The Lab hits 3 months…

The more regular readers of my blog posts will note that my little puppy isgetting a little older, well he just turned 3 months. I have to admit that he is becoming quite the handful; he loves to chew on anything and everything, including candles and the cat’s toys. Only yesterday I noted the remains of a cat’s toy being passed out of him in the back garden….lovely….

He will be off to puppy training hopefully this week. I am really hopeful that if he only learns one thing, that it is the meaning of the word NO! If he can grasp what this means, then I think we will be on track…

I am being a little harsh, as he has “sit”, “paw” and “other paw” mastered. He also knows to sit on the floor mat every time he comes into the house after his walk. Oh, and I must not forget that the little fella knows to cry and make some noise when he is in need of some toilet relief, ensuring he does this outside…..

All in all, things are going well….So far….I will keep you up dated.

The method before the BPM software…

Today I was asked to comment on the ebiz forum with regards to a question that was raised, “What comes first: the process improvement methodology or the BPM software”. Now I was a little surprised to read this question as the answer seems so obvious…However, looking at it from a potential customer venturing into the unknown world of BPM I can see, and have seen, why so many may get this questions wrong…

Process is everything

If you are looking at your internal processes, then simply remember that processes are everything. The fact that you are choosing to review your process means you have in-fact started a process, the process of review. Sounds a little weird, but if you think of everything within your organisation as processes or process driven, then you will automatically put into place a process for improving your internal processes.

All too often people look at BPM and its benefits and go straight to a vendor and say “what could you do for us here…” This isn’t a bad question, it’s just that you have jumped the gun, often because of pressures to cut costs and raises efficiency by yesterday.

To put it simply, if you don’t have the process to improve processes, then there is no point in having a platform that is built around process.

Process of starting change

As regular readers of my blog posts will know, I always try to break things down and keep everything as simple as possible. So if you are looking to improve processes and process efficiency within your organisation, a good couple of points below will help you:

1. Someone within your organisation has to take ownership, and deliver the necessary drive for process change within your organisation. Without such a person, you will always struggle to make change happen
2. Identify what areas of the business you are looking to improve process efficiency within and to get agreed just what are your current processes (a good consultant will help you with this, and is something that is so often overlooked. In many many cases, the workforce carry out a different process to that understood by management levels)
3. Get in place a process design / method for identifying process changes, and how to raise these changes from the ground up. (Again, a good consultant will help you with this)
4. Identify process improvements in full detail, including areas for automation and integration
5. Look at BPM vendors. Make your decision based on flexibility, potential scalability and integration. Never ever get sold based on a fancy demonstration.

Conclusion…

Identify the requirement of change, and get a process in place of bringing it about. Never let a demonstration or a particular technology drive you into making decisions on process change, or how to bring about change. The final part of the puzzle is the actual tool to use to deliver new processes across your organisation (this is a very important part though, and below I have listed some points to remember when choosing that tool)…

 

Choosing the BPM platform

This is so important, get it right and you will reap the rewards that BPM can offer, get it wrong and you will find yourself increasingly frustrated.

Flexibility of BPM software is key, you need to know that you can change processes efficiently within the software. Obviously don’t expect to be able to just click a couple of icons and hey presto, your process is updated. This may be shown in a demonstration, but in an actual workable system this won’t be practical….Just ask yourself these questions: What happens to the items already in that process? What if that new step requires integration with another system? What if it requires a high level of automation?

Scalability is also an important factor. If you don’t have scope to scale the BPM software then you will struggle to tie together many processes and departments. This puts immediate limits on how effective BPM will be for your organisation. Also remember that scalability can include the number of process maps, but also the numbers of items within each process, or the number of users using the system, even the number of automated steps…

Integration with other systems really delivers great process efficiency. Many demonstration will show how “out of the box” steps and processes can integrate with applications. However, this looks great in a demonstration, but again in the real world, how useful is this level of integration. Often you need very complex integration rules and calculations, triggers etc. This means you need a system that utilises communication tools and provides development capabilities.  If it provides this level of low level communication, then your BPM integration will only be limited by the level of integration your third party applications can provide. As a rule, ensure your BPM software delivers an extensive API (best if XML Web Service Based), and delivers the ability to write and create customer step processors, where developers can build interfaces and between the BPM software, third party software and the user.

Finally, one of the key things is assessing how you will work with the BPM vendor. It is so important to know that you get good quality support services, that the vendor is honest with you and if they don’t quite understand a requirement that they say so. All too often in the bid to win work, software vendors will nod their heads and say “yeap, that’s not a problem, it can do that…” without really understanding the requirement. With any BPM solution, you must have a good relationship between yourself and the vendor, one that is built on honesty, even if that means sometimes a slightly bumpy ride when agreeing on functionality and prices…

How much do ECM solutions cost?

Now this is a question isn’t it? I often get asked how much something would cost, and to be honest, the two most frequent areas I get asked this about are ECM solutions, or websites. No matter how many times I get asked this, it’s always hard to say, ‘Well it depends on your requirements, what you want to achieve’ as I often find a blank face looking back at me. Sometimes followed by, ‘Come on, a ball park figure’

Let’s talk price

Like all software solutions you get a wide variety of prices, with price often being linked to the amount of functionality that solution offers. However, ECM can be a little more tricky, as vendors often look at the amount of content you want to store and the amount of users who will be accessing this content. Traditionally this has lead to a ‘dedicated licensing’ approach. What this means is that you pay for your server license and in essence the platform. On-top of this price you will find a ‘volume’ license cost, based on the amount of usage the system will get (content to be stored). You will then pay a license for each individual user that then uses the system. This is only if you are using out of the box solutions too. If not, you will have to fork out for whatever professional services / consultancy / development (though often termed configuration) work you will need. Then each year, you pay a fee based on all of this (typically around 20-25% of your total outlay) in order for you to operate with valid licenses and receive full support and maintenance…

I can hear some people saying now ‘So tell me the price of a server’. Again, depends on your vendor and the platform you choose, however smaller solutions can start around a couple of thousand pounds, with larger more complex and enterprise spanning platforms costing tens of thousands of pounds.

Other price options

My own company provides an ECM platform, however our licensing is a little different. We do have a server based license, which does take into account volume. This license is required to be renewed every year. However you don’t pay anything additional for support and maintenance, no matter how much professional services you required to set up the system. We also only operate a ‘concurrent’ user license model, which means for every 10 users you may have you only purchase one user license. Why? Well it’s simple, our system is thin client, and we disconnect users when they are not using the system, effectively saving you licenses and logins…(Nice of us really).

Many other ECM platforms and vendors offer you similar services / pricing models, so its always worth talking to them and negotiating just what you can get for your money…

It’s expensive…

Well you might be thinking it is expensive to invest in ECM, however, you have to look at the savings a good ECM platform delivers you, year on year. Once you do, you will see they really are systems that are worth every penny. ECM savings / benefits is something I have written a number of posts on, and if you are thinking just what are the benefits and savings an ECM solution can provide, I suggest you spend a little while reading some of the posts available from the following link:

http://andrewonedegree.wordpress.com/?s=ECM+Savings

Silverlight EPOS?

Now this maybe a little left field, but I have been talking to some EPOS people who have been asking if we can expect EPOS systems delivered in Silverlight. Funny enough, I have also seen people searching my own blog on this subject…

So what is the chances? To my knowledge there isn’t anyone attempting this, and there are a number of reasons why not. I have to say the chances of getting a Silverlight EPOS system are at best, very slim.

Why not?

Many EPOS systems (especially the entry level solutions) are built to work and run a physical till (cash draw and receipt printer). EPOS systems are often a single install, with your back office staff basically having the same software installed that will drive your front office point of sale terminal (till). To drive a POS terminal, the software has to interact with drivers that are actually installed on the physical machine.

Silverlight in essence is a web based technology, and as such cannot interact with drivers etc on the host PC. This is purely due to security. If you are not technical and reading this, just think, if a website could easily take control of programs and drivers on your PC, what sort of damage could a malicious hacker / developer do?

Wait, don’t get turned off just yet…

Though Silverlight couldn’t be used to drive a POS terminal, .NET applications built using WPF could, and these look and feel just like Silverlight applications. I know this means a client installation (which Silverlight avoids) however, on the POS you have to have a number of drivers and applications installed in any case.

Don’t think though that you have to use traditional thick client applications for your back office staff. Though most EPOS systems use the same software for front and back office (especially smaller solutions) it doesn’t mean this has to be the case. A division of my own company, workFile EPOS, delivers a thick client POS application, written in .NET, but back office users use the system delivered through a browser (thin client), removing any requirements for installations in the back office or indeed (if required) machines at home for home use.

EPOS systems that split front and back office functions can easily provide more flexibility, in terms of both user experiences administration flexibility. At workFile EPOS we have been looking to replace a number of web pages with pages using Silverlight to deliver a richer experience. The thin client sales agent is a prime example, delivering a “sales” interface without the need to drive a till or any hardware.

Silverlight EPOS is go…

In conclusion, yeap you can have a Silverlight EPOS solution. The chances of you seeing one shortly though are slim, and there is no chance of you using Silverlight to deliver a POS terminal. Also think that many EPOS systems were written many many moons ago and still don’t really take advantage of thin client technology or in some cases newer versions of Windows (I have seen many that still run on DOS!)

But, all this being said, some EPOS providers out there, like workFile EPOS, have the potential to use Silverlight to deliver EPOS back office functions, which bring together all the benefits of EPOS with those of rich end user experiences. If the demand is out there, no doubt Silverlight will be used for back office EPOS systems and WPF for the POS terminal experience. We shall see…

Puppy weekend alone

Well this weekend has seen my fiancé off on her hen weekend, which I have no doubt is going very well. However, this has left me and little Diesel (my 6 week old black Labrador puppy) all alone. So far the weekend has been a mixed bag, what with Diesel deciding he will show off and poo and wee everywhere in front of some guests, deciding that he would now like to chew the sofa and more entertaining, will try to play with the two cats, who seem to hate him…

 Needless to say this weekend has been very entertaining. Diesel, when no one is watching, is getting pretty good at the toilet training, what with being able to poo and wee on the paper left out for him in designated areas (though he dictated these areas to me). So I am thinking, progress is being made….He is also pretty intelligent, he now knows where all the cats toys are and loves to show off to me that he can go find them, drag the box into the lounge and then get all of them out and kill them…He has also mastered getting up onto the sofa, which looking at the height of him and the height of it is very impressive. He has to scale up the front of it like a true mountain legend, though he has had some little falls too. My only concern is that once he is on there he loves to chew the seats and cushions. Now I’m guessing the 10 year guarantee is not going to cover this?

 It was pleasant though today watching the cricket, seeing the little lad running around and slowly getting tired. He scaled up the sofa and laid next to me which was very cute (a camera moment). However, I feel asleep for about an hour, but woke up to see that the sofa wasn’t wrecked, but had a little Diesel sound asleep on it, curled up next to me…..ahhhhh

Now for next week, going to try and move that paper slowly towards the door, see if he still does his business on it…What you think?

Case Management isn’t BPM

This week I have found myself talking to a couple of clients about why their particular system cannot do quite what they thought it could. Basically, these clients had made investments in what they thought was workflow or BPM solutions. However, what they actually have is a Case Management solution. This solution is working fine for them at the moment, however, their ideas for future expansion of the system, incorporating more complex processes simply cannot happen with their chosen platform…

So what has happened? Well far too often vendors (especially those who do not specialise in ECM or BPM) claim their solution provides workflow or BPM facilities. Now I am not saying this is done on purpose to mislead customers, rather I believe it is done because they don’t know the difference between BPM and Case Management, and nor does the customer.

Most people I have spoken to about this agree with me, that Case Management isn’t BPM and shouldn’t be confused with it. This has caused some discussion out there in Twitter world. If you want to engage, why not chat to me on Twitter http://twitter.com/AndrewOneDegree) or some of these people about it @sfracisatx, @JohnBJansen, @skemsley and @DevilsRefugee

 

So what is the difference?

BPM is about control, and good BPM solutions provide you with great flexibility to go along with that control. So you have the flexibility to take control of any process within your business, no matter how complex it may be. However, Case Management doesn’t allow you to do this, rather it provides a solid one fit framework in which an item of work (Case) can be controlled and completed.

Let’s look at how Case Management can work. Typically you will have a number of “Queues” which contain work within them. Richer Case Management solutions will allow a “Case” of work to be split into smaller pieces of work, probably with each bit of work being allocated to one of those queues. Now it is up to a user agent to then open up that queue, and pull a particular piece of work (though they could be given the first one in the queue). The agent then completes the tasks and the work, and it’s then done. I know they can “hold”, “refer”, “suspend” etc but the point is, the piece of work doesn’t go anywhere, (it stays on the same logical step / activity) it isn’t moving along a logical process. Once the individual pieces of work are done, the case is in effect completed. Hence you have managed the case fully.

Now for me this is pure Case Management, it simply does what it says on the tin…

Is it BPM still though?

Now this particular way of working can be argued to be a business process, and you are correct, many BPM systems provide Case Management, and can provide it because of what else they can do. However, let’s take the same Case Management system and ask it to do some of the following tasks:

• Automatically route the work to a particular skilled group of individuals
• Identify and complete tasks / smaller processes that do not need human interaction
• Automatically hold items at a particular stage and wait for other processes to complete
• Split a task down into a smaller business processes
  • With the process needing to allocate work, move work to a different department

If it can do all these things, then you don’t have a Case Management system, rather you have a BPM system. Now the next question is, does your chosen BPM system deliver all that is expected of a BPM platform, the flexibility to use the same system across any business process?

Essentially BPM provides us with steps (activities) along the business process and provides the intelligence to be able to move work through these different multiple steps to completion. Case Management provides, if you like, a single step (activity) business process, as work isn’t being moved along to different stages, departments, etc…

 

When Case Management over BPM

Well it’s all down to requirements, and that’s how it should be. If your requirements don’t warrant a BPM platform or the ability to map out multiple business processes, then look at a Case Management solution. Case Management solutions should always be a cheaper option to BPM, because they aren’t so flexible nor complex.

 

Conclusion

Let’s ensure there is always a clear distinction between Case Management and BPM. It is confusing, but there is a logical and procedural difference between the two, and this should always be made clear by vendors to customers. Use Case Management for single step type processes and BPM for anything else that requires “movement” along a process…

A little puppy dog…

Ok this isn’t really related to my normal posts, which are usually work(ish) related. So today, I thought I would share with everyone that a new edition joined the household this weekend. His name is Diesel and he is only 5 weeks. I know, only 5 weeks, didn’t expect him to be here until he was at least 8 weeks, but the vet said was all ok so here he is…

He is a little black lab and is a ball of energy, fun and some destructive power, well for about an hour then he needs another hour + sleep…Which is fine with me, as I am still nursing a horrid feeling body after my Stag weekend….

So far, nothing out of the ordinary to report. The cats don’t seem to like him (we have two cats aged 3), but they haven’t run off or anything as yet. So that’s a good thing. He is, sort of, managing to do his business on the allotted news paper so another positive….I spent a little time online last night reading up on house training your little puppy, and his dedicated room is now full of his toys, his bed and most important of all, 5 tabloid news papers spread out everywhere…

He has however managed to find his little voice, think he found it this morning at around 6:30, treating us to a great rendition of a howling puppy, which this morning was a novelty but if it’s happening every day, one that will ware off very quickly.

Anyway, I must now return to the real working world and get a move on with a desk full of work…I will keep you all posted from time to time on the domestic dog situation as things progress…

Document and file retrieval metadata

Far too much focus is made today on providing complex retrieval fields within ECM solutions, and far too much is made of them from customers. For sure, inherited values and properties can be of great use, but when you start to look at your actual requirements, far too often retrieval fields are simply made too complex.

Points to remember

When designing your retrieval fields, metadata or indexes (whatever you wish to call them), keep in mind just what a user will want / need to do to actually locate this file / document. Here is a quick list to help you:

1. How much information will the user have on a file?
2. How much time do you want to allow them to enter search information
3. How can your metadata fields actually assist in this
4. What sort of results will be brought back and how clear will these be to the user (clear as in how can they quickly see the file they want)

Many systems recently spend a lot of time on very accurately identifying files, however, by doing this they also make it very complex at the data capture stage (scanning and indexing) and also require the user to spend longer setting up their search.

Keep it simple

When designing / identifying metadata fields for files, always try to make and keep things as simple as possible.

First things first, identify the types of files you are storing. This doesn’t mean pdf, word, tiff etc. rather it relates to their type within your business. So some examples may include personnel files, expense claim forms, insurance claim form, phone bill, customer details etc. (dependent on your business).

Once you have made this identification, we get onto the point of retention. How long will a particular file type stay “live”, then move to an “archive” then be completely deleted. When doing this you may find that you logically have some separation of files appearing. NB only create a new classification of file type if it is needed. Don’t do it as some logical separation, rather classifications should only be created to separate either groups of metadata or address such issues as migration and retention periods.

The tricky part is to now identify the metadata fields associated with your types of files. I would always suggest you try to keep these as simple as possible and try not to use more than 7 fields to identify a file. This is where often designers get carried away using inherited fields from different objects within the repository. This is all well and good and can really help in displaying search results back to users (or a heirachyy of files back to a user). However what I try to do is the following:

1. Imagine you don’t know if there are other files out there in the system (nothing to inherit from)
2. Identify at least one key field (policy number, customer  number, telephone number etc)
3. Provide a list of options to the type of file it is (Date of birth certificate, driving license, claim form, phone contract, interview, recorded conversation etc)
4. Only provide other fields that help logically identify this file from other files of the same type, or they help identify, for example, a customer entity within your business
5. Provide as many “drop down list” options as possible. This ensures data is accurate and not reliant on spelling or interpretation
6. Identify any metadata that may be “shared” with other file types. For example a Policy Number may be found on multiple types of files within multiple classifications of files. In addition Policy Number is unique within the business so therefore it can be used to tie together a number of files to a particular policy holder.

If you stick to these 5 principles you will find that 9 times out of 10 you will not have any call for using complex inheritance or complex storage concepts. You more than likely have also identified your classifications in full. Please note that your file types along with classification will also 9 times out of 10 provide you with enough criteria to accurately assign security information to these files.

Once you have identified how information is to be retrieved, think about what information could be automatically captured at the data capture side of things. This sometimes illustrates fields that could be used to help identify files at retrieval; it also sometimes identifies fields that really aren’t appropriate.

Showing results

Often your retrieval system will display results of searches in a format which isn’t always that great to you or your business needs. This is why there are so many “professional services” offered to customers of such systems. As a customer, linking objects together, even showing them in a “tree view” type fashion can help the end user. However, this isn’t a call for inherited properties, rather a call to logically display business related information.

Also remember different types of searches can require different ways of displaying search results. This is sometimes overlooked by designers and system providers to the detriment of the user experience.

Finally, always think past the retrieval process. Once a user has found the file they want they will need to interact with it in some way, this could be to simply view its content or to pass on to another user etc.

Conclusion

I am a firm believer in keeping things as simple as possible and often adopt that IT term the “80 – 20” rule. Far too often IT tries to deliver too much, and in doing so it over complicates areas of the system or worryingly the business. When this happens more often than not a project can be seen as a failure, when really, by delivering less the customer gets more.

When putting together metadata for the retrieval of files remember to try and keep things as simple as possible. Identify key fields and not get carried away in capturing too much retrieval data. Also, always keep your end user in mind, so that’s the end user at the scanning and index stage and end users searching for files. Sticking to these simple rules will ensure you deliver a file retrieval system that works efficiently, quickly and well for your end users and your business…

Social Media needs moderation

Social Media is a great way of engaging the public, getting involved with conversations and enhancing any online presence you may have. However, like all things open to the general public, it can be open to abuse.

There has been a lot of discussion on Twitter today about such abuse, mainly regarding spammers and “bots” (automated robot type applications) but also the actions of a minority number of actual users. You see, Twitter, like all social based websites, is open to abuse from anyone or anything that can get an account open. With today’s APIs and concept of sharing, it’s even easier for spammers to set up applications that latch onto people, discussions and basically hijack conversations going on sending out their load of rubbish to anyone and everyone…

Add to this that small number of people who seem to use Social Media to be abusive (just spend a little time on You Tube reading comments and you will see what I mean), you can see why large numbers of genuine users of Social Media get hacked off.

This is something we just need to put up with

Now this is a statement I hear far too often. Or alternatively we read something along the lines of “we provide users with tools that can combat abusive users”. The latter is true, on Twitter I can block someone if I feel they are abusive, I can also report a post as abusive on You Tube for example. However, how many of us actually take the time to help moderate? It also doesn’t help me with filtering out the amount of Spam I have to shift through when looking at a trending topic on twitter, or the amount of silly abusive comments I have to read on You Tube before I get to see something valid.

Websites that allow customer feedback are always prone to such issues, however, many of these (and I strongly suggest all businesses do this), moderate and check peoples posts before allowing them to be published to the world. I know this can be time consuming, but with a good business process behind this, it can be quicker and easier than you think.

Make it harder

Simple basics make a great difference. I am always surprised how many basic security features, or basic business common sense is missing with Social media sites. For far too long Social Media websites have been caught up purely with increasing the number of users that use their website. This drive for numbers has always been at the expense of security and funny enough, the ability to actually make money (the latter is a different post).

So what things can social media websites do to make it harder for abusive users and spammers?

First off, why do Social Media sites not always authenticate a genuine user? Let’s check that someone is actually at that web address and make them follow some instructions before allowing them to open an account. Let’s get some information including their IP address.

Secondly, let’s follow their first “x” interactions (tweets for twitter, status updates in Facebook etc), monitoring them for obvious Spamming / abusive activities. This could be seen as a probation period. This isn’t hard to set up though would require a human element at some point.

Thirdly, let’s set up some rules to at least try to flag content that may be viewed as abusive or again as Spamming activities. If possible let’s have a moderation business process in place so that as many as possible posts can be checked and moderated before being made public (I can see this wouldn’t work on Twitter)

Fourthly, if someone is reported for any abuse (spamming, abusive messages etc) lets investigate these claims and if true, ensure that account is banned and all content removed. If we have their IP address, lets see if we can follow up this user using this, maybe inform the users ISP?

Finally (well for this small list), lets monitor trending topics (Twitter specific) for Spam. Once something gets close to the top 10, why not increase monitoring or employ a human to keep an eye on this.

Conclusion?

At the end of the day, spammers and a small number of people / businesses with poor etiquette, have ruined the concept of mailing lists for eMail marketing. They now threaten to drown out valid content from within the Social Media sphere. Websites need to try to protect us, the users, against this behaviour. Its something they should have addressed from day dot, but since they haven’t, they need to address it as a matter of urgency…Facebook, Twitter, listen!

Lets try to ensure Spammers and the abusive few don’t ruin Social Media and destroy its potential…

10 points workFile ECM has over SharePoint

This is a post really looking at our own workFile ECM platform and comparing it with Microsofts SharePoint.

Microsoft have been getting into the ECM marketplace for some time now, and with SharePoint 2007, many potential customers of ours (workFile ECM) have asked why should they purchase an ECM platform when they have access to SharePoint for next to nothing purchase price (though many do then look at their licensing terms).

Well here are 10 key fundamentals that separate workFile as a true ECM platform compared to SharePoint.

1. Persistent objects – This is something all ECM platforms have, it is simply a unique pointer to an object within the repository that is there forever, it doesn’t and cannot change. It means that unique ID is that, it is unique and always will be in the case of workFile at pointing to that one object. In SharePoint 2007 often a links are broken when you rename or move a file. In addition, links cannot be sent out in eMails, rather copies of the actual object has to be sent. With workFile, the persistent id (a GUID) can be sent as a link to the object in eMails, saving vast amounts of space and bandwidth.
2. Store once, use many – With workFile ECM you get a pointer to a particular object. This means if the object is filed in a number of folders and locations, it is at the end of the day, still only a single file with the different locations pointing to that file. SharePoint in contrast has a nasty habit of copying the content object and effectively duplicating it throughout the system. This is a big no no especially when taking into consideration the impact on real version control of an object (or what is believed to be a single object in the repository).
3. Records Management – I am not sure SharePoint supports records management? It doesn’t allow you to manage physical objects in an out of the box environment. workFile ECM provides simple records management facilities, allowing records to link to other records and in essence build up a highly structured repository of structured content. In many instances, workFile records management is used to deliver line of business functionality, such as management of customer details, transactions, interactions etc.
4. Flexible indexing capabilities – This can be termed as metadata management, but basically it is using structured fields (index fields or metadata tags) to identify objects within the repository. ShaprePoint does this, but it is a little restrictive, there are no capabilities for inheritance from parent objects or for linking objects to other objects. In contrast, workFile ECM allows inheritance from parent objects and allows content to be linked directly to other content objects. This delivers greater storage, security and most importantly retrieval flexibility
5. Reusable search templates and stored results – workFile ECM delivers the ability for administrators to deliver system wide search templates. In addition, individual users can also create their own search templates and store them against their user credentials. This means that the system quickly provides all the stored search capabilities without the need for any additional configuration. It is also worth noting, that with the workFile Vision application (the out of the box application for workFile ECM) users can very quickly build up any number of simple and advanced stored searches. workFile ECM also allows search results to be stored, again at a system level and at a user level. These results form their own objects within workFile, and as such also inherit security access rights the same as any object within the repository
6. Granular security – Security in SharePoint is good, though a little cumbersome. workFile ECM permits security to be assigned for any object type and its “security level”. There are a number of different security levels within workFile which can be used in conjunction with other security groups and users to explicitly set security across the board or down to an object by object basis. This type of security ensures all content is secured at all times, but makes the life on an administrator far easier.
7. Object history – SharePoint does track major audit events, however the events tracked are not extensive and are not easily accessible through the content object. In contrast, workFile provides capabilities to track all interactions with a given object, including basic interactions such as “viewed object properties” and “object displayed”. Because of this, workFile delivers true accountability for all objects. The object history is also easily accessible to users with the correct security rights to view an objects properties. The complete object history is displayed in a separate properties tab.
8. Storage and migration rules – This is to do with the actual physical storage of a particular file. With workFile ECM you can set up at “class level” where objects are to be physically stored. You can also set up rules to have these objects migrated to other locations after a given period of time. This is especially powerful when using WORM (write once read many) technologies.
9. Retention periods – In SharePoint you cannot set a retention period for a particular type of content, with workFile ECM, you can. At a “class level” retention periods can be set up, with different actions occurring after different retention periods are met. Typically this is a move to a deep archive or an actual deletion of the object from the repository.
10. Out of the box user interface – SharePoint provides a number of facilities out of the box, however workFile ECM with its Vision application delivers a single application to administrators and users alike. It provides a single desktop experience (delivered through the web) that houses all aspects of workFile ECM, including BPM and Case Management module interfaces. It is also a single point of management for online content, such as that within your website or delivered through social networking websites, such as Twitter and Facebook