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The evolution of document management

Next-generation system gives agencies greater flexibility with client data

By John Chivvis

“Insurance is all about files—looking at files, handling files, and putting things into files,” explains John Love, president and CEO of W.E. Love & Associates, CMGA, one of the nation’s largest transportation MGAs. “We [as an industry] have grown up with paper filing; we’re comfortable with it; we like it.”

The problem? For most agencies, implementing a document management system simply trades unwieldy paper files for unwieldy scanned files.

“Agencies are realizing that with the right technology, they can do much more with their client data,” explains Keith Aderhold, president and CEO of Blue Goose Technology Solutions, Inc.

Aderhold calls the solution “enterprise content management” (ECM) because it allows an agency to take control of scanned documents, faxes, e-mail, Word documents, photos, voice recordings, spreadsheets and client profiles—everything having to do with client data. For general agencies like Love & Associates or retail agencies like Mississippi-based SouthGroup Insurance Services, it starts with control of such basics as file structure and naming conventions.

“Having a file structure we can control makes it easier for us if we ever had to change management systems, for example,” says Cyndi Tullos, executive assistant for operations at SouthGroup. “If client information is attached and compressed to a customer file in our management system, it wouldn’t be ours anymore.”

“No one’s data or content should be held hostage,” says Aderhold matter-of-factly. “It’s a problem when vendors limit you to their viewer only. Today, flexibility and open architecture are paramount.”

In fact, in the Blue Goose offering—a browser-based application called iChannel—content and all files in the system are stored in their native format—not converted to a vendor-controlled format. iChannel is tightly integrated with industry-specific applications such as agency management systems and rating and policy issuance software, as well as more general software applications like Microsoft Office and Outlook.

“With iChannel, we can attach any document type to a customer file,” comments Ronnie Tubertini, president and CEO of SouthGroup. “For example, recently a large engineering client needed information. From their client file, we were able to pull up the Excel file they sent us, work on it, and send it back—the way they sent it to us originally.”

“It’s the same with e-mail,” says Aderhold. “When you save an e-mail into iChannel, you can go back and reply to that e-mail using Outlook, even though it is stored in iChannel.” iChannel’s customer relationship management (CRM) feature also keeps contacts synchronized with Outlook.

E-mail in iChannel is also text searchable. Aderhold adds that since e-mail has become such an important part of business today—quite possibly the most important component—the ability to archive and perform quick retrieval is a tremendous advantage.

Both Tubertini and Tullos liken the search capabilities of iChannel to doing a Google-like search of the entire content database with the ability to text search everything, including e-mails, faxes, Excel, Word, and so on. “Probably one of the biggest things for us is the content search,” Tullos remarks, “because even if we do misfile something, it’s really easy to find.”

In most agencies, “silos” exist for departments and/or branch offices where communication may be poor or nonexistent. There are also those office “black holes” where files get misplaced. “With iChannel, all data is in one central database the agency can control,” says Aderhold.

A taste of freedom

For Love & Associates, this is a freeing feeling. In a paperless workflow, “you don’t have to have all of the checks and balances you used to need for filing paper into customer files,” says Love. “You can route a document quickly—sometimes instantly—without the worry that it’s going to get stuck on a desk somewhere.”

Faxes and documents scanned on either the front or back end are converted to a smart PDF, instead of TIFF format. “There’s so much research being poured into the PDF file format,” says Aderhold, “but little to none into TIFF.” Aderhold says that PDFs are much more usable because of the numerous viewers available, the ability to merge documents, and better full-text search and editing capabilities. Along the same lines as the comparison of PDF to TIFF in usability is the shift in searching for content. Whereas most management and document systems limit search functions by title or file name, Blue Goose gives agents more control by building a search function around the content in the documents.

“We like to call it our ‘Never Lost Document Search’ because it is a full-text search,” Aderhold explains. The iChannel search feature lets users search by document title, customer name or policy number as well as keywords within the document.

Even though iChannel offers these advantages, Alderhold says, Blue Goose hasn’t forgotten the importance of security. “It’s completely integrated with our HIPAA, accounting and HR practices,” says Tullos. “We’re able to lock it down to the individual document if needed and still be able to grant necessary employees access to a whole file or category.”

For example, SouthGroup uses iChannel as a mechanism for central accounting. Each of its 18 branch offices files its own bills—utilities, rent, expenses—in iChannel, knowing that it will end up in the accounting queue. “We’re able to limit access to files branch to branch because we don’t want every branch office to be able to see the others’ bills,” says Tullos.

Workflow is tied to what iChannel calls “Routing Queues” or “Inboxes.” The same flexibility and customization seen in the file structure, access and formats is also present in the queues. Managers or principals can shift workloads easily by moving items from one queue to another, which is particularly helpful when someone is out of the office or an employee gets overloaded or behind.

Flexibility for customization is also important outside of the agency. In the same way that Blue Goose works to integrate iChannel with office processes and applications, it provides support for agency-carrier interaction. “For us, most carriers want their informa-tion to come to them in their own format,” says Love, adding that iChannel’s open architecture is useful in meeting specific carrier integration requirements.

Extranet capability

To better serve customers, iChannel provides client extranet collaboration through customizable Web portals. Aderhold says, “You can send any information in iChannel to a customer portal with just a click—it really extends the agency’s ability to take care of a customer.”

“What’s nice about the extranet capability, or client Web portal, is that the second that it is in my file, it’s on the client’s Web portal—they’ve got the end product,” says Love. “For our larger customers they don’t get—no, they don’t want—paper.”

In the three years that Love & Associates has been using the Blue Goose iChannel solution, Love says that business is up 20% and phone calls are down 40%. “Basically we’re not having to deal with calls, track down files, fax documents or even e-mail them,” says Love. “With the streamlined workflow and extranet, those ‘Where is it?’ and ‘Did you get it?’ calls happen much less frequently because before they ask, we’ve already done it and they have it.”

While Tullos feared that the use of ECM technology would cause SouthGroup to lose touch with its customers, the result has been the opposite. Not only are they able to take better care of current clients with iChannel, they’ve been able to add more customers and increase the load because of their new efficiencies.

For Tubertini, it’s easy to see. “I see the efficiency because we don’t have CSRs having to get up and find files or deal with misplaced files—which was always a problem,” says Tubertini.

“What we’re seeing are the results of the natural evolution of document management into enterprise content management,” says Aderhold. “It is so much more than just scanning and imaging.” *

For more information:
Blue Goose
Web site: www.bluegoose.us/

The author
John Chivvis is a Texas-based writer who specializes in topics of technology implementation. His work has appeared in a number of national and regional publications.

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