Workflow Automation Software

Millennia Group Blog

Given the stats, consistency rules

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Report of Tenure in 2022, the average tenure of all workers is 4 years.  That number goes down to an average of 3 years for 25-34 year olds.  If average tenure is 4 years, then a company of 200 has 50 employees turning over each year.  Since your corporate human assets are replaced every 4 years, it makes sense why successful companies use process and process documentation where-ever possible.  Otherwise, 1 in 4 employees could be making questionable decisions based on whatever limited information and spotty business records that they found.

However, a business process doesn’t provide new employees with answers, it provides the path to find the answers.  But what if the process is only loosely followed. …

Endnote, what’s that?

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The internet is amazing and it seems will shortly be even more amazing when Bing and Google fully deploy their AI powered search engines.  Finding information quickly is already simple and fast, especially if you have a pretty good idea of what it is you are looking for.  When AI enters the picture, the picture literally could be significantly better.

Simple and fast search is great.  But the degree of trust in the search result is based on the effort you make to get comfortable with the answer.  A few clicks to alternative information maybe or just some level of trust in the source website.  As the level of sophistication and depth of the questions…

Match made in heaven

Via Flickr - Yrjo Jyske - young couple

When two people seem very happy together, it’s “a match made in heaven.”  When something just works exactly as you expect it to, you will hear someone say “bingo” or “the stars aligned.”  More recent versions of this would include “life is good.”  They are all just sayings that express the fact that something went right.

We won’t provide examples of common sayings when things go wrong.  That could be humorous, or it might offend some people.  Your employees should have “life is good” moments daily to the point where its just the way it is.  They should quickly find a document that someone requested at the very end of the day.  They should pull a collection of documents together that support an important…

You need a smaller house

Via Flickr - Nicolas Boullosa

Has anyone experienced the dad who angrily says ‘where’s my screwdriver’, because it wasn’t put back where he thought it should be.  Are some of your family members more organized than others?  Is one more detail oriented or creative or devil-may-care?  Maybe if your house was a lot smaller, say one room, you wouldn’t have this problem.

Ok, blow that up by 1,000 work associates and think about your critical information.  You can’t make that “house” smaller.  No HR department can choose work associates who all think and work alike.  And you can’t effectively force a single method.  What can be done to give users a reasonable chance to avoid wasting time looking for that screwdriver?  Or more importantly, avoid a negative compliance or…

A record of the truth

What’s the core record for your business?  The order, contract, application, evaluation, presentation and subscription all come to mind.  It doesn’t matter if your business sells cars, office space, ideas or medical services, there is a necessary recording of the transaction and end product to the transaction. 

The progression over the past 30+ years has been to devise ways to make the recording, tracking and documentation of your business as streamlined as possible.  That entailed digitizing that path.  But digital data isn’t always what it seems and therefore the support for the transaction is still a key component of every business.  What is your key Record?

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Go old school in 2020

Way back in the 1970’s, according to Wikipedia, the information age began.  This was a period after the industrial revolution where computers started to be part of the daily business landscape.  Vast amounts of “information” were now created, stored and transmitted by these computers.  A good long run considering it is still going on.

Along comes a time, not exactly sure when, where the computer revolution became all about “data” and “tech”.   These are fine things, but what are they?  Data is data until someone turns it into information that is useful.  Tech is certainly cool on my wrist, but isn’t it being informed of an upcoming meeting the important part?  We’re still in the information age, but why doesn’t it feel like it?

First off, its not very sexy to sell information tools.  Take document management for an example.  Document management is there to make sure users get the information…

Open for Business

Via Flickr - Brian HawkinsAs a provider of a workflow and document management system we hear first-hand the number of applications that companies use to support their business.  There is always a discussion of how data and documents are being captured, created, shared and the flow within the organization.  We have never interacted with a customer or prospect that is on a single solution for all business functions.  Like Sasquatch, the killer app doesn’t really exist.

The reality is that many different applications are used throughout the organization.  Departments tend to fight hard to get the application most suited to their needs so they can carry out their mandates with effectiveness and efficiency.  That leaves the IT department scrambling to ensure that each department’s key solution can interact with all…

The pendulum is back in the middle

Via flickr - Rob Young

Ten to 15 years ago, the document management world started to feel an itch.  The major DM players couldn’t quite figure out where it was coming from at the time.  But then corporate users started to talk about how they were just dropping files into this online folder system and how easy it was.  Box, DropBox, ShareFile and others have since created very successful businesses with simple online storage.

The expectation for how a document management system should work took on a whole new meaning from the perspective of the users.  This is true not only of document management but of most corporate software platforms.  This great new experience arrives and the expectation pendulum swings way over to one side.  Then reality starts to set in.

Unfortunately, this ease of use perspective didn’t exactly fit the overall…

Piece of Cake

  Not many companies have the resources to operate on a global basis.  It can take a large team of lawyers, experienced financial professionals and local facilities or representatives.  To go global for a product or service also requires understanding the local custom so you don’t accidently insult the community. Operating a business, locally or globally, will involve customer contracts, vendor contracts, financial reports, etc.  The business processes and document content might be vastly different from Bavaria to Bali and Caracas to Quebec.  However, we see four key characteristics of document management on a global basis and if you focus on getting these four correct, it will be a piece of cake.

The four universal document management requirements are:  The files must be organized in a logical way, the files must be accessible…

Tag and push is not a playground game

Companies, large and small, have procedures or rules that employees are supposed to follow to complete certain tasks.  Each company determines the most efficient methods or methods that meet regulatory or compliance requirements.  These rules can be written in a manual, part of a checklist or built into software applications. Rules incorporated into the code of software applications are relatively easy to build and highly effective.  One of the most difficult procedures to successfully implement, however, is document archiving.  When is a document the final final version and where should it be archived?  Making this decision and process easy should be every companies goal, but where to begin?
The first step is to make sure you simplify and standardize the archive hierarchy.  Consolidate the silos of documents into one, organized repository.  This should be…

Steps in the right direction

Here are some tips for getting your company or personal electronic files and documents better organized in 2019.  These tips will really make life easier if you are currently storing your company files and documents on a network drive or you use a document management system but never really configured it for your business.
  1. If you have a document management system, don’t let files and documents get uploaded without a minimum amount of meta data (descriptions) being associated with each file.  This goes for folder based systems as well where users just drop files into the folders.  For instance, have all client folders auto-generated based on a list from your accounting system or all prospect folders auto-generated from your CRM.  Don’t let users create their own hierarchy or folder structure – take…

Downsizing and De-cluttering

In essence, a good records management policy and effort helps companies continuously downsize and de-clutter.  That is not to say that the company moves to a smaller space or reduces headcount.  In this context it is the systematic process of eliminating information that is no longer legally required or relevant to the business.  This sounds fantastic for every company and every employee doesn’t it? It sounds great to have less irrelevant information to sift through and maybe clearer lines of site to people in cubicles around you, unless you like to work in a bunker.  New office space configurations and the wave of digitization have reduced the chances of boxes piling up.  But even those pesky digital files need to be purged every once in a while.  So why is it so…

Friday the 13th can happen any day

Normally we don’t do a blog post on a Friday, but since this is Friday the 13th it seems like a good time to remind everyone that document disasters can happen any day.  The cause of these disasters is usually us and we can screw up today or any day.  So be careful, be diligent and try to be organized. What are the typical disasters that can happen?  Accidental deletion of a document, a file dragged and dropped into the abyss, version nightmares ie. V1, V2, V998 and counting, files that are too large to email or upload or download, and on and on.
Accidental deletion is a bad one.  The only advice here is to be extra extra careful if you know the file storage location doesn’t have backup or only has backup…

Artificial Intelligence – Getting to Know You

How will artificial intelligence (“AI”) impact our world?  There are knowledgeable people talking up the potential positive uses of AI and there are knowledgeable people voicing concern over the potential problems.  On the positive side are articles generally oriented towards business efficiency gains, of which IBM’s Watson is a widely seen example. Many companies are looking for a better way to help manage the explosive growth files and documents and they are hoping that AI and Watson can benefit them.  The rate of growth is exponential and that is creating increased user search times and poor results accuracy – inefficient.  AI might help users find the information that they are looking for, but Watson is going to have to get to know each user and know each user very well first.
Finding the right…

Search for the needle OR the haystack

There are many benefits to using electronic documents versus paper.  One of those benefits is being able to do a search to quickly locate the one document that you are looking for.  This takes only a matter of a few seconds in most any document management system. But what if you are looking for more than one document?  What if you need a collection of documents, like all of the contracts for customers with model number 123abc?  What if you aren’t exactly sure what documents you need and only have a few pieces of information to go on?  This is where you will get your money’s worth when properly configuring your document management solution.
The main approach to good document management is having good meta data or good descriptions of the documents.  For instance,…