Hyland Software upgrades OnBase enterprise content management product

The release features an extensive array of new capabilities. OnBase 7 introduces process modeling and business activity monitoring (BAM) capabilities to help organizations model, monitor and continuously improve document-driven business processes. The new release features the ability to search the OnBase repository using Microsoft Office SharePoint Search as well as several new content-enabled vertical applications for hospitals, law enforcement agencies and universities.

Identify and Eliminate Non-Value Added Activities from Document-Driven Processes
The new OnBase BPM Suite augments OnBase Workflow with extended capabilities to help organizations continuously improve business processes by eliminating activities that add time, cost and risk — but no customer value. Key features of the BPM Suite include

• The Business Process Modeling tool provides easy-to-use, graphical modeling capabilities that allow process managers to optimally design a document-centric process. In addition, it enables managers to simulate process activity with "what-if" scenarios that identify potential bottlenecks, quantify expected productivity gains and help managers predict the effectiveness of a process before it's deployed in production.
• Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) portlets deliver real-time, dashboard views into the performance of document-driven business processes and allow process owners to identify and correct problem areas such as work overloading, stagnating work and incomplete transactions. OnBase BAM Portlets can be extended to enterprise portals built with Microsoft SharePoint and/or IBM Websphere.

Make Document Images Part of the Process at the Point of Origin

The OnBase Integration for the Fujitsu fi-6000NS is a complete scanning hardware and software solution for importing documents directly into an OnBase system via the Internet. This solution eliminates costly and time-delayed delivery of paper documents by allowing the sender to scan their dodocuments directly into the destination OnBase scan queues. Simple to use and eliminating the need for a dedicated PC-based scanning station, the fi-6000NS ships with pre-configured OnBase software, has a liquid-crystal touch display, built-in keyboard and Windows operating system.

ECM Solutions That Support the Way Work Gets Done

Industry analysts have noted that end-user adoption is frequently the biggest barrier for successful ECM solution implementations. Already noted for its ease-of-use, OnBase 7 provides even more opportunities for information and process workers to access the documents they need to make effective decisions via their preferred business and productivity applications.

"The biggest issue most enterprises have faced in their ECM initiatives has been getting business people to adopt what IT puts in place because the systems aren't relevant to the individual's day-to-day job or are very hard to use and apply on the job," stated by Kyle McNabb in Forrester Research's " The Top Five Technology Trends That Affect Your Enterprise Content Management Strategy" (October 4, 2007). "Historically, many ECM initiatives for a structured process force business people to jump in and out of applications… to manage and access content. This quickly results in frustrated business people and poor adoption of ECM capabilities, particularly when people are required to tag documents for later retrieval. Instead, ECM technology needs to be deployed into the way work gets done."

The OnBase Integration for Microsoft Search enables OnBase-managed content to be indexed and searched directly using Microsoft Office SharePoint Search. This integration benefits employees who have the need to conduct authorized searches for content across both SharePoint and OnBase repositories. For example, a legal contract manager who needs to search for all the documents related to a particular account may need to access work in-progress documents residing in a SharePoint repository as well as documents of record stored in OnBase. The Integration for Microsoft Search provides search results in a single list sorted by relevance regardless of whether the content resides in Microsoft SharePoint or the OnBase repository.

OnBase Field Reporting for Law Enforcement will alleviate a substantial amount of time spent by police officers and their superiors completing paper-based incident reports. Field Reporting for Law Enforcement replaces paper versions of incident reports with mobile electronic forms. Officers are able to fill out the electronic forms while in the field and disconnected from a police station network in laptop-equipped squad cars. When officers reconnect to their station network, completed forms are routed via OnBase Workflow to their supervisors for approval. When supervisors route the electronic forms back to officers for correction, the officer only has to correct specific fields in the form rather than complete an entirely new report.

The OnBase EKG Integration for GE MUSE® integrates OnBase with the MUSE cardiology information system from General Electric. This packaged solution gives providers a direct link to archive ECG (electrocardiogram) study results from MUSE into OnBase. Through this integration, hospitals using OnBase as an enterprise document management repository are able to provide clinicians with point-of-care access to cardiology records through OnBase or an EMR (electronic medical record) application integrated with OnBase. This supports the goal of many providers to achieve a longitudinal electronic health record that provides a single-patient record that is accessible across the multiple information systems used over the course of a patient encounter.

The OnBase Transcript Reader will allow colleges and universities to automate the processing of incoming college transcripts. The Transcript Reader automates the data entry involved in logging and transferring transcript information and can tie directly to OnBase Workflow to automate the routing of those transcripts for transfer credit analysis. Once a university's evaluation is complete, OnBase Document Composition for Microsoft Word can be used to automatically generate a transfer credit summary for the student or applicant.

Software Development with the User in Mind

"Hyland Software's product strategy is absolutely transparent; our sole focus is OnBase and our product direction is determined by our customers" said Bill Priemer, Chief Operating Officer at Hyland Software. "The many new and enhanced capabilities in version 7 were requested by our users to help them solve pressing business problems. At a time when many IT buyers are skeptical about the hype surrounding new technologies, our customers know that Hyland Software responds to what actually matters to them rather then trying to convince them what should matter."