DocuVantage Blog

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DocuVantage is proud to sponsor Tampa Bay Tech Jam, a Summer Party with a Purpose. Tech Jam is organized by the Tampa Bay Technology Forum Foundation, in support of science and technology education initiatives for the "at risk" youth of Tampa Bay. Come help us support a great cause! For more info visit http://tampabaytechjam.com/

What should you watch out for when purchasing a Document Management solution? 5. Smoke and Mirrors.

In my past life as a consultant preparing clients for acquisition and implementation of large scale Document Management Solutions, I witnessed some very interesting product demonstrations. Right after graduating from College, I worked for a BIG INTEGRATOR and was involved in a bid to the Air Force. It was a very large acquisition, over $1 Billion. The Air Force had a great concept, if you want me to buy your stuff, then you have to show it in action. They developed scenarios that would simulate what they needed in the field. It was up to the vendor to show that with their solution. "You mean it actually has to work! That's not fair. Trust us that it will work." During this particular demo, which took place over a full week, there was one task that we could not get to function automatically as required. Given a little more time, it would have worked; we just didn't have it ready for the Live Test Demo (LTD). During the demo the presenter; we called her Gail Force Winds because she could direct the reviewers' attention anywhere she wanted, had to get 6 evaluators to look away from the works station for just a few seconds so that the programmer/operator could enter a keystroke sequence to manually execute the task. Well, she did it and we passed the test. (Smoke and Mirrors refers to magic shows that use tricks to get you to pay attention to something else while they perform the "magic".)

As I moved into consulting, I decided to take this LTD concept with me. I did make one minor change; the vendors had to install everything on the customer's equipment instead of their own. Nothing could be pre-staged, especially since the demo requirements document was not delivered until the vendor arrived for the demo. Funny thing, the three vendors on the short list were in the correct quadrant, remember what I said about great sales and marketing. The trouble with the LTD was that it actually required the product to work. That's not fair! Trust Us. The first market leader went home after the 3rd day. The allotted 10 days was just not going to be enough. Odd thing to happen to a vendor with an "out of the box" solution. The second vendor didn't realize that the LTD spec. was an EXACT copy of the spec for a Pilot system that they had recently delivered to this very customer. They spent ten days rebuilding it from scratch with a team of programmers. At the end of day 9, they sent the programmers home. Oops! They forgot to get the programmers to install the code on the customer's equipment. Day 10 was a short one. Vendor 3 worked around the clock for 2 weeks and got the demo to work, but during this time, we knew that the product was full of holes. The integrated suite was just a bunch of separate programs cobbled together in the same colored boxes. They had to jump through hoops to get it to work. No vendor met the minimum requirements. No purchase was made. Why would you purchase something that either does not work or doesn't meet your requirements? The smoke and mirrors will not be available to you when you turn the solution loose on your end users. It will actually have to work.

Before buying a Document Management solution, take a very close look at it. If you insist on having an on-premise solution, then install it on your own equipment or see it working in a similar environment. Even when you realize that you should be implementing Software as a Service Electronic Document Solution, don't just watch the flash video. See it in action and ask questions. More later on what qualifies as real Software as a Service (SaaS). No, this is not the same as ASP.

What should you watch out for when purchasing a Document Management solution? 4. Best of Breed

This should be a good one. Are you buying a dog or a document management solution? I have heard many of the BIG INTEGRATORS and even some of the smaller ones talk about their solutions being made up of the "Best of Breed" components. As if that meant that the overall solution would be the best. If you mix a champion Great Dane with a champion Yorkie, is the result going to be a champion dog? Is it even going to be a dog? You just never know. What they are really saying is that they took a bunch of parts and painted them all the same color and called it an integrated system. It may work well for you, but you also may find that it is just too complex to keep running.

In most situations that I have seen, the customer does not really need the "Best", they just need something that works and provides them a reasonable return on their investment. Since document management and workflow are typically complex solutions, how do you really define the best? Cheapest? Most expensive? Most sales? Prettiest brochures? Best booth bunnies? Best scanning? Best Workflow? There are so many ways to define the best that it does not really matter. What matters is whether or not it effectively and efficiently solves the problem. Anything beyond that is wasted money. Think about it like this, if you are buying a fleet of cars for your outside sales team, you're not going to put them in a '73 Lime Green Pinto, it won't do, but you are also not going to put them in a Bentley (Best of Breed), you are going to put them in a leased Ford Taurus, good enough.

The best approach is to define the problem you are trying to solve and then find the solution that you can afford that solves that problem. You will never use all of the bells and whistles that come with the best of breed. You are running a business, not a fashion show.

Big Sur Technologies and Document Advantage Corporation, (DocuVantage) Partner to Provide Document Management and Managed IT Services to Better Serve their Clients

Tampa, Florida (June 18, 2008)

Two of Florida's top technology firms announced their unique new partnering agreement today. Big Sur Technologies and Document Advantage Corporation, (DocuVantage) have joined forces to better serve their client base. Big Sur, a leading information technology outsourcing organization, will offer DocuVantage On Demand® to their more than 350 customers throughout Florida.

DocuVantage OnDemand® is an electronic document management application that provides document capture, text search, business process automation and records management compliance. "Electronic Document management is a key need for many of our customers in our medical and local government accounts. DocuVantage is a leader in the document management solution space and presents a great option for organizations who are trying to reduce costs, improve efficiency and remain competitive in a tightening economy", said Sam Sandusky, president and CEO of Big Sur. "We're excited to offer another solution for our clients that continue to round out our managed services offering and help them continue to grow."

As a reciprocating benefit, Big Sur will provide the professional services for DocuVantage and receive all network support leads generated from their day to day activities.

DocuVantage recently completed their transformation to offering their solution in the SaaS model, or Software as a Service. "Clients can now take advantage of our feature rich document management solution at a fraction of the original cost. Using our technology and application delivery model eliminates capital costs and the traditional long implementation period. Clients can now subscribe and begin experiencing a return on investment the same day", said Jana Wiggins, CEO of DocuVantage, "We've experienced fantastic growth in 2008. We thrive on creating technology that save our customers money while enabling them to improve processes and manage compliance; the SaaS subscription model does just that. Our solution is perfect for individual clients with 5 to 50 users, or departments of the same size, which is identical to Big Sur's Managed Services client base so we're thrilled to be partnered with them. This partnership allows DocuVantage to focus more on creating technology that solves our client's business problems, and allows Big Sur to handle the day-to-day IT management of the account. Big Sur's stellar reputation of providing proactive network and IT support solutions gives us all the confidence in the world that our clients will be well taken care of."

The two companies plan to cross train each other's sales force over the next two to four weeks, and will offer special discounts to their clients who are early adopters of their services. The complimentary nature of their organizations makes for a perfect match. Sam Sandusky and Jana Wiggins are both active members of the Tampa Bay Technology Forum CEO Network for more than three years and are excited about the potential this new partnership creates. "I can't believe we didn't make this happen before now. We're extremely impressed with how Jana runs her organization, which is with the utmost integrity and ingenuity", said Sandusky.

Both companies serve clients within the Banking, Environmental, Government, Healthcare, Education, Manufacturing and Transportation industries.

About Big Sur Technologies
Big Sur Technologies, established in 1999 and based out of Tampa, conducts business throughout the state of Florida. Big Sur Technologies offers IT solutions to SMB and Enterprise businesses. They provide managed services, enterprise server and storage configurations, enterprise e-mail, network support, back-up, and enterprise software licensing solutions.
For more information please visit www.bigsurtech.com or contact 813.269.9145

About Document Advantage Corporation,
Document Advantage Corporation, (DocuVantage®), founded in 1999 is a leader in document, information and business process management solutions. DocuVantage OnDemand® delivers a secure, integrated document management and compliance application that includes document capture, collaboration, business process automation, remote storage and records management technologies delivered as a subscription service.
For more information please visit www.docuvantage.com or contact 863.326.6360 ext.1

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What should you watch out for when purchasing a Document Management solution? 3. BIG INTEGRATORS

Many people believe that the BIG INTEGRATORS are the best at implementing solutions because they have done them before. It seems logical, if you have done something before you will be better at it. What is often ignored is the fact that companies don't implement solutions, employees do. With turnover rates averaging 25% or more, what are the odds that the team that implemented the last project is still at the company?

What about all of those senior people that they have on staff just waiting to implement your project? Well, they aren't waiting for your project and there aren't that many of them. Those people need to bill out at $250 to $300 per hour to cover their costs. It's much more cost effective to have just a few of those senior people around mentoring the junior people. Guess who is working on your project! I have heard some customers even comment that when management selects one of those BIG INTEGRATORS for a project, they see the school buses in the parking lot dropping off the "Consultants" to tell them how to do their jobs. The teams are full of very smart people, they just typically don't have the experience. Once they have gained the experience, they get moved into management to make room for more junior people that cost less. Small companies tend to have more senior people doing the jobs they love. Since they typically pay less than the BIG companies, the people have to love what they are doing or they wouldn't stay.

BIG INTEGRATORS can deliver the BIG teams needed for Enterprise implementations. Yes, they can deliver big teams. Many times the team will consist of their sub contractors. Guess who the sub contractors are... you are exactly right, small companies that specialize in delivering a document management solution. Is it really a good idea to implement the entire enterprise all at once? It depends on the problem you are solving, but not usually. Most companies should start small and build on successes. Why sink $1M or more into a into a traditional, enterprise, license-based project before determining if it's going to work?

What should you watch out for when purchasing a Document Management solution? 2. Market Leaders

What does that mean? The one that sells the most? Usually. At least, that is according to some of the subjects of my last post. @#$@Mart probably sells the most bicycles in the US so they would be considered the Market Leader. Since we want our Olympic Cycling team to ride the best, they should probably get their bikes at @#$@Mart, right? Of course that's silly. Selling the most does not necessarily mean it is the best. When you buy a document management solution, do you want the one that sells the most or the one that is the best fit for you? I vote for the one that is the best fit for you.

I have heard people argue that since they sell the most, they must be the best solution. I think this is partially true. They probably have the best sales and marketing team. It says very little about the quality of the product or how well it will suit you. Which was the better technology BetaMax or VHS? Yes, I know, a bunch of you never heard of BetaMax. Who won? Which is better now, HD DVD or Blu-ray? Mac or PC?

Don't ignore the Market Leaders; just don't make that a decision point. Make your decision based on what you need and what you can afford.

What you should watch out for when purchasing an Electronic Document Management Solution

Where do I start? The list is so long!
Over the next few weeks or maybe months, I will reveal a list of potholes on the road to successful document management solutions.

Over the years, I have witnessed and been involved in many Electronic Document Management implementations ranging from 2 user systems to 5000+ user systems. Some went really well, some I would like to forget, and some were unbelievable. Believe it or not, I actually noticed a few things along the way. I probably missed a lot of things too. I am confident that this list is not complete so I would like to hear your war stories as we progress and I will add to the list of gotchas.

1. Industry Analysts

I am amazed at how many people pick a solution from a quadrant or list without asking the person or team that compiled the list, how many solutions have they actually implemented with the vendors on the list? What do you think the answer would be? I have my answer, please give me yours. Another question might be what criteria were used to determine the list?

Many lists are based on vendor sales volume. Does sales volume = a good solution? It could. But, it might just = a great sales and marketing team. Sometimes the list maker also takes into account the technology... based on the vendors website and brochures. Hmm... does that really count?

What should you do? Talk to several people that you know or someone they know that have implemented various solutions, spend time with them to learn about the following things at a minimum:

- What was the problem they were solving?
- What product did they buy and why?
- Who did they have perform the implementation and why?
- What problems were encountered during the implementation?
- How were the problems resolved?
- How many change orders were there?
- What were the skills of the implementation team?
- How long did the implementation take?
- What was their budget for the project?
- How much over budget did they go?

Once you have done that, define what you want accomplished in as much detail as possible. If you can not define it, your vendor will not be able to deliver it, unless you give them flexibility in the services component of the contract.

If you do not choose the right vendor and product you will have to work hard to ensure a successful implementation, it will not happen by itself and in most cases the vendor is probably not going to ensure you get everything you want.

Finally, be open to new ideas and methods of delivery that may save you time and money.

Four Tips for Crafting a Document Retention Policy

A solid document management process is a necessity. CIOs struggle with creating the policies, getting buy-in from the end users and managing the ... read the full article here

Document Advantage to Showcase DocuVantage OnDemand Document and Records Management for Protecting Mission Critical Documents at the National Hurricane Conference

Document Advantage Corporation, the leading provider of on-demand document management applications, is pleased to showcase DocuVantage OnDemand® for disaster preparedness at the National Hurricane Conference in Orlando, FL on April 3-4, 2008.

Document Advantage Corporation, the leading provider of on-demand document and business process management, will be demonstrating how to protect mission critical documents at the National Hurricane Conference in Orlando, FL on April 3-4, 2008.

DocuVantage OnDemand® provides organizations an easy, affordable, and secure application to electronically capture, share, and protect their documents and information. DocuVantage OnDemand® is a SaaS (Software as a Service) application so users don't need to worry about purchasing hardware or involving IT resources.

The application provides complete disaster recovery of data. In case of disaster, organizations' data and documents are protected and can be accessed immediately. Business operations are not at risk due to data loss and business continuity is maintained.

Features of DocuVantage OnDemand® include:

Secure, reliable data and document storage to protect mission critical documents.

Web document capture allowing users to upload, securely share and distribute documents from anywhere.

Records management for managing document retention compliance for further business protection.

Visit us in Booth 824 to find out how we can help you ensure your business continuity.

About Document Advantage Corporation

Document Advantage Corporation is a leader in document, information and business process management solutions. DocuVantage OnDemand® delivers a secure, integrated application that includes document capture, collaboration, business process automation, remote storage and records management technologies delivered as a subscription service.
For more information please visit http://www.docuvantage.com/ or contact 863.326.6360 ext.1

About the National Hurricane Conference

The primary goal of the National Hurricane Conference is to improve hurricane preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation in order to save lives and property in the United States and the tropical islands of the Caribbean and Pacific. In addition, the conference serves as a national forum for federal, state and local officials to exchange ideas and recommend new policies to improve Emergency Management. For more information visit http://www.hurricanemeeting.com/

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Document Advantage Corporation Welcomes Chairman of the Board

Tampa, Florida (March 20, 2008) - Document Advantage Corporation, the leading provider of on-demand document and business process management, is pleased to announce Mr. Cliff Sink as the company's Chairman of the Board.

Mr. Sink was instrumental in increasing growth and profits as Chairman, CEO or Board Member for a number of organizations. As CEO of SteelCloud, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCLD), Mr. Sink increased the share price by 250% and returned the company to profitability. Mr. Sink served on the Board of Directors for the Association for Information and Image Management for 5 years and has worked within the document and records management industry for over 10 years at large companies like Unisys, Lanier and IKON with products from FileNET, Wang, Documentum and Optika.

"With his extensive experience in the document management market and as CEO of various companies, Cliff brings industry knowledge and strong leadership to our Board" commented Jana Wiggins, president and CEO. "With an expanding customer base and company growth, Cliff’s guidance will ensure that we are well positioned for the future."

"I was excited by their offering of document management solutions using the Software as a Service (SaaS) model which eliminates capital costs as the primary objection to implementation" observed Cliff Sink. "With this model, Document Advantage Corporation is uniquely positioned to capture a large portion of the document, process and records management market.

About Document Advantage Corporation

For more information please visit www.docuvantage.com or contact 863.326.6360 ext.1

Fruit Processor reduces Payable Process from 24 man-hours to just Minutes

Fruit Processor utilizes DocuVantage OnDemand® to reduce the Fruit Payable reconciliation process from 24 man-hours to just minutes.

Reconciling grower's field tickets, USDA inspection certificates, and weight tickets each week was consuming valuable time. It was a paper intensive process that required manual sorting and data entry as the documents arrived. To ensure proper payment to its harvesters at the end of each week the collection of documents were manually reconciled for weekly production figures. Tickets from remote processing facilities were shipped weekly to the central office.

At the end of the process, the documents were packed in boxes and stored for 2 years. If a grower needed a copy, personnel would have to go through the boxes to find the document. It was not uncommon to have boxes of tickets stacked in the aisles nearby during the harvesting season if quick access was needed.

DocuVantage OnDemand® allows the company to capture the documents as they arrive, extract the data and save the documents electronically in a secure location. A weekly report performs the reconciliation in minutes instead of hours. If a grower needs a copy, it is accessed in seconds.

Document Advantage utilized high-speed Fujitsu scanners and Kofax Ascent Capture to provide production level capture and data extraction for the large volume of documents. Once validated, the documents are released to DocuVantage OnDemand® for document storage, retrieval, and reporting.

Future phases of the solution will allow the company’s remote processing facilities to scan the documents daily and eliminate the need to ship to the central office.

About Document Advantage Corporation

Document Advantage Corporation is a leader in document, information and business process management solutions. DocuVantage OnDemand® delivers a secure, integrated application that includes document capture, enterprise search, collaboration, business process automation, remote storage and records management technologies delivered as a subscription service. For more information please visit www.docuvantage.com or contact 863.326.6360 ext.1

White House Official Pushes for Software as a Service

Government agencies realize the many benefits of Software as a Service. Low cost of entry, reduced customer resources, fast deployment and immediate ROI. A top official with the U.S. White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) gave her strongest endorsement yet to software as a service, saying Wednesday it can help federal agencies cut development costs.
Read more

DocuVantage OnDemand at the SaaS Summit 2008

TAMPA, FL.-Document Advantage, a leading provider of SaaS document management and workflow, is showcasing their latest version of DocuVantage OnDemand at the upcoming SaaS Summit 2008, February 27-29, 2008 in San Francisco, California.

DocuVantage OnDemand offers browser based document management and business process automation for organizations of any size.

DocuVantage OnDemand resides on the OpSource On-Demand platform, providing the hardware, software, network infrastructure, storage and disaster recovery. Organizations have the security they need for storing and managing their documents. With DocuVantage OnDemand, users no longer have to worry about hardware and IT resources to house and maintain their application.

Features of DocuVantage OnDemand include:

Web document capture allowing users to upload, securely share and distribute documents from anywhere.
Rules and logic based business process automation.
Email Archiving
Fax Management
Records management for managing document retention compliance.

Visit Document Advantage and see how easy, affordable and scaleable true document and business process management can be. DocuVantage OnDemand solves the document and information storage and management needs of any organization whether you have three users or thousands.

About Document Advantage Corporation

Document Advantage Corporation is a leader in document, information and business process management solutions for commercial, education and government markets.

DocuVantage OnDemand delivers an innovative, secure and scaleable application that can be customized to meet client needs. Features include web and production document capture, global text search, collaboration, business process automation, remote storage and records management compliance. DocuVantage OnDemand is delivered as a subscription service.

For more information please visit www.docuvantage.com or contact 863.326.6360 ext.1

SaaS is Green!

Software applications that are architected and delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS), provides server and storage consolidation, which means reduced power consumption.

In the Electronic Document Management and Business Process Automation industry, software license or ASP vendors typically require their customers to operate the software on multiple servers, one for the database, one for the application, one for the workflow, etc. At the very least, they want their application running on it's own server so that they can "support" it. You know that if MS Exchange is running on the same server that your EDMS is running on, Exchange is causing any errors that might occur. In the SMB market, the weakest server you can buy is overkill for an EDMS. The CPU runs at about 2% and you get more storage than you know what to do with. Oh yeah, don't forget you have to back all that stuff up too. Another tape drive for the server closet...

Without doing the math, I think you can see that if a SaaS vendor can put 50 customers on one server instead of 50 servers, there is a savings in power. Plus, you have now enabled 50 companies to allow telecommuting. That could save some gasoline as long as those telecommuters aren't heading out to the beach on the days they are "working" from home. Wireless Broadband sure makes that easy!

Document Advantage Corporation will sponsor and exhibit DocuVantage OnDemand at the AIIM Florida Chapter Showcase on Thursday, Dec. 13th, 2007, Clearwater, FL

Learn the latest technologies to Capture, Manage, Store, Preserve and Deliver Information within your Organization.

Holiday Buffet Lunch and Refreshments

Thursday, Dec. 13th, 2007
11:30 AM to 4:00 PM

Held at:
Tech Data Corporation,
5350 Tech Data Drive
Clearwater, FL 33760
Bldg D, Rm. 1

There is no fee to attend but your response is requested for planning. Please RSVP here