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Index | Spotlight | Upcoming Events | ECS Product Center | LF Tips & Tricks | Contact |
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Volume 4, Issue 7
877.790.1600 |
Laserfiche Plus and disaster recovery/business continuity Published in Laserfiche VAR News
Q & A with Vice President of Vertical Marketing Hedy Aref on disaster recovery issues and how to position Laserfiche Plus as part of a disaster recovery solution.
Why should prospects and existing users make disaster recovery part of their Support Plan?
AREF: Because our three main verticals – government, financial services and healthcare – rely heavily on information to function efficiently and therefore are particularly sensitive to disruptions in access to that information. It doesn't matter if we're talking about government or the private sector. A serious weather disaster or other event can interrupt services to constituents or prevent executives from making everyday business decisions. The issue has no boundaries.
How prepared are the government agencies and private companies in our target markets?
AREF: It sounds strange given the huge impact of Hurricane Katrina, but many organizations are still vulnerable to business-process interruptions. They haven't yet taken appropriate measures to protect the integrity of their information in either physical or electronic form. Organizations that don't yet have a disaster recovery plan or are still working to implement one are prime prospects for Laserfiche and Laserfiche Plus.
3rd Quarter Promotion: Laserfiche Plus (Publishing to CD/DVD) To reinforce the importance of Laserfiche in a sound disaster recovery plan, Laserfiche is offering the Laserfiche Plus plug-in at a 50% discount off cost during the months of July, August, and September 2006.
Regular Price: $3,795 Promo: $1,897
Description Laserfiche Plus publishes enterprise information to CDs with integrated search and viewing capabilities. This allows portable access on PCs and notebooks without installing the Laserfiche network client. CDs provide simplified distribution without the costs and inefficiencies associated with paper-based systems. Laserfiche Plus CDs can be distributed to mobile staff, remote offices and clients on a royalty-free basis.
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Inside this Issue
o Laserfiche Plus and disaster recovery o Granicus + Laserfiche Integrations o More Laserfiche 7.2 features
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Madera County
This year the Board Clerk department came on line with the Laserfiche Agenda Manager program. One of the many benefits with the Agenda Manager is eliminating staff time driving around (in 100 degree weather) to various departments to seek and wait for approvals. Information is now available from their web browser in the Agenda Manager system. Approving participants will be notified via e-mail when they have a new item to approve and reminded again as the deadlines approach.
Five committee's agendas are managed in Agenda Manager: Board of Supervisors, Assessment Appeals Board, Flood Control Advisory Committee, CAL-ID RAN committee and Water Oversight Committee. Twenty-five departments within the county participate in the submittal process in the Agenda Manager program. County-wide training took place to train all the departments on how to submit and resubmit their agenda items, board letters, and backup materials. Five approving departments were trained how to approve and reject items at the various stages of their workflow process. Finally, the Board Clerks office was trained on how to prepare the final agenda packets electronically.
In many respects, AgendaManager and MinutesMaker are complementary products. There is a clear division of responsibilities between the two: AgendaManager manages the steps involved in the preparation of an agenda prior to a meeting – including the workflows involved in approving and finalizing each item, linking to external documents, etc. – while MinutesMaker is responsible for annotating the minutes during a meeting, coordinating the minutes with a video stream, uploading to the Granicus data center and publishing minutes and video on the web. The integration between the two products will make it possible to transfer an approved and finalized agenda, along with any associated documents, directly from AgendaManager to MinutesMaker prior to the meeting event. MinutesMaker will then use the agenda information as the basis for minutes preparation.
Sheriff Civil department utilizes Laserfiche Import Agent with their multifunction Scanner/Copier device to scan in 3 different types of documents into Laserfiche. The import agent automatically imports the documents into 3 different directories in Laserfiche based on their document type: Fees, Payments or Cases. Import Agent will be utilized in various departments going forward particularly ones with a multi-function copier/scanner.
Watch the video on the approval of Agenda Manager and Granicus |
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User Meetings
Summer User Group Meetings Join us at our summer user group meeting in the City of Lomita. Come and see the new the features of Laserfiche 7.2.
Schedule:
Laserfiche Workshop: Integrations This workshop is for IT centric prospects and customers who would like to learn about how Laserfiche integrates with various programs. Here are a few topics that will be covered at the workshop:
o CRM Integrations o Building & Planning Dept. Integrations o ESRI Integrations o Law Enforcement Solutions o Workflow Distribution o Digital Recordings Automation o Six-pack and Mug Shot Applications o Crime analytics tool (GIS)
Annual Customers' Conference The annual conference is right around the corner. This year, we're having our conference at two locations, The Hilton and Visioneer headquarters in Pleasanton. We will be offering new classes and new networking opportunities. A tentative event schedule will be released shortly.
(Will open in PDF) |
Laserfiche Webinars
Laserfiche Agenda Manager 7.1 Discover the latest features offered by Laserfiche Agenda Manager 7.1
Thursday, July 20 (9:00 a.m. Pacific)
Thursday, July 27 (9:00 a.m. Pacific)
What's New in Laserfiche 7.2 An overview of the new and improved features of Laserfiche 7.2
Tuesday, July 25, 2006 (8:00 a.m. Pacific)
Document Management 101 Learn how digital document management helps you find files faster, reduce storage space costs and improve information security.
Tuesday, July 26, 2006 (11:00 a.m. Pacific)
Healthcare: Cut Costs and Accelerate Collections Learn how to speed up billing processes, streamline records operations and simplify HIPAA compliance.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006 (10:00 a.m. Pacific)
Law Enforcement: Active Information and Tactical Edge Interoperability and collaboration are fundamental to the success of law enforcement initiatives. Join us to explore how document management, workflow and systems integration allow you to arm your force with actionable intelligence.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006 (11:00 a.m. Pacific)
The 18-min. Executive Session Get fast facts on document management's value to your organization, the five most important big-picture benefits and the best first steps to take when considering a solution. Followed by Q & A.
Tuesday, July 25 (8:00 a.m. Pacific)
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ECS Services
Granicus-Laserfiche Integration Available Now The goal of this integration is to provide Granicus users with ability to transfer data prepared using Laserfiche's AgendaManager software into Granicus' MinutesMaker system, so that users can realize the full benefits of both systems with minimal additional effort. Simplicity is a key objective, both in terms of the user experience, and in terms of the underlying mechanisms involved.
In many respects, AgendaManager and MinutesMaker are complementary products. There is a clear division of responsibilities between the two: AgendaManager manages the steps involved in the preparation of an agenda prior to a meeting – including the workflows involved in approving and finalizing each item, linking to external documents, etc. – while MinutesMaker is responsible for annotating the minutes during a meeting, coordinating the minutes with a video stream, uploading to the Granicus data center and publishing minutes and video on the web. The integration between the two products will make it possible to transfer an approved and finalized agenda, along with any associated documents, directly from AgendaManager to MinutesMaker prior to the meeting event. MinutesMaker will then use the agenda information as the basis for minutes preparation.
ECS is #1 Laserfiche Partner for the most Oracle Installs and the most Agenda Manager Implementations worldwide. ECS Agenda Manager Installs § City of Fontana § City of Union City § City of S. San Francisco § Madera County § Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District § Cambria Community Services District
New VisionAid ADF Kit VisionAid
is a maintenance kit for Visioneer and Xerox scanner. Includes cleaning
supplies and instructions for maintenance of your scanner.
1 bottle
of Streak-Free De-Ionized Cleaning Solution
Retail: $99.99 |
ECS Partners
Visioneer and Xerox Licensed Scanners
Kofax Adobe LiveCycle Barcoded Forms and Kofax Capture
Kofax Virtual ReScan (VRS) Recommended on every scanner
Fujitsu Scanners
2-way Integrations with ESRI products and Laserfiche client and web products
Integration with Granicus and Laserfiche Agenda Manager
Laserfiche E-Mail Encryption
Large Format Scanners
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Laserfiche Plus and disaster recovery/business continuity (cont.) ECS Imaging, Inc. requires all of its clients to maintain a complete backup of the Laserfiche Database and the volumes. Some clients are utilizing the Plus plug-in to maintain both a backup and a disaster recovery vehicle. This method provides the maximum protection for the least amount of duplication of effort. When creating volumes to be archived create two CD/DVD's, one with the exported volume and another with the Laserfiche Plus Plug in. When disasters occur, correction of the data and database can be done to the latest archived volume. The IT department should utilize the standard department backup for the database and the temporary volumes until they are archived.
For more information on backups, follow the link below: Laserfiche White Paper: Backing Up Your Laserfiche Repository And keep reading the tips following.
Sticky note enhancements in Laserfiche 7.2 Laserfiche 7.2 features several enhancements to sticky notes. These include hyperlinks in sticky notes, the ability to customize sticky note colors, and enhancements to sticky note searches. |
Laserfiche Support Site Free for all Laserfiche Users with current LSAP.
Current Versions: §
Client-Server
7.2 § Plus 7.2 § WebAccess 7.1.1 § Quick Fields 7.1.1 § Agenda Manager 7.1 § Audit Trail 7.1 § Email (Mapi) 7.1 § Integrator's Toolkit 7.1 § Scan Connect 7.1 § Import Agent 7.0.1 § Integration Express-H.T.E 7.0 § Snapshot 7.0.2 § WebLink 7.0.4 § Workflow 7.0 |
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You can create hyperlinks in your sticky notes that will allow users to go directly to a website by clicking on the link in the note. When you type the URL to a website, the URL will automatically be changed into a clickable hyperlink. You can use other linking protocols as well, such as a path beginning with ftp:// to link to an FTP site, or a path beginning with file:// to link to file on the hard drive.
You can also customize the color of your sticky notes. Once you have applied a sticky note, right click it and select Choose Color. You can select one of eight colors, and can choose to make the selected color the new default color.
The original yellow sticky note, and sticky notes in three other available colors
You can open sticky notes directly from the Search pane when you search for sticky note text. To do this, you must have context lines displayed in search. To display context lines, open the Tools menu and select Options and then Search. Make sure that Show context lines is checked.
When you search for sticky note text, you can double-click on the displayed context lines. This will open the document directly to the page which contains the sticky note, and open that sticky note with the searched text highlighted.
Securing redacted images and text in Laserfiche 7 Keeping confidential information secure is vital to clients who deal with sensitive documents. The June 23, 2006 edition of The New York Times features a story which emphasizes this point (see story above). The following tips describe ways to secure redactions in Laserfiche. Redacting a Portion of a Document
To redact
both image and text, you will need to either apply the redaction to both
image and text separately, or you will need to apply the redaction to the
text as a linked annotation. A linked annotation will be applied to the
corresponding section of the image as well. To create linked
annotations, open the Document Viewer and select the Tools menu. Make
sure Link Text Annotations has a check mark beside it. If it does not,
click on it. Note that annotations are only linked if Link Text
Annotations has been selected and if the text is redacted. Redacting
the image will not create a linked annotation.
Securing Redactions for Repositories Published with Laserfiche Plus When you are publishing with Plus, you are given the option to secure redactions in the published repository. In the Laserfiche Exporting Options step of the publishing process, select Include text and image annotations to include those annotations in the repository, and Export all redactions as secure to make the redactions a permanent part of the images and text of the published repository. This will prevent the recipient of the published repository from ever seeing the redacted information.
Securing Redactions for Exported Laserfiche Documents When you export a Laserfiche document – either as images or as text – you can choose to include the redaction in the exported document. If you choose to include the redaction on an exported image, the redaction will be made a permanent part of the image; there is no way to 'see through' such a permanent mark on the image. If you choose to include the redaction on exported text, the redacted text will be replaced by a blank space or another character, depending on your preferences. If you are exporting in a format that contains both images and text – such as a PDF – you will need to make sure that both the image and text are redacted, and that both text and image redactions have been included in the export.
Once you have redacted both the image and text, you can configure your Export options to make sure that the redactions will be securely included when you export the documents. In the Laserfiche Client, open the Tools menu and select Options. From the Options menu, select Export.
To permanently include redactions on redacted images, select the Image tab and check Include redactions on exported image. This controls whether the redactions will be present on images exported by a user with sufficient rights to see through redactions—if the user does not have access to redacted portions of the document, the exported image will have permanent redactions regardless of this setting. The redaction is 'burned' permanently onto the image, and cannot be seen through. Remember, however, that if you will be exporting text or documents (such as PDFs) that contain searchable text, you will also need to redact the text.
To redact text, select the Text tab. Under Redactions, choose whether you would like to replace redacted text with a character, and if so, which character you would like to use. For example, if you choose X, redacted text will be replaced with a series of Xs. If you redacted the words "jumped over" in the sentence "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs," the text would be exported as "The quick brown fox XXXXXXXXXXX the lazy dogs." As with images, if the user who is exporting does not have access to redacted portions of the document, the exported text will be replaced regardless of this setting.
You can test your redaction settings by redacting a document, exporting it as a PDF, and selecting the redacted section of the document. Copy the selection and paste it into a text document. If the redactions have been set up correctly, the copied text will not include the section that was redacted.
Publishing a set of search results with Laserfiche Plus 7.2 In addition to the volume and folder publishing available with earlier versions of Plus, Plus 7.2 allows you to publish a set of search results. When you publish a set of search results, all the current results for that search will be published. If the search returns a folder, the folder and its contents will be included in the published repository. When publishing a set of search results, you can choose to preserve the tree structure of the original repository, or to place all search results in the same folder.
You can publish a set of search results either from the Search pane or by selecting the Search Results node in the folder browser.
1. In
the Laserfiche Client, perform the search you wish to publish.
Can Laserfiche Plus output data that spans a number of CDs or DVDs? Laserfiche Plus will not “automatically” split up a volume, folder, or search results list into CD- or DVD-sized portions. The reason for this design choice is that Plus CDs or DVDs are stand-alone “repositories”—that is, you can search and retrieve documents directly from the Plus disc. Therefore, Plus doesn't arbitrarily portion data—if it did, a user would have to perform a search on each disk until he or she found a document. However, with Laserfiche Plus 7.2, there are now three ways that you can choose which documents to burn onto media—by volume, by folder, and by search results. In this manner, you can “span” CDs and DVDs by burning each volume onto a different DVD, for example, or by putting each department's folder on a separate CD. In this manner, you can break up a repository's data into portions that make sense.
Choosing to publish by volume is an excellent method if you have your volumes set up with a size limit that will fit onto the media of your choice. (For more information about managing volume size limits, see Laserfiche Volumes Introduction and Best Practices on the Support Site). Publishing folders is a way to more selectively choose documents for distribution. You can burn folders that already exist, or create new folders and add shortcuts for each folder and document you wish to publish.
Lastly, you can publish a set of search results, allowing you to publish all documents that fit a set of search criteria.
Is Import Agent better than Universal Capture for importing multi-function peripheral (MFP) output? One isn't necessarily better than the other, as the two products have different uses. Universal Capture is great for manual import of MFP output and other images that you wish to bring into Laserfiche. It also allows you to make image enhancements such as deskew and line removal, functionality that is not present in Import Agent. Since Universal Capture comes with the Laserfiche package, it may be the most cost-effective solution for customers who only occasionally scan using MFPs or non-Laserfiche scanning utilities.
Import Agent adds, among other things, the ability to schedule image and electronic-document import, and it is most useful in situations where automatic import is ideal. Two situations where automatic import is a good idea are high-volume scanning environments and situations where freshly scanned documents need to be made available immediately.
MFPs include high-throughput scanner/copiers, and many organizations can use these MFPs to scan thousands of pages per day. Sending large numbers of images to Laserfiche over the network can consume bandwidth; using Import Agent to schedule the imports for off-peak hours helps prevent network slowdown while workers are online.
In situations where documents need to be immediately accessible, Import Agent can be configured to monitor folders for scanned images (or saved documents) and schedule new documents for immediate import. It can also be configured to collect tokens from the document name, creation time/date, and Windows path and create the Laserfiche document name, path, and template information from those tokens.
Import Agent can also monitor multiple folders and import the contents of each of those folders to different locations, with different attributes. This feature allows organizations to take full advantage of the functionality of MFPs that output to different folders based on the scanning employee or group. This is especially useful in situations where MFPs are already in place and in use, so that organizations can seamlessly adapt their Laserfiche system to their current scanning techniques and document usage.
Backing up your repository with exported volumes Laserfiche stores all TIFF images, text files and electronic documents in a repository in volumes. You can export volumes as a means of backing up the documents or transferring them to another repository. When a volume is exported, its contents are copied into a folder at the location you specify, and a set of .xml files are created which contain the annotation and metadata information for those files. It is this .xml file that will allow you to later attach the volume again; if the volume has not been exported, and therefore does not have the .xml file, it cannot be re-attached.
You can use exported volumes to back up the documents in your repository. Attaching the exported volume will restore the folder structure and documents contained within that volume, as well as the annotations and metadata associated with those documents.
Exporting a Volume
Note: You will need to export each volume you would like to back up individually.
Attaching a Volume
Using Plus to Publish Volumes for Backup Publishing by volume in Plus can be used for archiving and backing up a Laserfiche repository. The Plus publishing process gives you the option of retaining the information necessary to re-mount the volumes. This allows you to quickly restore the documents within those volumes in the case of disaster. In addition, the Plus viewer provides a built-in method for verifying that the volume is intact once it has been published.
If you intend to use the published volumes as a backup, you must select Include files needed for volume portability on the Published Laserfiche Repository Options step of the publishing process. By default, this option will be selected. This option generates the same XML files that are generated when you export the volume. Thus, the volume you have published can be attached to a new repository just like any other exported volume.
Limitations of Volume Export While volume export is useful for backing up documents and metadata related to specific document, it does not back up certain general repository information such as security, Workflow rules or records management information. This is because such information is specific to individual repositories; since volumes can be attached to repositories other than their originating repository, such specific information is not retained. If you need to retain this information, you will need to use a backup method that backs up the SQL database associated with your repository. See Backing Up: Guidelines for more information. In brief, an exported volume will preserve the following
information: • Image pages
Trustee Management: Idle Logout and Account Lockout Laserfiche 7.2 introduces a number of new trustee management capabilities. These features allow administrators to more closely configure and control the security of their repositories. Among the new trustee management features are the ability to set an idle logout period and the ability to lock down accounts after a certain number of unsuccessful login attempts.
Idle Logout When you have configured idle logout, an inactive Laserfiche user will be logged out when he or she has been idle for the specified idle duration. Idle logout is configured in the Repository Options node of the Administration Console. Select Settings and double click Logout automatically in the right-hand pane, or select Logout automatically and choose Properties from the Action menu. Check the Session will disconnect after being left inactive box. Set the number of minutes of inactivity before the Client automatically logs out the session. Users will be prompted thirty seconds before they are logged out; at that point, they can opt to remain logged in, and the idle timer will be reset. If they do not opt to remain logged in, or do not respond to the prompt within thirty seconds, they will be automatically logged out.
Note: Idle logout is a Client feature, and therefore only applies to the Laserfiche Client 7.2. If you are connecting to Laserfiche using another application, the idle logout will not apply. In addition, to prevent problems with document storage, idle logout has been disabled for Laserfiche Scanning.
Account Lockout You can configure Laserfiche to lock an account after a certain number of unsuccessful login attempts. This helps prevent attempts to access the repository by guessing the password. Once an account has been locked, an administrative user must unlock the account before it can be used. Account lockout is configured in the Repository Options node of the Administration Console. Select Settings and double click Account lockout threshold in the right-hand pane, or select Account lockout threshold and choose Properties from the Action menu. Check Account will lockout after a number of failed login attempts and choose the number of unsuccessful attempts you will allow before the account is locked. Users with the Manage Trustees privilege are not subject to account lockout. This is to prevent the only users who can unlock locked accounts from being locked out of the repository.
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877.790.1600 |
Southern CA 3720 Sunnyside Dr. Ste.200 Riverside, CA 92506 Tel: 951.787.8768 Fax: 951.787.0831 |
Northern CA 4737 Imhoff Pl Unit 1B Martinez, CA Tel: 925.370.2456 |
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