10 Keys to a Successful Matter- Centric Refresh

Transcription

1 10 Keys to a Successful Matter- Centric Refresh Why your fastest and least risky way to a new document management experience is to refresh what you already have 1

2 Work has changed. Users have changed. Have your key tools kept pace? As law firms IT organizations grapple with the emergence of the new professional always connected, mobile, impatient, and with the knowledge and understanding of how to use technology they encounter increasing user frustration and dissatisfaction with current systems. Complaints include that these systems are slow, look outdated, take too long to process some simple tasks, make it difficult to find documents, do not provide a great experience on the road, and so-on. When facing this kind of pressure, organizations may sometimes think that their best option is to look for an alternative system. But often, those systems bring their own challenges and limitations. Instead, IT professionals should ask themselves a few key questions: Have I kept my system up-to-date with the latest versions produced by my vendor? Has my vendor responded to many of these issues in newer versions of its own products, but I have not implemented the changes in my organization? Why is it that my users are so dissatisfied? Is it the software? Or, have I not adapted or reconfigured and adapted the software to accommodate the changes in work practices and desires of today s professionals? Do I already have the right solution, but need to refresh my design - how it is implemented - to accommodate how my users want to work today, as opposed to even just a few years ago? What are the costs and risks of moving to a new system? Am I prepared to take on the expense of the new system implementation, especially if I don t have absolute confidence that another system will fundamentally address these issues? The answers often demonstrate that it is not just the software that is the issue. In our experience, it is not unusual to see a lag of one to three years between the vendor introduction of new product innovations and when they appear on the users desktops. While that may have been acceptable years ago, for today s user that is an eternity, and means that many of the best practices and fixes that address key user dissatisfaction are simply sitting unused for many organizations. Moreover, the work practices of professionals have changed radically in just the last three years. and other communications continues to dominate the work product managed by professionals, yet some still call it document management. Mobility is the highest demanded feature by most lawyers, yet many firms struggle to provide a true mobile experience for their professionals. Consumer-grade file sharing has demonstrated that collaboration can be easy, so now lawyers want consumer-like ease-of-use and a modern look and feel in all their products, lest they look stale by comparison to what they use in their personal life. How can you take concrete steps to satisfy user demands and new work patterns, without the chaos and expense of replacing your existing work product management system? It s time for a matter-centric refresh. A matter-centric refresh is a comprehensive set of software and architectural updates and updated best practices that leading IT organizations are undertaking, most often with the assistance of their imanage partner or the imanage Professional Services team, to update how imanage is configured and deployed to better meet the needs and demands of today s new professionals. There is not one universal way to approach this. Some firms approach it from a perspective of productivity and ease-of-use. Others use governance and compliance as a driver. Whatever your reasons, this compilation of proven techniques gives 2

3 you an excellent framework from which to begin your own discussion on how to refresh your implementation of imanage for the changing needs of the new professional. The list below shows you the many ways in which you can improve performance, user experience, and risk management by refreshing your imanage implementation. Speak to your partner about how they have helped other organizations accomplish these goals. Check our website for case studies and webinars on matter-centric refreshes that have produced dramatic results. And recognize that the new imanage has already delivered significant new product innovation that directly addresses many of your current frustrations. These proven enhancements and product extensions can help you improve user experience, increase adoption, and restore confidence in your key work product management systems. This guide is intended for organizations that have already implemented a matter-centric structure in their work product management/document management system. For those who have not yet moved to an integrated electronic matter file, we propose step zero: 0 If you are not matter-centric, your first step is to plan to implement a matter-centric working environment: A matter-centric working environment helps create a unified electronic matter file. Moving to matter-centricity is proven to reduce costs associated with paper, increases user satisfaction by providing communications and content in the context of each matter, and improves search and metadata quality resulting in faster more accurate searches, and better information governance. With an electronic matter file, you enable an effective approach to mobile working, collaboration and governance. See our guide, Why Go Matter-Centric? for more details. Once you decide to go matter-centric, the steps below can serve as a good guide for how to configure your environment the first time, based on lessons from many hundreds of organizations that have gone before you. Moving to mattercentricity requires getting agreement from practice leaders and lawyers about folder structures, and is best undertaken with an imanage partner or Professional Services team that can support both the change management and technical CLOUD DOCUMENTS MOBILE SECURE SCANNING GOVERN COLLABORATION Matter-centricity creates the integrated electronic matter file to consolidate all matter related communications and content in a single governed and sharable container. implementation. But it is an essential step that enables your organization to move forward and address the needs of the new attorney. Whether you are implementing matter-centricity for the first time, or re-implementing a system that has been in place for some time, in general, the matter-centric refresh addresses three major areas of user frustration, which are highlighted below. Addressing user frustrations in the way in which the product operates. Users want search that works like they do with faster performance of background tasks, easy file sharing and a true mobile experience among other things. Consider the following actions: 1 Upgrade to imanage Work 9: Version 9 provides new enhancements, and addresses many challenges facing our customers. For example, imanage 9 delivers: a. Anywhere access for traveling professionals and remote employees. imanage Work Anywhere provides your professionals with easy, secure access no matter where they are with a device of their choice. ios apps provide native support for Apple devices with offline briefcases, camera integration and more. b. Enhanced management with server-side filing. Embraces user working habit by linking their folders to a matter file or by reducing steps with 3

4 suggested filing locations. The new management solution has been adapted to integrate with Office 365 mailboxes as more firms adopt in the cloud. c. Security Enhancements. Enables firms to comply with government mandates like having sensitive data encrypted at rest and in motion. New security enhancements also make it easier to drive ethical walls efficiently across select matters. 2 Simplify your matter/engagement folder structures: If you are operating in a matter-centric mode, odds are that your folder templates are too rigid and too detailed for today s work practices. Our research has shown that the optimal number of folders and engagement should be no more than two to four, with each user able to add one or two more from an agreed-upon list. Both imanage and its partners offer tools that can enable this functionality. Some firms have reported more than 80 million empty folders as a result of templates that are too complex. Today s professional wants a flatter file, with the minimum number of folders, and ways to search flattened project files to see all contents. imanage Work can easily be configured in this way, but defining those simplified structures and selling this approach to practice leaders are the keys to success here. 3 Implement imanage Share: How can sharing files and collaborating with clients, colleagues, and external consultants be any easier than Box or Dropbox, yet still meet the requirements firms have for governance and oversight? imanage Share is the answer. Developed during the past three years in conjunction with law firms and corporate lawyers, imanage Share is the only file-sharing solution that is fully integrated with imanage to provide value and ease-of-use that is better than consumer file-sharing products, yet give you audit trails and governance over information to protect the firm. See a demonstration of this new capability if you have not seen it in the last 90 days. There are new features like automatic attachment replacements, address book integration and client or matter centric usage dashboards, which benefit the working professional and IT. It s time to give your professionals the best user experience available for file sharing and collaboration. Addressing cost of ownership and keeping up-to-date with latest innovations. Organizations are grappling with increasing cost of ownership, as upgrade cycles continue to get shorter. As repositories grow as a result of increasing communication volumes, the infrastructure required to support a highperformance SLA continues to grow, adding to cost and maintenance. Upgrades are expensive and time-consuming, and require specialized skills. Facing these challenges? Consider the following: 4 Move to the cloud: The imanage Cloud provides a private cloud instance of any or all imanage products. The imanage hybrid cloud model enables organizations to maintain any selected amount of work product on premises, while taking advantage of the imanage cloud for the majority. Desktop clients do not need to be upgraded to 9.0 to take advantage of the imanage Cloud. Moving to the imanage Cloud eliminates any change management or retraining of end-users. They experience virtually zero change. The administrative workload on staff is reduced significantly enabling you to redeploy key staff to more strategic projects. Moving to the cloud, in conjunction with any of the steps outlined in this document, can accelerate your evolution to the latest version of imanage, and will keep you current with the latest product innovations because all upgrades are included in your private cloud service. If you move to the cloud, close to 80 percent of the techniques mentioned in this document will be addressed by the move. 4

5 Addressing user satisfaction with the look and Finally, experience in the field indicates that in some firms feel and user experience. users have overloaded Outlook with too many plug-ins The new professional is using technology in all of facets which leads to conflicts and degradation in performance of his or her life. Software that doesn t look modern is a of the most critical application on the user desktop, . constant annoyance that contributes to lateral adoption and Firms may also wish to evaluate whether offering DeskSite in frustration. Part of any matter-centric refresh is getting the conjunction with the imanage Management Toolbar is latest look and feel into the hands of the user, and imanage a better way to deliver responsive desktop performance and Work 9.3 gives you the most important updates in more than management without overloading Outlook. A mixed seven years. deployment giving users the choice is another emerging best practice. Update the desktop with imanage version 9.3: Version 9.3 (Winter 2015 release) introduces a Enable an intuitive mobile experience: dramatically enhanced look and feel for both Making mobile professionals use a desktop DeskSite and FileSite. This new Windows 10/Office 16 look emulation solution (like Citrix or Terminal Server) and feel has been specifically optimized to accommodate on mobile devices is the fastest way to push them to use high-resolution mobile devices, such as the Microsoft alternative, unsanctioned technologies. Worksite 9 offers Surface 3 and 4. several ways to provide a professional and intuitive user experience when your professionals are not in the office: 5 6 imanage Work Anywhere. Provides HTTPS access directly to the system eliminates the need for VPN so your users have a frictionless experience from the client site, home or even while they are traveling. IPv6. With the advent of Version 9, the client and server applications support IPv6 which enables firms to enable technologies like Microsoft Direct Access which also help eliminate VPNs. Upgrading to the latest version gives you a modernized user interface with dozens of usability enhancements, all designed to make your users lives easier. Some of the top requested features include: a. Reducing or eliminating locked up documents with the new protected mode. By opening documents in protected mode, it prevents inadvertent document checkouts. b. Simplified search dialogue. New search dialogue enhancements make it clear to users where they are searching, addressing common frustrations with search functionality. c. Where used tab. Shows the project workspace where each document is located, providing added context to professionals when browsing search results. imanage Mobility. Provides a robust user experience from any ios device. Users can browse, search, preview and even edit documents all within the native ios experience. Solutions available for Blackberry and next-generation interfaces are now close to being field tested for general release so as to bring an even more intuitive touch-first solution to all mobile platforms in the coming months. Standardize on a standard Mobile Device Management (MDM) platform. Firms need to address security on mobile devices by getting a mobile device management solution that is appropriate for them. Once MDM is selected, mobility is enabled. Users prefer MDM experiences that do not require them to operate inside proprietary containers, but rather an MDM approach that enables remote device wipe if lost. We have seen that more restrictive and containerized MDM experiences are less adopted. 5

6 imanage for the traveling or remote professional. Most professionals are constantly on the move or located in remote countries where they are responsible for establishing new business. Professionals on the move need an electronic file solution that is capable of working in high-bandwidth or low-bandwidth situations. The imanage Briefcase is optimized for the working engagement file by utilizing advanced caching techniques. As the professional uses content or manages their subscriptions to engagements, documents are automatically synchronized and cached to optimize the use of their bandwidth while they travel or work from remote locations. This greatly improves the user experience and the productivity of the traveling professional. Addressing firm concerns about information governance and security. Client concerns about security and governance of information have only increased in the past years. More and more, clients are demanding that all work product be managed in conjunction with their retention schedules, and that access to that information be on a need to know basis. How do you meet the increasing regulatory and security requirements of clients, while not impeding your professionals ability to work? As part of your matter-centric refresh, consider the following: 7 Take advantage of the new hybrid security model in imanage Version 9: imanage Work 9 implements a more sophisticated security model that takes into account the need for professional services firms to drive ethical walls between sensitive matters. This new security management approach simplifies the denial of specific individuals from sensitive matters but without compromising the access of existing users to that same matter. 8 Simplify and refresh your records policies: While requirements for compliance continue to increase, the best practices in information governance call for a simplified record schedule, if it is to remain practical. It s time to throw away those overly granular and complex record schedules that are almost impossible to follow and, with your compliance officer, consolidate down to a reasonable number of records categories usually no more than 60 that enables the implementation of an effective records program. 9 Implement imanage Govern: Enabling an effective electronic matter file enhances security and governance. imanage Govern has two modules to support your governance initiatives. imanage Records Manager, the leading records management solution for professional services organizations, is the only product today that maintains the integrity and structure of the matter file, yet applies records policy and retention at the document level within that structure. imanage Records Manager allows for consistent management of physical and electronic records. imanage Archive Manager enables organizations to archive selected matter related content to reduce lifecycle costs yet still enables retention in the archive to be controlled by imanage Records Manager. These functions enable the firm to manage information insistent with client-specific governance policies, and can contribute to justifying the effort and expense of your matter-centric refresh. 10 Encrypt sensitive content within imanage for HIPAA and other compliance: Professional services firms face demands from clients that request detailed information about their security practices. Many of these clients also demand that their data be treated with additional precaution even within the firm. In order to help firms meet this demand, the imanage 9 platform provides support for encryption of data at rest and in-motion for a specific subset of the data which may be controlled by the firm by client, matter or document classification. All of this is available without additional expense by using Windows File Encryption. Furthermore, these security features need no additional client software because the new imanage applications understand how to decrypt and handle content designated as sensitive. This allows firms to not only comply with client requests but also to comply with government mandates such as HIPAA, which requires that all PII information be encrypted at rest and in motion. 6

7 So in summary A matter-centric refresh that includes implementing the latest version of imanage Work Product Management, can move your organization from software that is out of touch with how users work, to software that empowers your users to do great work and serve clients more comprehensively. Many firms have undertaken these refreshes with great results. Be sure to check our website, attend our webinars and read the case studies to see all the ways in which a matter-centric refresh could benefit your firm. For further information on how to conduct a matter-centric refresh please contact your imanage Account Executive or contact us live to put you in touch with a certified imanage Work partner or our Professional Services team. ABOUT IMANAGE imanage is the leading provider of work product management solutions for legal, accounting and financial services firms and the corporate departments they serve worldwide. Every day imanage helps professionals streamline the creation, sharing, governance and security of their work product. Nearly 3,000 organizations around the world including more than 1,800 law firms rely on imanage to help them deliver great client work. Headquartered in Chicago, imanage is a management-owned company. LEARN MORE AT imanage.com/products 7