- From the Test Center: Document management reviews - NextPage and Xythos
- InBoxer adds Notes support to Anti-Risk Appliance
- Preview: NextPage Document Retention works well with users
- Prospero gets personal with Journals
- CustomerVision's wiki gets down to business
- Interwoven weaves customers into CMS experience
June 21, 2007 | Comments: (0)
From the Test Center: Document management reviews - NextPage and Xythos
At the core of every organization, you'll find documents. Just as these documents take myriad forms – from memos, e-mail, and word processing files to paper forms – there's a variety of systems at the enterprise level tasked with the inventory and management of these essential assets.
This week, we highlight two such products, NextPage 2 Document Retention and Xythos Enterprise Document Management Suite 6.0. This duo illustrates that enterprise document management systems (EDMS) don't have to be complex or costly.
It's a given that these solutions save effort and thereby improve productivity, since documents are more easily located. But that's just the start of Act I. With the mounting pressure to demonstrate legal compliance and corporate governance, having an effective EDMS system is no longer optional for most enterprises.
Consider just one aspect of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, Section 404, which deals with internal controls on finances. Proving compliance to auditors would be nearly impossible without the formal monitoring and the ability to centrally store electronic material that a document management solution provides.
In the world of compliance regulations, there are even more elevated procedures for records management, such as the standards described by DoD 5015.2. Put simply, documents need to be transformed into formal records with appropriate classification and then securely retained for a specified period.
Both systems we reviewed this week nicely address the fundamental need of sharing documents, tracking revisions, and notifying other users of changes. However, they diverge in how this is accomplished. NextPage tracks documents spread around desktops and laptops, then automatically stores a final version without a central repository. Therefore, users aren’t distracted with having to upload documents to a server.
Xythos follows a more traditional workgroup approach: documents start their life by being placed in the central storehouse, from where you perform typical jobs, such as check-in and check-out. This design helps reduce file redundancy, yet the process isn’t overly bothersome since Xythos’ repository behaves like a Windows network-mapped drive.
Regardless of which form you prefer, the key is to select a document management system that will get used by your employees both consistently and correctly. Retention policies, distributed or central storage, and standards support won't matter if the system is too difficult or disruptive for everyday use.
For more on enterprise document management, check out the new NextPage and Xythos reviews.
Posted by Mike Heck on June 21, 2007 11:24 AM
March 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)
InBoxer adds Notes support to Anti-Risk Appliance
Insider threat protection and data leak management are certainly making waves in light of government regulations and data-loss scandals. Tracking e-mail is one important part of ensuring not only that business communications are on the up-and-up, but also that private data is staying private.
InBoxer has just such a goal in mind, and this week announced it is adding support for Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino to its InBoxer Anti-Risk Appliance. The appliance now handles both Notes/Domino and Microsoft Exchange, among other e-mail systems, and will archive messages as well as scan for compliance and policy violations.
Look for the InfoWorld Test Center's review of InBoxer and other data leak gateways to appear online in a few weeks, around April 23. In the meantime, check out our other data security reviews.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on March 19, 2007 03:43 PM
February 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Preview: NextPage Document Retention works well with users
Compliance and records retention can be real pain points for businesses. Fortunately, companies like NextPage continue to deliver relief with the newest version of its Document Collaboration product, a managed, hosted service called NextPage 2 Document Retention.
NextPage says that only 30 percent to 40 percent of documents end up in corporate repositories. Document Retention provides a solution to corporate archival problems that will actually get used. Document Retention knows what documents are sitting on PCs and laptops, manages the clean-up of intermediate files, and stores the final version in corporate repository.
Like Document Collaboration, Document Retention doesn't rely on a central document management repository to function; instead, it uses a distributed architecture to work with users rather than against them. Because of its unique architecture, users create, edit, and share documents using the same tools and in the same way they always have. Meanwhile, Document Retention sits in the background, tracking actions on managed documents.
Suppose you're the project manager for a project. Once you've created the project in Document Retention, anyone on your team can enter documents into the project. If you create a Word or Excel document and e-mail it to others on the team, they might save it to a drive, edit it, and send it to others. All the while, Document Retention is tracking where each copy of the document ends up.
At the end of the project, the project owner sends an e-mail through the system with a "clean up" action attached. The e-mail is automatically routed to anyone with a copy of the document. When the recipient clicks on the action, old versions are automatically cleaned up and the final version is saved in the corporation's designated archive.
NextPage 2 Document Retention includes a client piece that sends cues to the server about user actions. There are also "shared data services" that work with applications such as Lotus Domino, Groove, and shared drives on SMB file servers.
Companies might understandably be concerned about sending data to a hosted service that could be used to sniff out corporate activities. NextPage uses a hashed tracking code for documents that uniquely identifies the document, even when its name and contents change, without sharing any detailed information about the document's contents.
NextPage 2 Document Retention
Pricing: Base cost is $100/user/year with volume discounts (minimum price of $25,000)
Verdict: NextPage 2 Document Retention provides a method for versioning, tracking, cleaning up, and archiving corporate documents that users will actually use.
Posted by Phil Windley on February 5, 2007 10:25 AM
May 25, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Prospero gets personal with Journals
Prospero has launched Personal Journals, "a new hosted application for sharing thoughts, opinions or experiences with family, friends and other community members."
The community content management company said the service enables online publishers to quickly develop secure journal applications for their vistors.
iVillage's Pregnancy & Baby Plus, for expectant and new moms, is one site using the service to allow visitors to discuss their experiences, Prospero said.
It said current Web site designs and branding could be "fully customized" in Personal Journals, which is built on the company's CommunityCM platform. Existing registration systems can be used, it said.
Prospero Vice President Rusty Williams said: "There is a lot of attention right now focused on social networking applications and services such as MySpace. The reality is that broad services arent for everyone."
He said Personal Journal was aimed at allowing publishers to "safely leverage social networking features within highly targeted audiences, such as fitness, pregnancy, gamers, or race car enthusiasts."
A spokeswoman said pricing was "customized based on an organization's needs -- number of templates, level of integration, branding and functionality."
Posted by Mike Barton on May 25, 2006 10:26 AM
April 27, 2006 | Comments: (0)
CustomerVision's wiki gets down to business
CustomerVision has launched its BizWiki product this week, saying the time has come to trade in the clogged e-mail in-box for real-time, easy collaboration in the enterprise.
"[People have become]totally bombarded with e-mails," said CustomerVision chief executive Cindy Rockwell.
Companies have also invested in complicated content management systems that are limited for collaboration, she said.
BizWiki fills the "huge functional gap" between the two, giving the enterise an easier way to collaborate, communicate in real-time and capture knowledge along the way, Rockwell said.
The company has been developing its product for two years, giving it time to customize its product to meet business requirements as the trend gathered momentum with technology enthusiasts, she said.
Tim Plimmer, senior VP of operations for Hearst Corporation's Communications Data Services, and a customer, said current content management systems had too many barriers. "CustomerVision BizWiki eliminates the trade off between functionality and ease of use with the necessary usabilitym manageability and extensibility requirements of today's enterprise."
A unique feature is Ask the Expert, which expands communications to one-to-many in seconds, routing questions to subject matter experts when not immediately available in the knowledge bank, CustomerVision says.
Rockwell said the software was already proving successful for cost savings at Fortune 500 financial institutions.
Monthy service range from $100 to $5000 a month and are immediately available.
Posted by Mike Barton on April 27, 2006 04:07 PM
April 03, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Interwoven weaves customers into CMS experience
Enterprise content managment giant Interwoven introduced Monday what it said was the "first end-to-end customer management experience solution for the industry" with a new solution that includes deals with mobile giant Ericsson and RIM for its BlackBerry service.
Interwoven CMO Bill Seawick said solutions for supply chain, CRM, and finances has all evolved to focus on customer experience, but not enterprise content management.
"This has one of the biggest impacts [in terms of return on investment] but hasn't been automated," Seawick said.
The company introduced the Interwoven Customer Experience Solution at its GearUp conference in Florida, highighting customer experience best practices from companies such as Allstate, Avaya, DaimlerChrysler and HSBC.
The introduction includes content management and publishing, digital asset management and wireless publishing solutions.
Interwoven has struck a deal with Ericsson to enable the mobile provider's Media Solution to publish media to cell phones and smart devices.
In a deal with RIM, Seawick said the solution would enable document synchronization on BlackBerrys in accounting or legal firms, for example.
Seawick said the solution went beyond what rivals Stellant and Vignette offered because it was "bigger than any one vendor."
Posted by Mike Barton on April 3, 2006 03:04 PM
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