Going Folderless with Metadata for a Superior Approach to ECM

Going Folderless with Metadata for a
Superior Approach to ECM
Greg Milliken
President, M-Files Inc.
www.m-files.com

METADATA-POWERED INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
What Does Going "Folderless" with Metadata Mean?
Organizing and managing documents and
other information by…
rather than"What" it is
Proposal
"Where" it is stored

A Simple Example: What is it?
It's easy to describe…
 Wrench
 Combination wrench
 7/8" combination wrench

But where is it stored?
If you plan and organize meticulously,
maybe your toolbox looks like this:
But often it looks more like this,
especially after frequent use:
What if you need to work at another location?
Buy another tool, or take it from the main box.
Even if you're organized, how do you ensure
others don’t create the chaos shown above?

Another Example: Where's Waldo?
He's really hard to
find in the chaos…

So Where Is Waldo?
► Red-and-white-striped shirt
► Bobble hat
► Glasses
► Brown hair
► Skinny
► Sometimes carries a cane
He's hard to find, but very easy to describe…precisely

Take the iPhone… Music on the iPhone doesn't
get put it in a music folder.
The device just knows it's
music, and it shows up where
and when it's needed, by
song, artist, album, genre,
decade, playlist, etc.

With Folders It's Not So Easy…Where Is It?
• Quotation for Architectural Planning
• ESTT Corporation
• Hospital Expansion Project
• 01-01-2012 v11 FINAL.doc
Y:
ADMINISTRATION
PROJECT
CUSTOMER
PRODUCT
AGREEMENT
AGREEMENT
QUOTATION
QUOTATION
QUOTATIONS
AGREEMENTS
QUOTATION
AGREEMENT
Which folder?
All ECM systems today use folders, except for…

Paper Archives Network Folders
"Paperless Office?"
Business Intelligence
through Metadata
A Brief History of Document Management
Electronic Document
Management
1980 1990 2000 2010A long time ago…

1st Generation: Paper Archives
Challenges
 Inefficient, manual access to
information
 Archiving plans must/had to be
carefully designed and implemented
 Information reuse is/was difficult
 Slow processes
Paper Archives

► New possibilities
 Faster access to information
 Information reuse improved
► Challenges
 Finding information still a difficult
 70% of information still recreated
 Structure must be designed upfront
 Processes are slow and inefficient
 The amount of information has exploded:
- 1995: 35% of information electronic; 2005: 75%1
- Information volume grew by 650%1
- Redundancy rampant: up to 19 copies 2
1) Kevin Craine 2006: White Paper Office Printing - The final frontier of cost control
2) International Data Corporation (IDC) & Document Management Alliance (DMA)
Network Folders
"Paperless Office?"
2nd Generation: Electronic Archives/Network Folders

The Brief History of Folders
Xerox Alto, 1973
Basic Graphical
UI, Mouse, WYSIWYG, Networkin
g
Xerox PARC, 1971
"We
h a v e
a l w a y s
b e e n
s h a me l
e s s
a b o u t
s t e a l i
n g
g r e a t
i d e a s "
Apple Lisa, 1983
Graphical UI, the term
"folders" popularized
Apple Macintosh, 1984
Xerox Star, April 1981
Mouse, WYSIWYG,
"Desktop" with folders,

► Even more possibilities
 Indexing data for quicker searches
 Better control, improved processes & collaboration:
Controlled editing, automated workflows, notifications etc.
 Improved information reuse:
Smart templates, relationships between content
► Challenges
 "Mega-Trends" are changing business
- Internet, Cloud, Social, Big Data
- Flexibility and adaptability are critical for adapting and optimizing
 As Business Intelligence/Analytics increases in importance
- 80% of information is still in documents
- Only 20% in databases
1) Kevin Craine 2006: White Paper Office Printing - The final frontier of cost control
2) International Data Corporation (IDC) & Document Management Alliance (DMA)
Electronic Document
Management
Folder-based
vs
Metadata-driven
3rd Generation: Electronic Document Management

4th Generation: BI through Metadata
► New possibilities
 Documents and other content become an
information asset that leads the business
► Challenges
 BI/BA tools typically require structured data
- Documents are unstructured
- New technologies enable structuring unstructured data
 Collaboration
- Business processes are often customer-centric
- Processes must support subcontractors and partners
- Employees are mobile too
 Consumerization
- BYOD
- Mobile IT
Business Intelligence
through Metadata

Who is M-Files? 2012 Gartner Magic Quadrant for ECM
An emerging ECM vendor
focused on metadata-powered
information management
Comprehensive Use of
Metadata
 Navigation (and Search)
 Permissions
 Workflow
 Replication

What Gartner says about Metadata
► How Metadata Improves Business
Opportunities and Threats
(Gartner, March 2012 )
► “Metadata unlocks the value of data…
…it requires management attention.”
► “Failure to manage metadata properly will hamper
critical activities such as information
management, business process management and
service-oriented architecture (SOA) initiatives.”
► “Failure to manage metadata properly”… is bad.

What is Metadata?
Information about information
Proposal.docx
 Type or Class
- Proposal, quotation, invoice
 Customer
 Project
 Dates
- Created, Effective, Renewal
 Status
- In Review, Approved, etc.
 Retention period
Typical use case is simple tagging: it's helpful for search, but not much else.
M-Files uses metadata to "virtualize" content management

► Imagine a completely dynamic "virtual folder" structure
► Documents appear in all relevant "views" automatically
 Only one copy, so no duplication
Metadata-driven Navigation (aka Dynamic Views)
Document Metadata
NDA.docx

Metadata-driven, Multi-faceted Permissions
Permissions can be based on multiple properties and objects:
 Any information object, not just documents: Projects, Cases, Audits
 Employees can access only documents related to their BU & Dept.
 John sees the Chicago budget since he is in both the Chicago & Finance groups
Document Metadata:
Department = Finance
Business Unit = Chicago
Finance
Dept.
BillJohnMike
Chicago
AndyTina
New York

Metadata-driven "Partial" Replication
Project XYZ vault
in the cloud
Subcontractors
Company ABC
All documents on-premise
Employees
Only documents tagged to projects
automatically replicate to the
cloud-based project vault for
access by subcontractors
Only modified documents
replicate back to the
corporate vault
Modifications

Metadata-based replication of safety instructions and
non-conformance reports between ships at sea and HQ
All content resides at HQ
Critical content includes safety instructions
Satellite links
• Can be slow
• Often lose connectivity
Non-conformance reports generated at sea
• NCRs can be created any time (even offline)
• Must be sent to HQ timely

Metadata-based replication of
safety instructions and
non-conformance reports
between ships at sea and HQ
non-conformance reports
safety instructions

Workflow and Business Intelligence/Analytics:
Leveraging Metadata to Draw Conclusions & Optimize
Metadata-driven Project Dashboard
Proposal Order Manual Invoice
Leveraging metadata
for a gap analysis of
workflow processes.
It's possible not only
to identify content
that exists, but also
content that should
exist but doesn't .

► Manually entered
► Semi-automated: Scanning with OCR
 Zonal
 Barcodes
► Automated:
 Text analytics
 Semantics
► Business Analytics
How is Metadata Defined?

A Short Recap
► Digitizing paper hasn't solved challenges
 Paper problems are now digital
► Information amount and complexity is increasing
 So the problem is rapidly growing
► Most businesses still rely on 1980s folders
► Metadata offers a better approach
 More precise and flexible: "what vs. where"
 Brings structure to unstructured content
► Structured information is good for BI/BA

M-Files Corporation
Email:
info@m-files.com
Web:
www.m-files.com
Phone:
North America: Europe:
800.224.4074 +358.3.3138.7500
972.516.4210

Going Folderless with Metadata for a Superior Approach to ECM

Recomendados

Recomendados

Mais conteúdo relacionado

Último

Último (20)

Destaque

Destaque (20)

Going Folderless with Metadata for a Superior Approach to ECM

Notas do Editor