Customer Story | Meals on Wheels SA centralises IT to realise $50,000 cost saving

Meals on Wheels SA centralises its IT environment to better coordinate thousands of daily deliveries

Almost everyone has heard of Meals on Wheels. It was first formed in South Australia (SA), in 1954. Founder Doris Taylor MBE, wheelchair-bound from an accident as a teen, empathised with the challenges of those returning home from the hospital. She noted, in the elderly in particular, that they had trouble shopping and preparing meals for themselves, often depriving them of the ability to live independently.  Meals on Wheels was her remedy. Nearly seventy years on, more than 50 million meals have made their way into SA homes. The organisation is currently providing 4,300 meals per day to customers across the state.

 Key Challenges

• The state-wide operation included a vast degree of variation among branches

• There was no single payments system and accounting was resource-intense

• COVID-19 caused a surge in demand that could only be met by a centralised model

In every other Australian state, Meals on Wheels operates as several independent entities. However, Meals on Wheels SA is a state-wide association with 80 branches. Some were established under the state-wide model, while others were independent organisations incorporated into the association - the latter managed their own affairs, with committees, treasurers, bank accounts and chequebooks. Add to this that many pre-dated the internet, set up without the benefit of computerised systems, and you get an idea of the variation within the Meals on Wheels model.

Even so, it’s a model that has served the community well for 50 years. Testimony to its success is the tenure of its volunteers. Among seven thousand volunteers, the average age is 75. David Smith, Executive Manager, Corporate Services for Meal on Wheels, recalls the first time he attended an annual award ceremony recognising long term volunteers; “There were 40 people who had been volunteering for 40 years,” he says. 

COVID-19 caused a surge in demand

When COVID-19 arrived in early 2020, hitting Australian businesses hard, Meals on Wheels wasn’t one of them. “Quite the opposite,” Smith says. A surge in demand for meal services presented the organisation with the challenge of meeting it with maximum efficiency.

Growing fast in a controlled way required digitising and automating financial processes. It also called for complete compliance with Work health and safety (WHS) standards which view volunteers as employees, governed by the same safety rules. This includes 75 to 90-year-old volunteers who'd never had to think about them before during their working lives. “They've always stood on a ladder on top of a table to change a light bulb, so why would they not do it now?” says Smith. 

Finally, the model needed to flexibly accommodate digital and non-digital interaction. Any assumption that in time everyone will become comfortable with internet-based services doesn’t take into consideration the aging population. “Just because you are computer literate now, it doesn't mean that when you're 85 or 90 you're somehow going to be magically better. And so this market for people who are getting older, and some of their capacities have diminished, they're always going to need a meal delivered to their house,” says Smith.

Meals on Wheels SA contacted Advance Business Consulting to help them cut through these requirements to arrive at a system that would allow them to grow securely with a fraction of the effort while getting more from their technology and data.

The challenge of connecting everyone

Creating a common organisational infrastructure was a priority. But not every branch had a physical office to call their own, and a few smaller branches had been relying on their own computers to log into Meals on Wheels. Smith leaned on Advance’s consultancy services to design an infrastructure capable of accommodating what Smith refers to as the “lowest common denominator of what you need a computer to be.” In this way, it would be embraced by everyone, regardless of their circumstance.

Security was top of mind. “If you have to put a secure internet connection in a branch and a managed computer, and that computer is only going to be used for one hour, twice a week, it's quite a big investment for a very small use case. Also, you don't know who's going to be using it. It might be 20 different people in a branch,” says Smith, who looked to Advance to propose the most viable security strategy.

Opportunity to streamline payments processes

Digitising and automating payments within one simple payment system was identified as an excellent way to inject efficiency into operations. In the past, Central Office would invoice the branches for meals delivered, and reimburse costs incurred by them. If those costs had been incurred directly by Central Office and not the branch, which sometimes happened, another invoice would be issued for the money to be returned. A reconciliation was completed every three months on a simple electronic cash book, to check the accuracy and retrieve surplus funds advanced but not used. There was also an exercise of distributing funds from more profitable branches to those who needed “propping up” to ensure equity across the model. Accounting in this way took time and resources that Meals on Wheels decided it would prefer to apply to service excellence.

Solutions:

• Advance standardised how branches connected to Central Office

• World-class security was built in via VPN enabled teleworker devices

• M-Files automated important processes like payments and reimbursements

One simple means of connecting

Advance migrated Meals on Wheels from Telstra 4g connections to a Cisco Meraki SD-WAN with Teleworker VPN, which has proven to be incredibly successful. Teleworker devices are not carrier dependent, for one thing, which supports the association’s need for flexible connectivity, as well as delivering world-class security. In this model, secure corporate LAN connectivity is extended to employees at remote sites via Meraki APs (access points), without needing them to install VPN software on their devices themselves. It can all be done centrally, keeping things simple. 

Added security benefits are realised through Meals on Wheels’ ability to whitelist applications, making them unavailable to users on their devices, as well as best-in-class anti-virus software. This provides better protection from hackers. “Meals on Wheels is a very well-known name, which unfortunately makes us an obvious target for cybercrime,” says David.

A unified payment system

Improving the efficiency of the outgrown payment system began with eliminating the need for branches to pay their own invoices. “How do you get at branches to be able to effectively send invoices into Central Office if they want to send them by fax, which some still do?” says Smith. “But of course, that really just pushes the workload elsewhere.”

Advance suggested M-Files, a document management system for coordinating the right information to the right people at the right time. This immediately gave branches the ability to scan an invoice, sign to confirm goods had been received, and be paid automatically. Where branches don’t always have a reliable internet connection, M-Files helps with that too: “M-Files was great because we could actually fall back to a mobile phone to do the same thing,” says Smith. “And in a couple of cases we still do use the fax, but what it means is no longer needing branches to pay any bills”

Verifying and reimbursing drivers

Additionally, M-Files was set up to support driver reimbursement. Volunteers are paid a fee per delivery for their petrol and wear and tear. “They used to be paid in cash. The driver could take the money and if they didn't, it got flipped into a bucket and then banked as a donation,” says Smith. M-Files has automated the entire process with a workflow that lets Meals on Wheels collect a declaration from drivers with their bank account details for payment. Stored securely in M-Files, it can be centrally and accurately managed. 

“We realised while we're doing this, it would be useful to check that the person we're paying a driver reimbursement to is actually a volunteer,” says Smith, explaining that people used to get roped in to be a deliverer and stay for 10 years when they're not actually on the books. If they're not registered, it means they haven't had a police check. “Right through this process, we found little added gains from simply just trying to improve a process,” Smith says.

Compliance is much easier

Driver verification is one aspect of compliance, but it’s not the only one to benefit from the new technology-enabled operational model. Meals on Wheels can now issue communications on things like Work health and safety rules to employees and volunteers with minimum effort and feel confident they have been received.

Outcomes:

• Closing the branch bank accounts saves $50,000 per year

• New employees can be onboarded, from anywhere, in moments

• Centralised management of data drives compliance across 80 branches and 7000 volunteers

When you no longer need to pay for anything by cash or cheque, you don't need money. Meals on Wheels has been able to close all its bank accounts. This simple act is saving of $50,000 per year in bank fees and transaction costs. 

Security concerns are alleviated through central controls configured by Advance that let Meals on Wheels whitelist applications and prevent people from running programs that are not supposed to.

The project, which began pre-pandemic, turned out to be well-timed since it allowed Meals on Wheels to rapidly transition to a work-from-home strategy during COVID-19 restrictions with the Meraki teleworking devices. “When our staff had to work from home, it was a trivial matter to give them a network device with a SIM card in and connect them and get them working. It was an accidental benefit that really set us in good stead.”

Since kicking off its transformation, Meals on Wheels SA has gone from strength to strength, most recently introducing a new ERP system, Pronto, for dealing with manufacturing, and other important resources, with efficiency, and creating a host of web applications using low-code development tool Intrexx, provided by Advance.  

With the expansion of services no longer a heavy lift, the sky is the limit.

CONTACT US

For any further information regarding how Advance can help implement a successful digital process in your industry, get in touch with us here. We’re here to help!

KEY TECHNOLOGY PARTNERS

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Cyber Security | SD-WAN | Cisco Meraki

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Low-code development platform | Intrexx

ECM | 4 Reasons M-Files Is The Best ECM Tool Available

For a business to succeed, it needs to leverage the competitive advantages available to it.

That’s why your company needs the best ECM tool available on the market. When share this view with people at networking events or client meetings, they all have a similar response,

‘Our current ECM system is fine.’

You wouldn’t pay a premium for food that is just ‘fine’. You wouldn’t pay to see an entertainer where the reviews say they are ‘fine’.

So why would you settle for anything less than the best? Especially when there is a solution that is rich in functionality and competitively priced compared to its rivals?

Simple. We are more comfortable with the problems we know, rather than the solutions that the best can bring. Here’s why.

Why Businesses Stick With Bad Services

People are creatures of habit. They generally avoid making changes. If they have a problem, they get used to it and come up with a workaround they need to keep going.

Despite this, more companies switch to M-Files every day. Why? Because it is the best ECM tool on the market. But don’t just take our word for it.

Here are four reasons your company needs M-Files.

Industry analysts have also recognised the M-Files approach to intelligent information management, labelling it as “Visionary” in the Gartner 2017 Magic Quadrant for Content Services Platforms

4 Reasons M-Files Is The Best ECM Tool Available

What follows are the four integral things that set M-Files apart from the competition-no matter what your industry is.

Reason 1: M-Files Unifies Information

The biggest issue people face with ECM tools is they don’t unify the company’s information. They use outdated silos or overly complex storage systems that make it difficult to retrieve your documents when you need them.

M-Files does away with the gatekeepers traditional to ECM software, by unifying information across multiple platforms such as:

• Documentum
  

• Dropbox
  

• Box
  

• Microsoft Sharepoint
  

• Open Text

Reason 2: M-Files Has A Growing Network Of Responsive Partners

At a glance, this seems to be beneficial for the people promoting M-Files (like us) and not the user

The opposite is true.

M-Files is the best ECM tool available. That means it attracts only the highest quality partners.

When you engage with M-Files, you get access to a growing global list of partners who can help you integrate M-Files strategically to rapidly scale your business.

Reason 3: Seamless Integration With Microsoft Products

M-Files was smart. They recognised the business world’s dependency on Microsoft and developed an ECM software that integrated easily with it. M-FIles integrated with Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint and even Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

• Manage your Microsoft Office documents effectively – without changing the way you work.

• Make Microsoft SharePoint even better.

• Manage customers and their documents – No complex setups for Microsoft Dynamics CRM

That means you can quickly and easily add M-Files to your business without having to do complicated work arounds, bringing on extra IT staff, or wasting dozens of hours training your team to get started.

This is doubly important when using M-Files’ graphical workflow editor. You can easily and instantly set up different manual processes for office workflow-without having to learn convoluted systems!

Workflows facilitate routine tasks of the organisation, such as processing purchase invoices.

Reason 4: Adaptable Pricing Models Fit To Your Needs

Value and price aren’t the same thing-any good business knows that.

However, one thing M-Files recognised right away was that the blanket pricing model of traditional ECMs didn’t reflect the value of the price a company paid.

That is why M-Files has licensing options both for companies and offices that let you decide the level of engagement you need.

This is key. By opening access this way, M-Files makes sure you only pay for the value you need without trapping you in an overly large contract where you only use 10% of the services you pay for!

Talk With An M-Files Expert And Discover How To Rapidly Scale Your Business

M-Files is the best ECM tool available on the market. If you aren’t familiar with how our system works, or how your company can use ECM software's to rapidly scale your business, let’s talk.

Use the link below to schedule a quick call with one of our in-house experts. We can handle your questions, review your business, and outline how you can grow your business with M-Files.

ECM | Is Your Document Management Process Losing You Money?

How long does it take you to get the documents you want?

If you are like most businesses, you lose, on average, 2-4 hours a week rounding up everything you need.

You don’t want to lose time searching for the documents you need, but you don’t have a choice. Your current way of storing documents in folders, email or existing ECM software solution doesn’t match your needs.

Most ECM software manage information through a more traditional approach such as silos. At a glance this seems the right idea. It’s not, here’s why.

Why Traditional ECM Software Solutions Don’t Work

A lot of businesses buy into the sales pitch traditional ECM’s use.

And it makes sense.

You have a lot of content, so you organise it into different storage and business units (IE-Silos). Each unit holds a particular type of content, or project, or period of time’s worth of work.

When you need to recall that specific document, all you need to do to get it is go to the silo it is stored in and retrieve it.

This seems like a simple and easy to use content software solution. So why do so many companies lose money using it?

Simple.

Your company’s content isn’t static. Your company constantly has a demand for previous content. It could be for sales, research, comparison, updating systems - it doesn’t matter.

These needs won’t be met using a traditional static storage method. Eventually, you misplace or forget the silo type you stored the content in.

Or worse.

You need a document you haven’t used in a while, and you don’t remember when you first created it or what silo it’s stored in.

The Big Problem With Traditional ECM Solutions

For a business to succeed, it has to adjust and react to situations in real time.

If you are using a traditional ECM software solution, you can’t.

Using ECM solutions not catered to your needs means you are stuck manually searching each silo hoping to hit the right one the first time.

This can take hours, every one of those can lose you business. Even worse, you give up and re-do the document from scratch.

If you have a compliance requirement such as some of the Food Industry clients we work with, the consequences can be more severe.

What you need is a content software solution that can process large amounts of meta-data, combine content tagging with AI features, and offer access to the content you need both instantly in the office and the field.

The M-Files Go Anywhere Solution

There are three things about M-Files that make it attractive to growing businesses.

The first is how it uses metadata, the second is how it uses phrase/word tagging, and the third is the AI learning function built into the system. The approach is to store something based on what it is rather than where it is stored. This approach means you can retrieve the document and so can the next person, you are future proofing your business.

M-Files is a new ECM software solution designed to:

1: Meet the needs of businesses in real time - With M-Files software solution your company can access the data it needs instantly in real time, anywhere. That means no more gatekeepers and time wasted sifting through silos. Users can also roll back to older versions of files without needing to wait for IT.

2: Be accessible and easy to adopt instantly - We talked about this in the last post, but it is worth mentioning again. M-Files is easy to learn and easier to use. This is key. If your team doesn’t like the solution, they’ll resist it. With M-Files, you won’t experience resistance.

Do you want to save your company money, save time wasted searching for files, and for your team to be able to easily access the content they need from anywhere in real time?

M-Files can help.

Discover The ECM Software Solution Your Business Needs

M-Files is used by hundreds of thousands of happy M-Files users all over the world. However, you may have a specific question. We have an expert on staff to answer your questions, outline how the system could benefit your company.

See Why The Competition doesn’t stack up to M-Files

Interested in learning more about the insight and advantage to M-Files over other ECM software solutions?

Then you are going to want to check out the next article!

ECM | The 3 Reasons Why Clients Choose M-Files

Are you tired of traditional content management solutions slowing down your business?

Chances are you have finally decided there is a better way to manage your content or to pull the plug on your current content management system. You’ve lost time and possibly clients searching for documents you need in real time only to come up short.

So you start researching options only to grind to a halt when you realise how many options you have.

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Choice Paralysis

Do you know what choice paralysis is?

It’s a cognitive hiccup that transforms easy choices into difficult ones. It works by adding lots of options that overwhelm the decision making part of your brain. Your mind perceives the mass of options and freezes up.
 

There are nearly forty different ECM options available, and after about five minutes of reading, your eyes glaze over.

We get it. Most ECM sites are unreadable. Here’s why.

Why ECM Can Be Confusing

The ECM companies you want to review have websites that are complex and confusing. They are filled with walls of text crammed edge to edge with technical industry jargon.

The reason vendors do this is they want to promote every speed and feed but this can lead to data overwhelm. The ECM journey does not have to be this complex. 

We want you to make decisions with the right information about ECM systems.

That is why, to help you decide on the best option for your company, we collected the three most commonly praised things from our M-Files clients.

This way you can decide if the solutions our clients enjoy fit your company’s needs.

3 Reasons M-Files Is Right For Your Company: Praise Direct From Users’ Mouth

Before we start, we should disclose that we sell and implement M-Files and we have been using it internally for nearly a decade. We are one of the early adopters in Australia and we had the same issues and frustrations as many companies face today.

These are some of the challenges we experienced

• Documents stored in many different places / silos

• Difficult and slow to find the document we needed

• Duplicated documents

• Difficult to recover documents without restoring from backups

• Manual processes

• No version control / Different versions of the same document

• Employees found it hard to collaborate on projects

There are a lot of ECM options available and we've used and implemented quite a few of them. Despite that, we only promote and help clients implement just one. Why?

Because M-Files is the most business friendly option available. To help you understand this claim we have included the top 3-reasons that cause our clients to rave about the software.

Reason 1: M-Files Is Easy To Adopt Due To An Easy To Use And Familiar Interface

Most ECM’s have difficult to learn interfaces. M-Files doesn’t. Actually, M-Files has great user adoption rates because it looks like your current system. Users don't feel like they have to learn another new tool to use. Below is an example of an M-Files vault, it looks like a regular networked drive. 

Another benefit is M-Files enables finding, accessing and managing information residing virtually within any system, without disturbing existing processes and users. This means you don't have to rip and replace your existing systems. It integrates with popular software like Microsoft Office and Sharepoint. See just some of the integrations here.

This is important. Why?

Because when you introduce a new software, you experience resistance. People don’t like change. With M-Files they will. 

The interface is easy to use and intuitive. This means teams adopt it much faster and the benefits of being able to find the documents they need reinforces the positive user experience. 

Reason 2: M-Files Works Fast In Real Time

Imagine this.

Your team is out of the office and needs a document.

M-Files gives your employees instant access to everything they need from a mobile device or laptop. They can also make a document available offline if they don't have internet access.

This is powerful! Think about how much your clients will value seamless engagement in real time.

Reason 3: It Increases Efficiency 

You and your employees will no longer waste time looking for documents. This will save you time and improve efficiency. Read how a South Australian food manufacturer - Mitani improved efficiency, traceability and compliance.

One of the things that clients don’t expect but get excited about when they realise it’s included with M-Files is workflows. A common example is the Accounts Payable function. When an invoice is received by email it is automatically processed through M-Files, all of the invoice information such as customer and cost information is captured via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and the invoice is routed to the right person to approve. All of this is done automatically with transparency, an audit trail and notifications. Automating manual processes will make you more efficient and approvals can also be done on the go via mobile devices, so no more waiting.

The best part about M-Files is that these three reasons to use it only skim the surface of everything that sets it apart from the competition.

Recommended by Industry Analysts

Industry analysts have also recognised the M-Files approach to intelligent information management.

• “Visionary” in the Gartner 2017 Magic Quadrant for Content Services Platforms

• “Leader” in the Forrester Wave: Enterprise Content Services, Q2 2017

• “Leader” in the Nucleus Research ECM Technology Value Matrix 20

But don’t take our word for it. Schedule a call with one of our experts. They can answer your questions live and share real life examples of how M-Files has helped companies become more efficient.

Schedule My FREE Call Today - Click here

Do You Know Your Current Content Management System Is Losing You Money?

Worried that this is the case?

If you use a traditional content management system, then you are going to want to read the next article. It covers everything about how your current systems are losing you money.
 

M-Files 2018 – New Features and Enhancements Summary

Intelligent Metadata Layer

This is the latest enhancement from M-Files where it doesn’t matter where a document is stored or what system manages it, M-Files will provide easy access to it through their user interfaces and allow metadata to be edited and added. This is done with the aid of intelligence services that add a layer of artificial intelligence to M-Files.

Note that a license and setup is required (it doesn’t just happen out of the box)

IML External Connectors

Allows end users to use any M-Files interface to search, browse, edit, and add metadata to content located in repositories other than vaults by means of special vault applications known as connectors.

The image on the right shows install files stored in a file share being accessed via the M-Files interface. Video

5 Considerations For Choosing An Enterprise Content Management (ECM) System

Within the industry, it is known that when an organisation fails to research their needs for an ECM system that there is a good chance that the project will fail, or the resulting implementation will leave a lot to be desired.

Therefore, the most cost-effective step you can take when purchasing and implementing an ECM system is to not rush through the process of choosing your supplier. This is assuming that you have identified a need for an ECM system in the first place, and that your employees are invested in an ECM solution.

To ensure that your ECM implementation will be a success, here are five points that you should consider:

1. Requirements Gathering 

It is imperative to start with finding out what your needs are, and how they will be addressed by your potential ECM solutions. You must gather feedback from all areas of the business who will be using the system. As ECM is a huge product category, and ECM suppliers provide a very wide variety of products and product features, it is vital to define and understand what functionality is required before moving further.

2. Supplier Selection

It can take a considerable amount of time to research a supplier, the customers they have and whether they “fit” your company, but it must be done to give your ECM implementation the greatest chance of success. Important questions to ask every potential supplier should include:

• What type of training and support do they provide?
• What technology platform do they use and how scalable is it?
• What do they know about your industry and potential problems within that industry?
• Do they have success stories and testimonials from other clients?

3. Post-Implementation Support 

It is important that after installation and configuration, that post implementation support is available, and you know the cost for that support. Ensure that you feel comfortable with the technical staff who will be providing that support.

4. Flexible Deployment Options 

Many ECM systems can be run on-premise or in the cloud, with different methods of accessing each. In the future you may need to setup users with different configurations, to adjust to the needs of your business. This includes flexible licensing options, which may allow for greater customisation in the long run.

5. Integration with Third Party Applications 

It is important to ensure that your solution can be integrated with any third-party apps or data that you currently use. Miss out on this step and you may end up having to take more steps to accommodate for those apps, resulting in more work for users.

When choosing an Enterprise Content Management solution, ensure that you cover all the above points. There are other things to consider of course – as each organisation has different needs. Choosing a solution that doesn’t meet the needs of your organisation could be costly, so invest time and money in clearly defining your needs and selecting suitable partners.

To learn more about Electronic Content Management, don't hesitate to speak to one of our team members by contacting us below.

M-Files Artificial Intelligence now makes Metadata Suggestions

M-File’s next release will include some powerful artificial intelligence services to help end users with metadata suggestions.

I mentioned in another article that the power behind IML’s ‘Intelligence Components’ comes from the integration of Abbyy’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies into M-Files. Based on textual content capture and OCR these AI technologies interpret text using algorithms that analyse the meaning of the words and the relationships between them allowing real time classification of complex and unstructured data.

Even though it sounds complex, it couldn’t be simpler for the end user. Drag a document into the vault and you’re presented with ‘tags’ or ‘suggestions’ that you can click on to populate the metadata fields. The ‘tags’ are based on information in the document that matches metadata already in the vault. For example, your vault may have a list of suppliers stored as metadata to use when adding invoices. When AI reads the invoice, because it matches the supplier name with the one stored as metadata in your vault, a tag is created as a suggestion for you. All you need to do is click on it to add it as metadata, much faster, easier and more accurate than clicking in the field and typing the name to select it.

It doesn’t stop there either; AI based metadata tags can be invoked on existing documents when a property is changed. This is especially useful for business processes where metadata is added or changed along the way in a workflow. Going back to our invoice example, the initial metadata suggested when added didn’t include a description as this is to be populated by the person approving it.

If you want to know more about how to setup M-Files Intelligence Service to make suggestions when adding documents or when a property is changed, please contact us.

Artificial Intelligence for a Repository Neutral ECM

Artificial Intelligence for a Repository Neutral ECM

On a recent trip to California I discovered how convenient instant access to information from Google Assistant on my Pixel phone was to help make decisions in a place I was completely unfamiliar with. While navigating to the next stop I could ask for ‘places to eat’, ‘gas stations’ or ‘tourist stops’ and have suggestions, from data scattered all over the web, presented in real-time in Google Maps. Imagine if your ECM could do the same and present information and search results from all the different systems and repositories in your organisation in one simple familiar interface.

For this to work the ECM would need a common interface that connects to your CRM , Accounting System, shared network drives, file syncing services like Dropbox and OneDrive, e-mails and SharePoint as well as some way of reading all the content in those repositories and intelligently storing metadata to allow you to search on it. Combine the ability to add your own metadata to those items while preserving the content from its original repository so it doesn’t stop its use in the original system and you would have a very user friendly, ‘Repository Neutral ECM’ where the context is more important than where something is stored.

The figure on the right provides an overview of the ‘Repository Neutral ECM’ architecture that M-Files will release later this year with a vision that ‘Context is King’

The ‘Unified User Experience Layer’ is the ‘simple user interface’ that provides a single familiar user interface to interact with information regardless of the original repository. Think of it as Google Maps. This includes simple user access from any device including mobile apps for phones and tablets in addition to PCs. Just like Google Assistant’s ability to present outside information in Google Maps by simply asking, having a simple user interface means the user doesn’t need to learn other systems to be able to find relevant content in them and they can add their own metadata without stopping it from continuing to be used in the original system.

The ‘Multi—Repository Backend’ connects with the organisations repositories and systems via ‘connectors’ that include a set of core ‘out of the box’ connectors for repositories like network file shares, Office 365 and SharePoint, but also allow third-parties to develop connectors for other repositories and systems. This allows organisations to preserve legacy systems and avoid expensive integrations or migrations to new systems just to add functionality.

The ‘Intelligent Metadata Layer’ (IML) contains the intelligence components and multi-repository search along with the typical capabilities of an ECM such as search, dynamic views, workflow, security, version control and check-in/check-out. The intelligence components support automatic classification and metadata suggestions using text analytics. Like the Multi-Repository connectors, third-parties can add ‘metadata providers’ for specific industries or use cases. Along with text analytics, this layer includes machine learning to help improve suggestions based on user behaviour.

The power behind IML’s ‘Intelligence Components’ comes from the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) from Abbyy into M-Files. Abbyy produces Artificial Intelligence technologies based on textual content capture and OCR. This AI technology allows text to be understood and interpreted based on its content using algorithms that analyse the meaning of the words and the relationships between them. This allows accurate classification of complex and unstructured data in real time.

It’s exciting to see this automatic classification and metadata tagging in action, drag and drop a document into M-Files and you’re presented with ‘tags’ or ‘suggestions’ that you can click on to populate the metadata fields. Similar to how Google Assistant effortlessly presents pins on Google Maps of suggestions from your request on ‘places to eat on my route’.

The ‘tags’ are based on the content of the document being passed through the Intelligence Services in IML and returning matches. If you don’t like the suggestion you can still select metadata as you would in the past and the AI learns from your behaviour. This technology will improve the efficiency and accuracy of data typically entered by humans as the suggestions help you make the right selection.

The benefits of IML don’t stop at metadata suggestions, there’s also the External Connectors to other repositories. We’ve all used Windows folder search and most likely found it painful at the best of times, especially if it’s a network share. This is where IML’s External Connectors can help, because the content is indexed by the ‘Connector’ you can use M-Files powerful search feature to quickly locate a file based on its content rather than where you think it might be stored. It’s lightning fast and allows you to add your own metadata to any object from any repository to help you manage your information better. Having a connector for every repository in your organisation is a powerful concept that is difficult to ignore.

The Intelligent Metadata Layer allows organisations to have a true Repository Neutral ECM by providing Intelligent Services and External Connectors that present information from all the different systems and repositories in a single simple to use interface. It allows them to keep their legacy systems and avoid expensive integrations and migrations while providing simple efficient access. If you’d like to find out more on M-Files and how the Intelligent Metadata Layer can help your organisation, please contact us.

 Read my blog on 5 Things to Consider when Preparing for a Respository Neutral ECM.

5 Things to Consider When Preparing for a Repository Neutral ECM

1. Business Requirements

Establish the business requirements as a clear goal for your project and speak to all the departments across all locations and facilities in the organisation to get an indication on how many employees need access. One of my early projects during business requirements discovery the number of employees needing access increased to 115 from an initial 15 and fortunately the architecture scaled easily for the multi-site distribution of employees.

Be very clear about what you are trying to solve with each requirement and ensure that each stakeholder has had a chance to provide their list of requirements. At a recent project, it became apparent one of the biggest issues a majority of employees were having was needing information locked in a system they had no access to. This led to either using inaccurate or out of date information, or using inefficient methods to access the information through someone with a license. Management hadn’t provided access because the licenses were considered expensive and weren’t aware of the impact the work around methods were having on the organisation.

Prioritise the requirements with your project team and base the order on importance, technical complexity, risk and cost to implement. At a project where we were asked to provide a solution to standardise the handling of proprietary formulas within an organisation, several steps leading up to the conception of these formulas needed to be in place prior to work starting on the actual formulas themselves.

2. Current Information Locations

Identify all existing locations where information is stored including documents in file shares and file syncing services like Dropbox and OneDrive, databases including financial, service & CRM information and portals. A quick way to get a concise list is to ask finance for details on the software subscriptions and maintenance they pay or have paid in the past.

Establish the current and annual volume increase as well as types of information stored e.g Proposals, Invoices, Drawings, Customer Service Tickets etc… Modern ECMs like M-Files utilise compression and binary delta algorithms to efficiently store versions of documents, so your annual volume increase for migrated repositories will be considerably less. The site admin at one of my projects stated that after moving to M-Files where the chance of duplication and multiple versions of files was essentially wiped out, they went from network share storage increasing by 1TB per year to the M-Files vault only increasing by 50GB per year.

Determine which of these repositories need to remain in operation and which could be migrated into your ECM and be retired. We usually migrate things like legacy access databases that perform simple tasks like providing unique identifiers (e.g. batch numbers) to the ECM so it then provides the batch number as part of a workflow. You may have situations where it’s critical to preserve a legacy repository like a customer portal that allows service tickets to be raised. Its content can still be made available in the ECM for search capabilities and other purposes while its original functionality is preserved.

3. Security Requirements

Review the current levels of security within each repository that that will be accessed via the ECM and map them to one of the scenarios in the table below. The credentials used to access the external repository will be determined by the type of access specified for the connection. As an example, providing public access to Supplier and Customer lists may be necessary for all users in the ECM as this information is useful as metadata for other objects, whereas you may want to limit access to project related data to only the people in the project team. We often provide ‘metadata-driven’ permissions on project based data by including ‘project team’ metadata with the project so security access can be easily managed by the client.

The scenarios to consider when providing access to a repository via an ECM can be split into several categories:

Public

A common authentication is used to connect to the external repository, the ECM then controls access to the content via its internal security e.g Public Network Share

Public with Varying Permissions

Users and groups in the ECM are mapped to users and groups in the external repository to control access to specific content e.g Network Share with ACL restrictions to certain groups

User-Specific

The external repository dictates access rights requiring the ECM users to log into the repository with their own credentials e.g. SharePoint

4. Hosting Requirements

Determine if the system will be hosted on-premise, in the cloud or a hybrid to enable planning for hardware, review of service agreements with cloud providers or both. We’ve found to avoid delay in starting projects, development can be done on cloud servers during the process of hardware procurement and deployment, and then transferred once the on-premise environment is ready. It’s also quick and very easy to change cloud server specs to increase performance if needed.

Use the current volume plus expected annual volume increase values (from step 2) to determine what sort of backend the ECM requires as well as to establish storage and backup requirements. M-Files recommend using the embedded database option (Firebird) up to 50,000 objects and Microsoft SQL Server once that has been exceeded. If using Microsoft SQL Server, you also have the option of storing the file data within the database or as separate files. There are pros and cons that I’ll go through in another blog.

Size the hardware based on the number of employees and volume of data to be stored (from step 2), use the business requirements (from step 1) to help. Identify how connection will be made to each external repository (local or cloud) so connectivity can be determined either directly or whether a VPN is required. Where connectivity is difficult, it may be feasible to maintain a local copy that’s refreshed periodically or use technology that provides these capabilities.

5. Access Requirements

Establish the landscape for how employees will access the ECM keeping in mind it will become the central point to reference the connected external repositories. Most ECMs support access through Windows Desktop clients, Web Access and Mobile clients. If the ECM will be available externally, securing access via SSL or VPN is critical. On most of our M-Files deployments, our clients not only want access to M-Files via their mobile phone, but also on their laptops from anywhere! We use their SSL certificate (required for mobile access) and setup what’s called ‘HTTP over RPC’ so their M-Files Desktop Client connects securely whenever an internet connection is present. If you want to know more about setting up HTTP over RPC for M-Files, contact us.

Some ECMs support replication strategies where servers can be hosted in multiple locations and cache or replicate from a central location to provide efficient access to information. We’ve delivered successful projects where M-Files outperformed SharePoint when deployed to a customer’s remote locations as ‘cache’ servers that connect back to the main M-Files server via hardware based VPNs over 3G links. Consideration needs to be given to the technologies available to help meet access requirements.

For more information on M-Files contact us