Accelerated Information Systems Archives

FPPad Bits and Bytes for February 21

Posted on February 21, 2014 by Bill Winterberg in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, why did Microsoft rebrand several of its services, and how might it change the tools that you use, how one large RIA’s technology change created a time savings of over 40%, and a new collaboration hopes to eliminate concerns over support for one Salesforce overlay provider.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now!

(Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

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Here are this week’s top stories:

Microsoft launches Office Online in battle with Google Drive from TheVerge.com,

Microsoft SkyDrive Morphs Into OneDrive, Bringing New Features from Mashable, and

Microsoft and DocuSign announce strategic partnership to bring eSignature to Office 365 customers from Microsoft

[Now occasionally I get feedback that I don’t pay enough attention to Microsoft, so Mike, this week’s lead story is just for you! The world’s largest software company just announced the rebranding of several of its product lines, beginning with its free web-based versions of Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, formerly known as Office Web Apps.

The company acknowledged that using the word ‘apps’ led to some confusion among its customers, as many assumed that native Office apps for iOS and Android were available, so now Microsoft is referring to the web-based tools as Office Online. While this move hopefully will clear up confusion over the different versions of Office available, no new features were released to coincide with the rebranding. Office Online will continue to store files in the cloud, which leads me to the second story about Microsoft.

Microsoft’s answer to online storage services like Dropbox, Box, and Google Drive has been SkyDrive, but this week the company rebranded SkyDrive to OneDrive, due to a legal dispute over the use of the word ‘Sky.’ Unlike the Office Online name change, OneDrive’s launch DID come with a series of new features.

OneDrive users can now automatically upload photos from their Android devices, which previously was only supported on iOS and Windows Phone. Online collaboration has also improved, as real-time editing in Office 365 documents is now done character by character. And subscriptions to OneDrive are now available on a monthly basis in addition to the annual subscription previously required under SkyDrive.

And rounding out the Microsoft trifecta this week, the company announced that eSignature support will be coming to Office 365 users through a new partnership with DocuSign. Expected to roll out in March, Office 365 users will be able to submit and sign documents using DocuSign without leaving their Microsoft applications. So if you use Microsoft documents for your internal client agreements and disclosure materials, the DocuSign integration should help you further streamline the e-signature process as you complete the on boarding of new clients.]

How a $5 billion RIA’s Laserfiche conversion generated time savings of 40% from FPPad

[Next up is a fascinating case study from a large RIA about its search for a robust electronic document management solution. At last week’s T3 conference, Jim Anderson of CLS Investments highlighted the firm’s approach to converting from IBM FileNet, its legacy content management system, over to a new implementation with Laserfiche. The RIA, which manages more than $5 billion in assets, migrated over 1.5 million documents into Laserfiche, and Anderson estimated that in the first year alone, the firm has realized a time savings of roughly 40%.

There’s a lot more to the story, including a time Anderson said everyone acted as if their hair was on fire, so be sure to get the link to read all the details.] One $5 billion RIA converted 1.5 million documents to Laserfiche in less than a year, saving the company 40% of its collective time

AppCrown Collaborates With a Global Services Major to Help Market, Deliver and Support Their Integrated Financial Services Platform in Banking and Wealth Management from PRWeb

[And finally, many of you who use Salesforce for your CRM might be familiar with AppCrown, the financial services technology provider built on the Salesforce.com platform. In prior years, AppCrown received criticism for failing to provide adequate support to its users who were implementing Salesforce in their business.

So to beef up its support, AppCrown just announced a new collaboration with Mphasis, a global service and solution provider owned by HP. It remains to be seen how the collaboration with Mphasis will improve AppCrown’s support of its financial advisor users, but if concerns about support have stalled your implementation plans, it might be time to reconsider whether AppCrown’s version of Salesforce could be a potential solution for you.] AppCrown, the leading provider for cloud based financial systems across CRM, Banking & Wealth Management, today announced its intent to partner with Mphasis.

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for February 21, 2014

T3 2014: How a $5 billion RIA’s Laserfiche conversion generated time savings of 40%

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Bill Winterberg in Efficiency, Software

Jim Anderson of CLS Investments, LLC: “We were living on borrowed time.”

One $5 billion RIA converted 1.5 million documents to Laserfiche in less than a year, saving the company 40% of its collective time

One of the more practical general sessions at T3 2014 was presented by Jim Anderson, Chief Systems and Project Creator at CLS Investments, LLC.

CLS Investments is a third party investment manager and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of NorthStar Financial Services Group.

You may recognize NorthStar for its Orion Advisor Services, LLC subsidiary, serving advisers’ needs as a portfolio management service bureau for more than a decade.

On the investment side of NorthStar, CLS Investments is an SEC-registered investment adviser and maintained more than $5.6 billion in assets under management as of mid-2013.

“Living on Borrowed Time”

So what was the most appealing part of Anderson’s general session presentation? He detailed the process of transitioning out of an aging IBM FileNet enterprise content management system to a more robust platform powered by Laserfiche (see How Laserfiche is used in the family office environment).

“We were living on borrowed time,” Anderson said to a room full of T3 Conference attendees.

What frustrated employees of CLS Investments the most was the fact that documents could only be retrieved based on their metadata, or document descriptions, added Anderson.

Should a document get misfiled or labeled incorrectly, it was as if the document had been permanently deleted with no possibility of retrieval.

According to Anderson, FileNet was that much of a black hole that employees didn’t have any confidence in the system.

Laserfiche Rises to the Top

As Anderson and other project leaders surveyed the content management marketplace, Laserfiche was the one solution that consistently offered answers to CLS Investment’s many requirements.

CLS Investments wanted a platform that could push the administration and management of documents back to each business unit in the organization. Roles-based workflow, integrated compliance functions, and full-text search capabilities were also must-have requirements.

Accelerated Information Systems was the Laserfiche value-added reseller selected by CLS Investments

While the product was promising, Laserfiche is primarily sold through a network of value-added resellers, or VARs. Anderson knew that the success of the pending project would largely be determined by the quality of the Laserfiche VAR.

“We wanted to work with a partner who thinks like we do and speaks our language,” said Anderson.

And in its search for a Laserfiche VAR, CLS Investments selected Accelerated Information Systems based in the New York City metro area.

Doubling Licenses Twice in One Year

As CLS Investments was just beginning its due diligence on Laserfiche, Zaheer Master, founder of Accelerated Information Systems, invited Anderson and his colleagues to attend Laserfiche Empower, the content management provider’s annual conference (watch Laserfiche Unveils Product Roadmap at Empower 2014).

Accelerated Information Systems founder Zaheer Master: “It’s not what you don’t know that can hurt you; it’s what you can’t find.”

Anderson commented that after seeing the size of the worldwide Laserfiche community as well as the network of add ons, plugins, and third party developers, he and his team had much more confidence that Laserfiche could be the best fit for CLS Investments.

Anderson originally planned to start with 25 licenses for the pilot phase of Laserfiche implementation, but based on his conference experience, he doubled the pilot size to 50 licenses.

Nine months into the implementation, CLS Investments once again doubled its number of licenses to 100.

“The growth of Laserfiche at CLS is a result of the successful change management process applied by the CLS project team and Accelerated Information Systems,” said Master.

“By addressing the most visible pain points early on in the project, we gained momentum for bringing the benefits of Laserfiche to more departments,” he added.

“Everyone’s Hair Was On Fire”

Nevertheless, not all employees of CLS Investments were completely sold on Laserfiche. Any change can be challenging, said Anderson, but changes that affect everyday workflow and habits are especially hard to embrace.

But one scenario in the middle of implementation acted as the pivot for Laserfiche adoption.

Anderson described that one day, accounting had an urgent need for a fee schedule, but was unable to find any trace of the document in its legacy systems.

“You’ve all seen it before. It was as if everyone’s hair was on fire in a mad scramble to find the missing fee schedule,” Anderson said.

But during the conversion of more than 1.5 million records from FileNet to Laserfiche, Accelerated Information Systems applied optical character recognition, or OCR, to every single record.

“With full-text search, we found the fee schedule and everyone calmed down. It was then that our managers knew that we had the right tool,” he said.

The scenario is not too uncommon among Accelerated Information Systems’ clients, says Master, adding, “It’s not what you don’t know that can hurt you; it’s what you can’t find. CLS now knows they can find every document, every single time, even if it’s filed in the wrong folder.”

A 40% Time Savings

Throughout the implementation process, Anderson described how CLS Investments was able to create workflows to compliment and streamline existing processes, not interrupt them.

Also, as an enterprise user of Salesforce, CLS Investments is able to leverage the Laserfiche integration that allows users to view their Laserfiche repository directly from Salesforce.

Anderson closed with an impressive statistic about the return on investment CLS Investments has realized in the year since its initial Laserfiche implementation.

“By leveraging the workflow rules to structure processes and validate steps along the way, we estimate that we’ve saved roughly 40% of our time by switching to Laserfiche,” said Anderson.

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