5 Keys to a Successful Ephesoft Implementation
Pat Myers, EVP and Co-Owner at Zia Consulting
Recently, Ephesoft asked me to participate in a webinar, where I was asked for my thoughts on what makes a successful Ephesoft implementation. Traditionally during our webinars, I demonstrate capture with a vertical focus—such as mortgage or insurance—or perhaps by highlighting particular new features. So this request made me stop and think. We have a wide variety of Ephesoft implementations spanning many years, virtually all of which would be considered “wins,” so what made certain ones more successful? After some deliberation, I came up with what I believe are the top five keys to a successful Ephesoft Enterprise implementation.
The first critical point is working to completely understand your content and business process. Many clients’ mindset is to either recreate the exact solution they are migrating away from, or to over-program the solution to attempt to extract all the information from the documents being processed. It’s important to understand the type of documents that you are processing and the various volumes of them. In addition, some document types may have a wide variance, like an invoice for accounts payable, so pay attention to the similarities of the documents’ content and the differences. Focus on the information that drives the business process and strategic decisions as this is an opportunity to take a step back and create a better, more streamlined solution.
Ephesoft Enterprise also gives you options for deployment including the ability to create a solution using traditional mailroom automation as well as RESTful Web Services, which we term “in-process capture.” The main difference between the two is that traditional mailroom automation provides an Ephesoft user interface to deal with information that has a low confidence. Web Services also gives you this information about low confidence, but the application you have integrated—such as SAP or Alfresco—allows you to manage those cases, keeping users working in their preferred tool. Again, focus on streamlining your process.
Once you understand your content and document types, plan out quick wins. Many clients try to boil the ocean with their solution when they really should get to production as quickly as possible. Look at the highest volume documents or high-value areas and process pain points. The solution can always be refined along the way so once it’s live, you will quickly realize the next focal point that will better the solution. Ephesoft Enterprise offers advanced reporting which gives you insight on what your operators are spending the most time on.
When you are creating your solution, focus on the user. Your subject matter experts will give you what you need to understand which processes are the most time consuming or difficult. This will also start a grassroots user adoption of your new solution, whether it’s for mailroom automation with power users, or web services based capture focused on users working in business applications.
Ephesoft Enterprise offers both online and live training. The live training is five days for both the basic and advanced certification classes. These classes provide the knowledge necessary to get you going with Ephesoft and you’ll come away with an understanding of how classification and extraction works—as well as how to administrate and customize Ephesoft Enterprise. This will provide your internal technical team with the critical knowledge they need to manage the system.
Ephesoft has a vibrant network of partners who have created various solutions and know how to work with you to create the foundation for your success. This is why my fifth and final point is to choose a partner with knowledge of your vertical use case or the technologies that will be integrated with Ephesoft. The most successful projects at Zia Consulting have been a combination of starting customer solutions with knowledgeable architects and developers, along with a deep knowledge of the industry involved. Once the solution is designed and the foundation is created—along with getting appropriate internal training—we can start knowledge transfer on the solution. This allows a new customer to start quickly and correctly, and then maintain and advance the solution.