and the IT team, department representatives, and the HR and payroll offices gathered to reengineer the process with Laserfiche, which pushed everyone involved to acknowledge all the parts of onboarding that they found cumbersome, that were taking too long, or that were unnecessary.
Laserfiche Forms eliminates the need for an in-person meeting during the onboarding process.
The HR department has automated employee onboarding with Laserfiche Forms and Laserfiche Workflow, eliminating the need for an in-person meeting, paper documents and physical routing. This has shortened the amount of time the process takes by about 45 minutes per employee and enables staff to easily search and retrieve employee records.
HR automation has additional implications beyond onboarding, as the Department of Public Safety (DPS) occasionally audits the college to make sure it keeps proper documentation of criminal background checks.
“We create shortcuts to the requested documents and place them in a special folder that the DPS has access to,” Huff says. “We don’t want to show the auditors all confidential information about employees, which is why we use folders with shortcuts. After the audit is concluded, we simply delete the shortcuts folder. The original documents are never actually touched.”
Laserfiche Workflow automatically files employee records, making it easier to retrieve them during audits.
The school also integrated Laserfiche Forms with a database of the college’s departments, which enables departments to automate and create forms for a variety of other processes ranging from course approvals to leave requests.
Changing Mindsets and Growing ROI
The Texas A&M University’s College of Engineering demonstrates how a longstanding institution can leverage Laserfiche ECM to reengineer processes and create a culture of efficiency. In collaboration with business units, Huff and the IT team help identify inefficiencies and reimagine how a process could work better and an on-campus Laserfiche user group meets frequently to share and showcase solution designs.
IT has worked with select employees, deemed “superstars,” to reengineer their own processes with IT guidance and oversight.
Huff has also taken note of significant measurable results. “IT is usually seen as a spender of money, but dollars invested in information technology can have a positive return on investment,” Huff says. “The reengineered onboarding process saved about 45 minutes per new employee. Because we’ve hired over 3,400 employees in a little under a year, we equate this time savings to be about 2,600 working hours, or slightly over $100,000 in soft savings. This allows our employees to invest the time saved into other job duties.”
An Easy-to-Follow Guide to Evaluating Document Management Solutions
Whether your organization is evaluating document management software for the first time or looking to replace a legacy system, this buyer’s handbook will provide you with everything you need to start your research.
Download your free copy today!
Inside this guide, you’ll find:
An Introduction to Document Management Solutions
A Needs Assessment for Your Organization
A Guide to Creating Your Own Cost-Benefit Analysis
An Introduction to Mapping Your Current Processes
Reviewing available electronic document management software isn’t about finding the one with the best features and offerings; it’s about finding the solution that is the most applicable to your organization’s current and future needs.
In addition to the guide, you’ll also receive BONUS worksheets:
Understand Your Organization’s Records and Risk Management Factors
Evaluate the Functionality of Different Document Management Software
Everything You Need to Know to Make the Case for Electronic Records Management
When it comes to protecting your organization from risk, records managers are on the front lines. This free eBook outlines everything you need to know to handle an unexpected audit, improve ongoing compliance and reduce time-consuming tasks around records storage and retention.
Inside this electronic records management guide, you’ll get:
4 essential questions that every records manager should ask when deciding which records to keep.
Assessment worksheets for evaluating the status of your existing records management program—and prioritizing improvements.
5 steps to implementing electronic records management from an experienced records manager.
