1. ORMS NewsFlash
V o l u m e 2 , I s s u e 5 M a y 1 6 , 2 0 1 2
Highlights
ORMS & Synergy Data Center
Ribbon Cutting Celebration
 ORMS and
On Friday, May 4th, Secretary of State Kate Brown,
Synergy Data
Center Ribbon
State Archivist Mary Beth Herkert, CIO Julie Pearson-
Cutting Ruthven, and Connor Edmonds, celebrated the Oregon
Celebration Records Management Solution (ORMS) public-private
partnership between Chaves Consulting, Inc. (CCI) and
 How ORMS
the State at a ribbon cutting ceremony in Baker City,
SaaS per User
Billing Works Oregon. The ceremony took place at the Synergy Data
Center which is the site where the project’s data is
being stored. Following the ceremony, Mary Beth and From left to right, Richard Chaves, Kathleen
Connor demonstrated ORMS’ HP TRIM based solution
Chaves, SoS Kate Brown, Julie Ruthven-
with representatives from Eastern Oregon cities and
counties in attendance. Pearson, Connor Edmonds, Mary Beth Herkert
and Venkat Subramanian.
Chaves Consulting's Founder and President Richard
Chaves and CEO Kathleen Chaves hosted the ribbon cutting and demonstration. They spoke to the
public and private guests in attendance, sharing that this SaaS (Software as a Service) model pro-
Inside this ject is the first of its kind in the country, where private business (CCI & Arikkan, Inc.) have paid all
issue: the up-front costs of providing the solution to be used by public entities (Oregon State, County and
City Governmental Agencies), paid for on a cost per user per month basis. Secretary of State Brown
commented, “This partnership epitomizes what’s best about Oregon,” adding that “Oregon is rock-
ORMS and 1
Synergy Ribbon ing the nation in records management".
Cutting
Celebration The Tier 3+ Synergy Data Center, which hosts the project, began operation in November of 2010. It
How ORMS 1 boasts the “most current technology available”, said one of Synergy’s partners, Venkat Subrama-
SaaS per User nian, CEO of Arikkan, Inc. The other two Synergy partners include Sace, Inc. of Bend, Oregon, and
Billing Works Chaves Consulting, Inc., Managing General Partner. Synergy’s client list includes government agen-
How ORMS 2 cies from around the country as well as private sector customers.
SaaS per User
Billing Works
(cont’d)
How ORMS SaaS per User Billing Works
Pilot Group 2
Conference Call Why does the Oregon Records Management Solution (ORMS) project bill agencies for a minimum
How ORMS 3 number of users per month, even if all users have not completed training and begun storing records
SaaS per User at Synergy Data Center?
Billing Works
(cont’d)
The ORMS cost structure is a Software as a Service (SaaS) model. The primary advantage of a SaaS
Questions— 3 model is that the customer agency avoids all upfront costs as well as ongoing hardware and soft-
Contact the
Support Desk ware upgrades costs, which are thousands of dollars, to keep the systems running smoothly. All
these costs and more are paid by the State’s contracted provider. (continued on pages 2 & 3)

2. Page 2Page 2
How ORMS SaaS per User Billing Works continued from page 1
User Fees Substantially Lower than Other Options
ORMS user fees are substantially lower than public agencies would pay for HP TRIM services, if they invested in
upfront infrastructure and licenses. In the old stand-alone model each agency might spend over a million dol-
lars to buy their own servers, employ highly skilled IT managers to implement and maintain them and perform
ongoing software and hardware upgrades. Also, Oregon’s cost per user is significantly less than other states.
According to State Archivist Mary Beth Herkert, one mid-western state pays over $100/month per user (67%
more than the $37.02 ORMS users pay per month). ORMS’ cost per user drops as the total number of users in
the State goes up. When the total number of users reaches 20,000, the cost per user will stabilize at $10.54 per
user per month. Also the first 5,000 users in Pilot agencies begin receiving a rebate when the total number of
users exceeds 20,000.
The cost in 2008 – 2009 to the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office (SoS) for the stand alone HP TRIM implementa-
tion and software licenses was close to $600,000 for its 220 users. This does not include costs for the hardware
and infrastructure (servers, networking, IT expertise and licensing) to host the application, store the data or on-
going maintenance costs. Cost comparisons between stand alone and SaaS implementations have been docu-
mented by the SoS and shared with ORMS participants. If you would like a copy, please contact the ORMS Sup-
port Desk.
Monthly ORMS billings are based on the initial number of users each agency committed to in the Subscription
Services/ Service Level Agreement (SLA) between that agency and the contracted service provider Chaves Con-
sulting, Inc. (CCI). This is standard practice in a SaaS model offering.
Based on the number of initial users in the SLA, CCI purchased HP TRIM Software Licenses, set aside the required
disk storage space and bandwidth in Synergy Data Center and incurred other hardware, software and staffing
expenses. Because of these expenditures, neither CCI nor the State can reduce the billing below the initial num-
ber of users an agency committed to in the SLA.
Getting Employees to Use ORMS a Management Issue, Not a SaaS Issue
Mary Beth Herkert compares ORMS to buying a house. If you purchase a home, you take possession on a certain
date. Even if you don’t move in for another month or two, you are still obligated to pay the mortgage.
Getting employees to use the system is really a management issue. Once a SaaS is entered into, it is up to lead-
ership of the participating organization to make using the service an expected business process. The upfront
work and education is provided, but it is up to the end users to use the application. (continued on page 3)
13th ORMS Pilot Group Conference Call
Monday, June 11th, 2012 @ 10:00—10:30 a.m.
ORMS NewsFlash

3. Page 3Page 3
How ORMS SaaS per User Billing Works continued from page 2
Alternatives Pose Risks, Increase Costs
What are the alternatives? The manual process for managing electronic records for retention and disposition is
extremely difficult, costly and time consuming. As a result, non-compliance with retention schedules is costing
Oregon agencies millions of dollars in litigation costs (e.g., a $2.5 million case against a State agency, and an ap-
proximately $1 million case against a City) and in storage costs (costs of purchasing, managing, maintaining and
servicing the multitude of computer file servers used by agencies to maintain public records that have met their
authorized retention period but continue to be kept).
When an agency implements ORMS, the SoS Archives
Division provides expert records retention schedules,
record types, and folders for the agency, and trains the
agency’s Power and End Users. CCI works with the
agency to understand its network and establish secure
connection to the Synergy Data Center where records
are stored. The agency has full use of ORMS and HP
TRIM services for electronics records management, as
well as 24 x 7 ORMS Support and data center storage
services. All of this capacity is at the agency’s disposal
(and all provider costs incurred), whether all agency
Connor Edmonds and Mary Beth Herkert
users are using ORMS’ HP TRIM or not.
demonstrating ORMS and HP TRIM in Baker City.
ORMS provides Department of Defense (DoD) 5015.2 certified HP TRIM Electronic Records Management System
to manage all of the agencies’ public records using one of the nation’s first state-wide private clouds. It includes
SoS Archives’ Division developing and customizing classifications that carry all legally compliant retention, dispo-
sition and access rules so that the end user would not have to make these decisions. Each user of the agency’s
computer network can file public records (including e-mail messages classified as public records) by simply
“dragging and dropping” records into a folder that has been classified.
This process allows ORMS to manage the records throughout their scheduled life cycle (creation through final
disposition), with minimal end-user intervention. In addition, because the public records are being managed in a
manner that is systematic and routine, and in a single system, public records requests which used to take days to
fulfill are can now be done in minutes.
Do you have questions related to ORMS and HP TRIM?
Contact the ORMS Support Desk!
Please call the ORMS Support Desk at Chaves Consulting for assistance.
1-888-354-2006 or ormssupport@chavesconsulting. com
ORMS NewsFlash