Records and Document Management Scoop

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Bringing it to the people…

In today’s fast paced, instant communication world it’s not often that a company invests in travel just for communication to its clients; but that’s just we did. Several of us took our products and message of “Changing the Way the World Manages Documents” on the road to meet and greet our clients. While the 3 city, 4 day travel schedule was grueling the breakfast meetings were very satisfying.

It was interesting to hear how the products I design and develop affect their daily lives in such a positive manner. We had a variety of clients utilizing many different types of products and services from us so each meeting had a different feel and experience. From learning about our ArchiveDirect strategic approach to records management to Virtual Van delivery benefits and our newest product, OmniRIM Records Center, the time was well spent. As part of our dedication to communication we plan on doing a road show once a year, so put it on your calendars now!

While the thought of business travel used to intrigue me I’m kind of glad that it will be only once a year because of the schedule. Hmmm… I wonder if I convince my boss to do a 3 city, 3 week tour? Yeah, I could definitely handle that.

Randall Sanders
Product Manager
Archive Systems, Inc.

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Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Archive Systems Develops RIM Score to Highlight the Effectiveness of an Organization’s Records Management Program

Archive Systems, Inc., a leading provider of records and document management services, today announced it developed the RIM Score™ to provide instant visibility into the health of an organization’s records management program. This powerful resource arms records managers with information they’ve never had available previously, enabling them to run a much more effective program.

“Records managers finally have a tool that clearly shows how to improve the management of their records collection, and the results are impressive. We first rolled the RIM Score out to our clients and they really responded well to it. The number highlights areas of strengths and weaknesses, providing them with invaluable insight into areas that can be improved. This is practical information they can use to boost the efficiencies of their program while cutting costs and ensuring compliance,” said Jim Farrell, Senior Vice President of Product Development at Archive Systems.

Click here to read the full release.

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Tuesday, June 07, 2011

Coffee, donuts and the first true SaaS records management solution

It’s June 1st and everyone is waiting with anticipation as OmniRIM Records Center makes its debut – a true SaaS enterprise records management solution. This has been an exciting and busy time for us here at Archive Systems; lots of coffee, tea, and donuts have been consumed through some late nights by a dedicated team working to create this product, and I am really proud of them. It’s amazing what can be accomplished when a group of talented people come together with a common purpose. The Product Management, Development and QA teams have been hard at work for the past several months creating our next generation OmniRIM Records Center product. These teams are now engaged with our dedicated IT and Operations teams as they roll this into production in our data center.

If you’re familiar with OmniRIM you know we have been in the physical records management space for years, with OmniRIM Records Center we have extended that to a new hosted solution that supports both electronic and physical records. We previewed this to a number of customers at our first annual user conference in April and I have continued to demonstrate it to several existing and potential customers since – to a lot of positive reviews.

This next generation OmniRIM product has quite the lineage. To create OmniRIM Records Center we have taken all the records management knowledge and experiences gained through implementations and interactions with our enterprise level customers and applied it in this radically new user experience. One of our primary tenets for OmniRIM Records Center was “Best in Category User Experience.” We wanted to create a product that supported records management best practices but also provided a user experience that made managing, creating, searching for and requesting records simple and easy.

Well, next week I hit the road for two weeks and I’m taking OmniRIM Records Center with me as we touchdown in Fairfield, Seattle, Portland and Phoenix for the Archive Systems Regional User Group Meetings.

Rob Hartley
Senior Product Manager
Archive Systems, Inc.

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Wednesday, May 25, 2011

ROI of Records Management – Legal Discovery

Having surveyed a group of records managers a couple of years ago, I learned that for most companies, the return on investment (ROI) for records & information management is basically the assurance of never failing a regulator’s audit, or assurance that you won’t get burnt by a document that has mysteriously disappeared. The ROI is more akin to cost avoidance than a true dividend of the original expense.

ARMA recently published an article called Litigation Costs: A 1000:1 Ratio. The 2010 litigation survey quoted in the ARMA article polled Fortune 200 companies to compare costs to pursue litigation versus costs of discovery process activities. These large companies indicated that on average, 4,980,441 pages of documents were produced in discovery for major cases that proceeded to trial – of which only 4,772 pages were actually marked as exhibits. In summary, for every document page produced as evidence, there were 1000 document pages that were collected, reviewed and preserved during the legal discovery process. Hence the 1000:1 ratio.

Hypothetically, if each member of my legal team (involved in the discovery process) can review an average of 30 pages an hour, with a median internal labor rate of $150 per hour (actual rates range between $100 - $650 per hour), the cost of reviewing 4,980,000 pages is $24,900,000. For a legal case with half the volume of document pages to review, the cost is still a staggering $12,450,000. With a records management software system like OmniRIM, used by trained, professional records management personnel, one should be able to conservatively reduce the 1000:1 ratio to 750:1. The cost savings is significant. For the second scenario – the more conservative 2.45 million document pages reviewed – the cost saving is $3,112,500. That is over $3 million in savings for a single case. I’m sure that companies that are the most proficient with records management systems like OmniRIM achieve ratios that are closer to 500:1, for double the cost savings.

This 2010 litigation cost survey helps us model the ROI for records management software with strong legal discovery features. Increases in productivity, accuracy and completeness of matter-relevant searches for discoverable content are additional non-financial benefits to factor into your ROI. For companies in litigious industries, a good records management software package has a fast and compelling ROI.

Bruce Nunn
VP of Marketing
Archive Systems, Inc.

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Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Explaining Records Management to a 4 Year Old

“Daddy, what do you do?” My 4 year old is very inquisitive; I was about to jump into the normal description but quickly realized that she wouldn’t have any frame of reference around things like the internet, software, records, record centers or metadata. She uses all of these things but doesn’t understand those terms; she knows them as games or shows or movie titles or song lyrics or pictures or my phone. It was clear this was going to take some time...

If you ever tried to explain what you do to a child, it is very hard. Especially in our business because we can’t even agree on terms or process or when something should be declared a record (forgetting the fact that we can’t agree what could declared a record - Social Media anyone?) I was feeling up for a challenge.

So I began: “Daddy designs software for our clients...” Nope. “Daddy designs features for...” Nope. I was beginning to doubt myself. Could I actually describe what I do, encompass the essence of records management both from the physical and digital sense, in one sentence to my 4 year old?

“Daddy safely stores paper in the computer so our friends can see it.”

I think I nailed it, what do you think?

Randall Sanders
Product Manager
Archive Systems, Inc.

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Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Archive Systems Announces New Senior Vice President of Client Services

Fairfield, NJ (May 10, 2011) - Archive Systems, a leading provider of records and document management services, today announced the appointment of Robert Fitzgerald as Senior Vice President of Client Services. In his new role, Mr. Fitzgerald will apply his extensive experience to enhance the delivery of services and solutions to Archive Systems’ expanding client base.

“Bob will be a tremendous asset to our company. He brings a wealth of knowledge, experience and success to his new role at Archive Systems. Bob shares our fanatic commitment to delivering an exceptional client experience. With all the growth we are experiencing, he will ensure that our clients consistently receive industry-leading customer service,” said Gordon Rapkin, CEO of Archive Systems.

Most recently, Mr. Fitzgerald was Executive Vice President Worldwide Field Operations for K2, a global MS SharePoint workflow technology and consulting company. Prior to that, he was head of operations for Insightful. He was also previously Head of Global Support for Hyperion Software, North American President of Cartesis, and Head of Global Sales at Protegrity.

Click here to read more...

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Our first annual user conference is now under our belts

Well we have finally hit a major milestone here at Archive Systems – our first annual user conference is now under our belts. As a former OmniRIM Solutions employee, this is something we had strived to accomplish for years but for one reason or another were never able to pull it off. Being part of Archive Systems has made this possible! For me this was an excellent opportunity to spend some quality time with many of our ASPEN, OmniRIM, and business records storage clients. From placing a face to a name (and voice on the other end of a telephone line) to the many meetings we had this time was invaluable to me.

It was a bit nerve wracking getting ready for this event, and some product preparations extended all the way to the afternoon before the event started, but the Archive Systems team came together a pulled it off. Way to go Team! All this effort came together at the conference as we demonstrated the next generation OmniRIM product called OmniRIM Records Center, and attendees got to test drive it for themselves at the lab workstations.

I hope everyone enjoyed the sessions I hope the provided everyone with helpful information on both the products and records management in general. Also having Jessie Wilkins, Director at AIIM International as our keynote speaker was extremely insightful. From the Client Panel on Information Management strategies to Sam McCollum’s GARP Maturity to Leigh Isaacs’ Legal Discovery session – the information sharing was phenomenal. Presenting with both Jason C. Stearns and Sam McCollum was both a pleasure and an honor for me – Thanks Guys!

Yup, from the keynote to closing it was a blast, I can hardly wait for next year!

Rob Hartley
Senior Product Manager
Archive Systems, Inc.

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Tuesday, April 19, 2011

7 Terms to Avoid When Speaking to a Records Manager

Our recent user conference gave me the opportunity to spend several days with our customers. I was able to share Archive Systems’ software product strategies and roadmaps, and most importantly, take in the strategies and opinions of some of the most accomplished and respected records managers in the country. The dialogue was invaluable.

Being a meticulous observer, I took note of the industry buzz words peppered into conversations like HP sauce on a bad steak. We are a Microsoft partner, after all. It was interesting to see the reaction to some of the terms being bandied about. Here are 7 of the most noteworthy – and how the terms were interpreted by our customers, most of which were records managers.

*When they hear …*	*They think …*
Private Cloud	The worst of both worlds.
Social Media Policy	Non-existent policy to prevent employees from humiliating themselves and co-workers on Facebook to the point of termination.
CMIS Standard	The dream, based on the premise that ECMs will willingly talk to each other.
Blob Storage	The fat guy in IT that stores your electronic records.
RFID	The dream, based on the premise that companies have boat loads of money to stick a GPS on each of their records.
ECM Integration	Cha ching ($$$$)
Names that begin with e or i	Apple is the only company, post 1999, that can use these prefixes and not look stupid.

This is my top 7 list. I vow to stop using them in public. I invite you to share your most overused or maligned term. All in good fun.

Bruce Nunn
VP of Marketing
Archive Systems, Inc.

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Wednesday, April 13, 2011

We Laughed, We Cried, We Had a Great Time

Having never worked a user conference before, I was completely unsure of what to expect. As it turns out, I got exactly what I had hoped. I got to meet great people, answer some intriguing questions, spark some lively conversation and overall, have a great time. There's something that happens when you connect with someone face to face, which doesn’t always happen in today’s face paced, internet world.

Over a course of two days, I laughed quite hard. There were stories, anecdotes, and jokes to fill the time between the professional related questions and information sharing. It really brought out people’s personality. Not only was this my first working user conference, but I had to give a number of presentations. I was quite pleased with myself when I made the room laugh and I certainly shed a tear of joy when I was done!

Overall, I thought it was a tremendous experience which I can’t wait to have again next year at our 2^nd annual user conference!

Randall Sanders
Product Manager
Archive Systems, Inc.

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Tuesday, April 12, 2011

New ASPEN Virtual File Room and Virtual Records Center Releases Provide Organizations with Enhanced Business Intelligence Capabilities

Orlando, FL – (April 12, 2011) - Archive Systems, Inc., a leading provider of records and document management services, today announced ASPEN Virtual File Room, Release 9.9 and ASPEN Virtual Records Center, Release 6.1 during the company’s first annual User Conference in Orlando, Florida. The releases incorporate new features and functionality that dramatically enhance the business intelligence capabilities that records managers have available at their fingertips.

ASPEN Virtual File Room, Release 9.9, an on-demand document management solution, significantly improves business processes by allowing documents to be grouped together and notifies users when new files arrive. “ArchivePackets is a powerful new feature that ensures all documents have been collected in a group. For example, Human Resource managers can quickly confirm that all employees have the necessary files, or accounts payable can verify that all vendors have signed contracts. ASPEN makes it even easier by monitoring an organization’s collection and sending out periodic notifications if any documents are missing,” said Jim Farrell, Senior Vice President of Product Development at Archive Systems.

ASPEN Virtual Records Center, Release 6.1, a comprehensive, Web-based extension to paper-based records management, quickly enables users to manage costs, maintain compliance, and budget through ArchiveMetrics™. This new feature allows records managers to focus on the most important aspects of their collection to achieve compliance, minimize costs, and forecast trends. While this previously took days or weeks for records managers to produce, these reports are now available instantly.

Click here to read more...

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