Process Workflow Automation with Intelligent Document Management

SHAMIT BAGCHI
Aug 28, 2017 · 9 min read

Documents are paper or digital trails that processes generate and that other processes need in order to coordinate and co-operate. An organization depends on these documents and the underlying data that these documents capture so the two can be seen to be interchangeable though in some cases they have to be retained or archived as records in a specific and strict document format. Departments capture and process data and generate documents as part of business processes. Inter-departmental cooperation also depends on document workflows involving several forms of documents including contracts, vendor data, customer data and data pertaining to employees apart from other content.

The documents containing process-specific data are also needed for future decision making based on analytics over historic data. However in order to capture and digitize these documents that are often in paper form requires scanners and similar hardware. Once the image is captured, image processing can be done by means of OCR (optical character recognition) for text extraction and meta-tagging. The biggest new differentiation is advanced semantic and text analytics (NLP — Natural Language Processing) processing for additional intelligence to do document topic classification, find linkage among documents and identify entities and the relationships between entities inside documents to enable complex automated workflows.

Once these documents are available, automated workflows can make these documents available for review, acceptance, and storage or for further processes in the workflow including routing to CMS or ERP systems. Process automation, detection of inefficiencies and process optimization are the end-result. Digital documents have to be stored since they are no longer physical artifacts but also for compliance purposes or regulatory requirements as per national or industry-specific mandates and additional legal requirements. The linkage between several processes and also among the documents need to be maintained in order to get access to all relevant documents in a specific context.

Consolidation and de-duplication of documents is another major requirement. Often documents are seen to be floating around at several places and several versions of the same document is a recipe for disaster. It is important to have the documents always available via quick retrieval based on the context and relevance which implies entity based relationship mappings are stored and dynamically looked-up. Also access rights management should be built-in for restricting access. The documents in that sense are signals that go from one person to another and are essential for processes to be completed so the organization can move ahead.

There is another very essential requirement that of collaboration. Availability and access to documents becomes a key differentiation in any document management software that organizations procure.

Intelligent document management comprises of context, compliance, consolidation, and collaboration to stay on top of digital transformation. Cloud based services for document management, enterprise content management are the current trend driving the market. Also emerging semantic technology trends and text analytics are enhancing the use cases for contextual document retrieval and intelligent document management. Organizations currently use an ECM platform to:

· Reduce Costs — capture paper-based documents to digital and manage all electronic unstructured content in a single system

· Gain Efficiencies — with a single source of truth, instant access to content from any device will streamline business processes across your organization

· Reduce Risks — improve quality, consistency and audit-ability, comply with business policies & regulations, and ensure content security

· Create Value — improve business agility and optimize revenue by leveraging content across applications, business processes and departments[i]

Industry research tells us that 85% of a modern organization’s information is unstructured and largely unmanaged. We are seeing significant growth in the number and size of documents, reports, images, audio & video files, presentations, social networking input as well as email being created, received and consumed throughout business. What is being done with this growing information resource? Gathering, managing and analyzing this new information to extract real value from it is a major challenge.

Smart organizations are realizing that centralizing content on a single, scalable and robust ECM platform is an excellent way to gain value by simplifying information management and reusing content within processes.

Today’s organizations are looking to move beyond ECM as functioning solely as systems of record to instead perform as systems of insight. Rather than simply capture and secure information, next generation ECM tools are being used as a platform to improve the performance of the organization as well. Using information in better ways to build business insight, boost brand satisfaction, and enable more effective and strategic decisions are just a few of the benefits of this expanded approach to Enterprise Content Management.

The convergence of advanced capture, data analytics and case management is driving the current evolution of ECM. It’s one thing to capture information; it’s another to understand that information and then take action. That’s what the next generation of ECM is all about. Intelligent capture technology, advanced analytics and integrated case management tools all work together to enable organizations to take more thoughtful and strategic action. It’s not just about security and records management anymore, it’s about using the information gathered in more insightful ways to boost the performance of the enterprise.

The age of artificial intelligence, machine learning and natural language processing with intelligent assistants & bots is upon us and revolutionizing business process automation!

Evolving Enterprise Content Management (ECM)

Forrester defines ECM as a set of strategies and technologies that help information workers find, use, and analyze digital information, from any place, at any time, within the limits of corporate policies.

The ongoing market imperative to accelerate digital business transformation means that old approaches to enterprise content management are getting outdated, and ECM needs to become more flexible, usable, and secure. As business and technology decision-makers focus on customer experience and operational excellence, new use cases are emerging.

Business stakeholders no longer tolerate the lengthy deployment cycles, lukewarm user adoption, and complex pricing and licensing models of the past decade. Technology decision-makers are seeking cohesion across data and content management Initiatives as they look towards combining content management and data management programs into a unified information management program. Source: Forrester’s Global Business Technographics Data And Analytics Survey, 2016

As per Forrester’s August 2016 Global Enterprise Content Management Online Survey, new content-rich use cases increasingly demand embracing the extended enterprise — such as customers, partners, and regulators. Satisfying these use cases implies some key features and functions become essential, including the following:

Full-text indexing and search: To provide access to content in the ECM repository and meet the productivity goals of frontline workers; key capabilities include indexing of document content and metadata and search using words, phrases, Boolean operators, wildcards, or thesauruses. Search results can often be saved, shared, sorted, or filtered; access controls are respected to ensure that unauthorized users do not retrieve restricted content. Faceted search allows users to navigate or pivot through large result sets using metadata.

Workflow and task management services: to ensure that authorized users perform required tasks, such as approvals or adding a digital signature, related to content. Business managers can get an overview of how processes are progressing and where bottlenecks occur. Key capabilities include workflow, templates and forms, version control, routing, and notifications.

Analytics: to provide insights into how content is used and help automate categorization and/or classification processes. Automated categorization reduces the end user’s burden of tagging or assigning metadata; automated classification applies security markers based on content. While only 25% of ECM decision-makers use analytics or automated categorization in a production environment today, a further 25% plan adoption in 2017, and 38% report interest although they have no firm adoption plans. Content types that are rich in metadata, such as email, digital photographs, or indexed images, provide the best opportunity for accurate automation.

Document management: to capture, securely share, revise, and review documents — the core of ECM. ECM aggregates groups of related documents into virtual folders or via dynamic queries. Document management allows enterprises to transition away from inconsistently managed file shares and unsanctioned file-sharing sites toward a searchable, sharable library of business content. Key capabilities include integration with authoring or capture tools; business rules for version control; access controls for edit, sharing, or deletion rights; and categorization with folder structures, metadata, or tags.

Records management: to track documents with predetermined lifespans set by laws, regulations, or internal policies. Key capabilities include identifying and preserving content for compliance or historical purposes. Regulated industries and government may have specific definitions for what content constitutes a “record.” Records management also tracks physical items, including boxes or storage media; extends metadata to describe retention schedules; cites laws or regulations for policy definition; marks items subject to legal hold; and establishes business rules for long-term preservation or destruction.

eDiscovery: to identify, preserve, review, and produce content for external parties as a result of legal, regulatory, or internal investigations. eDiscovery can be costly and time consuming for companies in litigious or closely regulated industries that neglect their enterprise content management strategy. Key capabilities include search, content analytics, legal hold management, collection, and document review tools.

Figure: Business Content Drives The Day-To-Day Workplace Experience with Business Workflows

Application or form processing is often seen as a back-office function, but accurate capture and retrieval and secure management of this content helps improve customer service and satisfaction. Many companies extract this data and mine customer interactions to find patterns and trends in what clients do in order to predict how they might behave in the future. Core transactional capabilities include:

Electronic forms: to initiate processes based on data that has been entered manually or extracted from documents via optical character recognition. Workflow technologies,

BPM, and capture products — including mobile apps — often include e-form capabilities and may present forms to users in web or mobile formats. Key capabilities include form design tools, integrations with e-signature and workflow tools, and rules-based data validation.

Multichannel capture: to scan, index, clean up, and extract data and to export information for application-specific use cases like invoice processing. Capture technologies are a natural complement to foundational ECM capabilities. Capture extends beyond paper, with new inputs for digital photos, video, and audio via mobile devices. Capture platforms are incorporating advanced analytics, machine learning, BPM, and case management capabilities, opening the door for intelligent applications to onboard new customers digitally and reduce reliance on slow, manual activities.

BI & Reporting: to measure results and deliver dashboards for ECM applications. Reports can be ad hoc or scheduled to show document usage statistics, identify items ready for disposition, or reveal bottlenecks in a process. Many ECM vendors include business intelligence (BI) capabilities in their core offerings or via an optional module. Firms can often access ECM systems with documented data schemas via BI tools they already use in-house.

Adhering to good information governance

Incomplete drafts, duplicate documents, and obsolete data, need disposal according to retention policies as the implication of using bad data for decisions are quite damaging.

Adhering to privacy and data protection laws builds customer trust. Meeting requirements to secure personally identifiable or other confidential data gratifies customers, patients, and citizens as well as privacy officers. Breaches and leaks can do significant reputational harm and result in lost business or fines. In Forrester’s Global Business Security Survey, 2016, 57% of the security professionals surveyed considered safeguarding customer privacy as key for their business

Process or workflow management technologies can ensure consistency of content or data usage, track approvals, and provide evidence of accountability necessary for meeting many regulatory compliance requirements.

Classification and categorization technologies and engines can flag data or content that needs to be marked as confidential or that cannot be distributed (for example, an email containing a credit card number or a scanned health record with a patient ID number). Categorization technologies can help identify and organize large volumes of documents, often as part of migration or ingestion into a managed repository.

Technologies to manage metadata, help automate classification, and/or categorize content can be essential when the sources of content are diverse but require consistent organization. Tools can help build taxonomies that support multiple content repositories or allow import and export of business classification schemes across systems.

Discovery, search, and analytics technologies that help in finding, synthesizing, and delivering information to business users for better decision-making is core to the search and discovery use case. Technologies optimized for the high volumes of information discovery necessary for legal or investigative use cases can be used more broadly for business benefit and when analyzing large collections.

Data loss prevention and monitoring tools for enterprises that hold sensitive information often deploy proactive monitoring technologies to ensure that restricted content is not emailed or shared. Similarly, monitoring tools can be configured to notify security or compliance officers of outlier behavior, such as downloading higher-than-normal volumes of documents.

ECM solutions must be easier to deploy and consume. Software-as-a-service and managed services offerings relieve the burden of managing complex technical infrastructure, and as a result, more of the key ECM roles report into the lines of business. SMEs in areas such as process optimization, customer experience, or compliance obligations will report into a variety of business functions.

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SHAMIT BAGCHI

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