by C. Roy Payne

I hope you're having a great summer! We've been busy at AccuImage helping our customers implement and refine solutions that enhance employee productivity and save information handling costs. One area that our customers have found significant improvement in is human resources, when automated document processing and e-forms technologies are implemented.

We understand that even a simple HR process may require many approvals from managers at different levels. And it's not surprising given the number of laws you have to comply with. A detailed audit trail is essential when it comes to HR activities such as:

• Personnel changes including compensation, position or title.
• Employee performance appraisal and review.
• New hire processing and termination handling.
• Travel, expense and time reporting.
• Vacation and leave requests.
• And many more.

Your HR department has to handle highly sensitive personal information at top speed. And it has to do so while still maintaining the privacy of documents as they flow through the company. This can be very complicated, error-prone and inefficient with paper-based systems. This is where automated processing and e-forms come in.

This issue of The AccuView addresses the importance of using e-forms, intelligent documents and workflow solutions. AccuImage can help you implement productivity-enhancing and cost-saving solutions in your HR department and throughout your organization. We can work with you to discuss, design, develop and deploy a solution specific to your business needs. I invite you to contact us at 615.242.7226 for a consultation today.

Best regards,
C. Roy Payne
roy.payne@accuimagellc.com

What is e-Forms Processing?

Organizations and the groups within them depend on the efficient movement of information to run their businesses effectively. Inefficient business processes and the manual collection of data can lead to reduced productivity and costly delays. Because business information moves quickly, business users find that their paper trail needs to move just as rapidly. To optimize the processing of information in an enterprise, organizations need the tools to efficiently automate their existing processes and react quickly to changes in the environment. This is a primary objective of an electronic forms (e-forms) processing solution.

Electronic forms processing enables organizations to easily collect information through online forms and process the requests in accordance with defined business procedures. It eliminates the need for data entry workers keying in data from paper forms and operators no longer need to decipher handwriting. A complete e-forms solution will manage the entire lifecycle of a form and the processes involved. The objective is to ease and speed the collection of the data and automate the processing of that information. An effective solution presents users with forms that are familiar to them. It allows them to fill out and submit the information electronically. This provides better control and tracking, and accelerates the delivery and processing of information.

Processes that Benefit from Using e-Forms

The typical global enterprise uses an average of 400 complex business forms amenable to automation. An e-forms solution is not necessarily meant to introduce new forms and processes; its most important role is in its ability to handle your existing forms and processes. Any group, organization or process where data collection is involved can benefit from an e-forms solution.

Processes that can benefit from an electronic forms processing solution include:

• Internal Change Requests (IT Change Control)
• Purchase Order Submission
• Employee and HR (Hiring, Salary, Vacation, Leave Requests)
• Expense Reports
• Requisition Processes
• Web-Based Form Submissions (Support, Help Desk, Etc.)

The Importance of Workflow Automation

Workflow automation is one of the most important components to an e-forms system. Electronic forms processing without workflow is simple data collection. Forms are filled in so the information can be processed, not just sit somewhere. A workflow engine performs this processing. The handling of a completed form may involve the interaction of multiple people and external systems. It is common to route forms for a review and approval process, and after approval, some action is taken. Workflow automation enables an organization to route e-forms and other requests in accordance with their defined business procedures.

e-Form Benefits

An e-forms solution can unite users and systems, improving the overall business process. It enables you to speed the collection of high-quality information and deliver it to the right place at the right time. With business forms costing an average of $75K to manage throughout their lifecycle, a primary benefit of an e-forms solution is cost savings. Additional benefits include …

Reduce costly paper handling and manual routing. Paper-based forms are costly to print, store, distribute, mail and process. Automation of the form processing ensures there is no disconnect from the form and the business process required for that form.

Tracking, auditing and process awareness. Instant access to current and prior activity, including completed forms and processes, ensures that authorized users have immediate access to the information they need to assist in the everyday decision-making processes. Having visibility into the form's entire lifecycle reduces cost, improves quality and speeds vital business information.

Accelerate the delivery of form-based information. A workflow engine can automatically route completed forms to the appropriate users for review/approval and can interact with external systems. The routing provides automated email notifications and personalized task lists for users that must review or approve a form.

Reduce errors and improve accuracy. Pre-population of form fields from external sources and form segment isolation enable users to input only the data required of them. Fewer areas to type reduce errors and form field validation ensures accuracy.

Speed collection of quality information. Presenting users with e-forms that appear like their paper-based predecessors eases participation in the form completion process and improves the quality of the information collected. Integrated form help, field pre-population and instant validation improve the end user experience and reduce expensive support calls.

In Summary

Automating the use and processing of online forms is an opportunity for any organization to see one of the greatest returns on investment for a software application. From PCs to PDAs, employees to customers, e-forms processing will increase employee productivity, collaboration and knowledge sharing among team members. Whether you are looking for company-wide or departmental business forms processing, AccuImage can help you take your critical paper-based processes and automate the workflow, reducing operational costs and accelerating productivity for all your forms-based processes.

The trends are clear. Enterprises in virtually every industry across the globe are investing in technology to optimize their processes and drive better business results. Intelligent documents are critical for all processes involving forms and documents - from line-of-business processes such as work orders, customer interactions, payroll processing, employee on-boarding, order processing, and regulatory compliance initiatives to core mission-critical processes such as payment remittance, billing, product development and logistics.

Intelligent documents are more than just e-forms and documents with specific business rules and workflows. Successful implementations include the ability to process both paper-based and electronic forms and documents seamlessly, without having to develop entirely separate processes for both. Despite the prevalence of the web and network access, most organizations still need to provide efficient processes - for both paper and electronic forms.

The following questions will help you determine where intelligent documents can provide you with operational efficiencies:

• Are you manually entering data that you receive on paper forms?
• Do you have processes (e.g. HR functions, work orders, applications, etc.) that span across your enterprise systems, not just within one system?
• Do you operate in a distributed enterprise or is your business composed of a large amount of smaller businesses?
• Do your defined processes have a large degree of variability?
• Do you need to have traceable and auditable financial processes to meet government mandates such as Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA?
• Do you need to protect against employee termination litigation?

Intelligent documents can effectively address the challenges presented by these questions, and this article will show you how. With intelligent documents, organizations of all shapes and sizes improve their efficiency, responsiveness, security and service.

Specifically, successful implementations can:

• Enable hard-dollar and rapid ROI through automation.
• Accelerate business cycles, ensure compliance, and connect people with information and processes, regardless of location.
• Improve customer-facing processes, which can build customer satisfaction and loyalty by proactively executing on requests, orders, inquiries, enrollment and issues.
• Reduce time-to-compliance and audit costs by providing transparency and tracking for all organizational processes.
• Gain corporate efficiencies by automating internal processes, including a global workforce that is ubiquitously connected to the information, resources and processes needed to make informed, real-time decisions.

Making the Case for Intelligent Documents

Corporations today are under the combined pressure to lower the cost of internal operations while adding new capabilities to maintain compliance with government regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA and other legislative mandates. In theory, BPM software lets organizations track approvals, reviews, edits and business activity at every step of a process, which is crucial to meeting the requirements of these regulations.

The reality, however, is that BPM software by itself does not easily lend itself to processes that involve paper, people and dynamically changing processes. BPM projects often fall short of expectations or become protracted because many business processes are initiated at the business edge by people using a variety of inputs or documents, including paper. The key is to implement a solution that implicitly takes into account people and paper interacting naturally in the process and to gracefully handle exceptions and controlled dynamic changes to the process. The embedded intelligence of an intelligent document solution ensures the accuracy of the information collected and knowledge of the next step in the process, while allowing for human decision points and exception handling. This means, for instance, that deadlines can be imposed and specialists can be alerted of risks and anomalies in real time.

Individual implementations should also include support for Government Paperwork Elimination Act, Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, and others where required. These capabilities mean organizations can manage risk more effectively, preserve customer, shareholder and employee trust, and protect your enterprise from the damaging publicity and penalties that can result from regulatory violations. All of these capabilities are implicit in an intelligent document solution.

One reason for the increased adoption of intelligent documents is its rapid return on investment - which is particularly important in this time of tight budgets and intense scrutiny over financial performance and compliance. In general, the return on investment is based on savings of reducing manual data entry; in the case of paper-based forms, on the reduction of requirements for printing, distribution, processing and collecting documents.

BPM involves automating the most fundamental business processes, either internal or customer-facing. By its nature, BPM involves the integration of many different systems, functional groups, customers and document formats. As such, BPM projects can become quite complex and require the integration of diverse systems. Intelligent document-based solutions are powerful enough to accommodate complex processes, flexible enough to handle ongoing change, easy enough for users to embrace, and simple enough to be implemented on time and on budget.

HR and Other Internal Administrative Processes

Internal operations within corporate offices are dominated by numerous business-critical processes, including HR forms, spending approval requests and document approvals. Intelligent documents can assist administrative functions and departments in increasing efficiency and reducing operating costs. In addition to streamlining operations to speed processing, many corporations are motivated by the need to comply with regulatory mandates.

Publicly traded corporations are using intelligent documents to meet Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 compliance requirements for documenting and enforcing internal processes and controls. Intelligent documents can help create clear and comprehensive audit trails to sales orders, expense reports, legal agreements, purchase orders or any content-driven process that could affect a company's balance sheet. This enables auditors to immediately track transactions, see their routing and approval path, and review supporting information at every step.

Intelligent documents can reduce redundant processes, streamline approvals, improve data flow, lower distribution costs, shorten approval times and integrate with disparate systems.

Streamlining Processes with e-Forms Technology

After gaining control of their paper-based processes, organizations can quickly realize even greater efficiencies by transforming relevant paper forms into electronic formats, or e-forms. This can offer significant benefits in terms of reduced printing, distribution, postage and overall handling costs. Automating the use and processing of forms offers the greatest return-on-investment opportunity for any organization considering implementing an enterprise application.

Routing, managing and entering data from paper forms is slow, expensive and erodes productivity. An e-forms application provides the complete infrastructure needed to put form and document processes online, connecting corporate forms with database, ERP, accounting and back-office applications. Through the electronic distribution and automation of organizational forms - including expense reports, purchase orders, and time-off requests - you will significantly increase worker productivity.

Take human resources, for example. Today, most HR departments are inundated with paper -employment applications, benefit enrollment forms, transfer requests, performance evaluations, vacation requests, consent forms, etc. Converting all personnel and policy forms to e-forms and automating the processing with an intelligent document solution can result in greater productivity and efficiency in the HR department, as well as faster employee on-boarding and self-service.

Take the Next Step Today

Learn how you can improve efficiency, responsiveness, security and service with e-forms and intelligent document solutions. Call AccuImage at 615.242.7226 for a consultation.

Cardiff LiquidOffice encompasses the entire business process management lifecycle from process design and simulation to deployment and optimization. However, it goes well beyond traditional process management. LiquidOffice embeds intelligence within forms and documents, enabling them to securely and automatically navigate the process between people and systems, offering visibility into each step of the process and a complete audit trail.

LiquidOffice is a cornerstone element of the Cardiff Intelligent Document platform, which offers comprehensive and versatile information capture and business process management capabilities. Cardiff Intelligent Documents streamline and simplify the complex maze between people, documents and processes that are critical to businesses, with a flexible and scalable architecture and no barriers between paper, online and mobile information. Cardiff Intelligent Documents are the information and process onramp to the enterprise, dramatically reducing costs, shrinking process cycles and offering complete visibility into business process status at every step.

Paper and e-Form Automation

One of the most powerful capabilities built into LiquidOffice is the ability to seamlessly capture paper forms and documents and connect them to processes that may already be active. In fact, LiquidOffice is the only integrated and unified solution that supports a single, consistent and auditable business process to be applied to both electronic and paper information streams. For users, this means they have the option of submitting paper forms or electronic forms. In situations where a wet signature is required or where federal or state government mandates require both options (paper and electronic) to be offered to consumers, this capability is critical.

LiquidOffice eForms is a powerful, web-based software solution for creating, deploying and automatically managing the routing, tracking and approval processes for electronic forms. LiquidOffice eForms' capabilities range from internal corporate "web forms" to the comprehensive rules-based forms that drive the core of an organization's business.

LiquidOffice Features and Benefits

• Advanced support for tracking, routing and electronically signing online forms.
• Rapid deployment for e-forms through an intuitive point-and-click designer tool, making it easy to convert existing forms and create new forms, add intelligence and publish.
• A central repository offers easy and secure access to all organizational forms.
• Forms meet government specifications relating to Section 508, GPEA and the e-Sign Act.
• Tight integration with TeleForm to accommodate the automation of paper-based forms.
• Manages every aspect of a form's lifecycle within your organization.

For more information about LiquidOffice and similar products, call AccuImage at 615.242.7226.

AccuImage, LLC is a systems integrator that empowers their customers with solutions designed to gain the maximum value from their information at every point in the information lifecycle. Founded in 1996 and headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, AccuImage specializes in the design, installation and support of document and content management systems, forms processing solutions, and electronic workflow systems. The company offers hardware and software from leading companies - AnyDoc Software, Böwe Bell+Howell, Canon, Captaris, Captovation, EMC Documentum, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Kodak, Kofax, Panasonic, Plasmon and Verity - as well as consulting, document conversion and professional services.