ECM Basics

What is ECM?

According to AIIM - The ECM Association, Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is the technologies, tools, and methods used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver content across an enterprise. At the most basic level, ECM tools and strategies allow the management of an organization's unstructured information, wherever that information exists. Numerous terms are used, depending on whom you're talking to, nearly interchangeably with ECM-integrated document management, digital asset management, integrated document and content management, and total content management to name a few. Regardless of the precise terminology, ECM capabilities manage traditional content types (images, office documents, graphics, drawings, and print streams) as well as the new electronic objects (Web pages and content, email, video, and rich media assets) throughout the lifecycle of that content.

Do you have an ECM need?

1. Do you have alot of documents in your business?

2. Is your information growing?

3. Do you have a need to follow government or internal policies and procedures such as Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), Hippa, ISO etc.

4. Do you need to save money by creating efficient workflow processes within your organization?

5. Do you have a need for full user, data, and environment audit trails?

6. Do you have a need to share information internally or externally to your organization?

7. Do you need to have fast access to your information to improve customer sales, support, or other departments?

8. Do you need to free up costly real estate currently used to house information?

9. Does your business provide an efficient method for information collaboration?

10. Does your business provide an efficient method for version control?

11. Can you currently locate any piece of information in 15 seconds or less?

If you answered yes to any of these questions then a solution powered by NETtrieve can assist you with your information needs.

Are there industry standards?

There are several organizations that set the ECM industry standards. Below are links to the leading organizations. Click on the link to find more information.

AIIM - The ECM Association

The Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC)

The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS)

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO)

Object Management Group (OMG)

ARMA

Why have standards in our industry?

Standards do alot for our industry, they:

• Promote interchangeability of system components which leads to easier adoption
• Improve performance, increase sales, and grow profits
• Expand markets through better interoperability and increased credibility
• Ensure a better success rate and longer system life through the use of vendor products complying with standards
• Protect vital corporate records and technology investment through interchangeability and open platforms
• Reduce risk by making implementations easier and more successful

What makes up a complete ECM solution?

A complete ECM solution is one that provides methods to capture, manage, store, deliver, and preserve information.

Why is NETtrieve an ECM solution as opposed to an Imaging solution.

Document Imaging only refers to the capture and storage of information whereas ECM (Enterprise Content Management) encompasses everything relating the the capture, management, storage, delivery, and preservation of information.

NETtrieve has multiple components that combined provide a business with a complete ECM solution.

What are the basic concepts of a complete NETtrieve ECM solution?

1. Prep - Organize Documents to be scanned, remove staples, remove paper clips, remove post it notes, etc.

2. Capture - Scan external documents, import existing electronic documents in their native format

3. Process - Input document metadata manually or with the assistance of lookup databases or barcodes. Other processing options include OCR and ICR during this processing step.

4. Store - Archive information on any server onsite, offsite, in a standard format onto any media CD-Rom, DVD, Magnetic, Optical, etc.

5. Manage - Collaborate, check-in/out, monitor version control, and create workflow processes using NETtrieve.

6. Audit - Capture critical user, document, and environment data used to support internal and external policies and regulations.

7. Distribute - Provide information in various formats include: COLD/ERM, Electronic Signature, PDF, Conversion, XML, etc.

8. Preserve - Document retention can be setup as a workflow process or as an index field based on internal/external guidelines.