In a previous post, we busted some myths about ECM―and we are not finished. So, please join me in busting some more myths!
ECM Myth #3- Laserfiche is just a departmental solution
This myth is an old one, but it resurfaces every few years. Settle in, folks. Laserfiche was ideated as an external brain for paper and compliance-heavy organizations. Back in the aughts, ECM was marketed and often sold as a departmental solution for city clerks and records managers, which makes a lot of sense because of its powerful search and retrieval. Next, it grew beyond the clerk’s office because the government is full of paper-driven processes. This process focus prompted the development of workflow by Laserfiche because, in many organizations, documents drive the business process. Ultimately, LF Workflow became the category killer and was the entry for Laserfiche as an enterprise application. At that point, virtually all IT Market Analysts recognized Laserfiche as an enterprise application. Laserfiche is lauded as a global ECM leader and the “customer’s choice.”
ECM Myth #4-In the local agency space, Laserfiche belongs to the City Clerk and Records Manager. We don’t need it elsewhere.
We’ve busted this partially in Myth # 3, but there’s more. In the local agency market, Laserfiche was embraced by clerks and records managers because of its powerful search and the fact that we worked closely with them to develop the user stories for product development. However, local agencies have changed significantly over the last two decades, and records management has grown into a horizontal function, like IT. Today, Laserfiche enables the delivery of resident services like public records requests, business license applications, applications for COVID rent relief programs, permitting, and too many more to list. The point is that all departments generate records and need access to these records. Much of the work of agency departments use document-driven business processes, which are run using Laserfiche Forms and Workflow.
ECM Myth #5- We don’t need ECM; we have email, a network drive, SharePoint, etc.
Admittedly, we all keep too many documents in our email applications, but it’s not a great place to store records or to maintain compliance with regulatory mandates. Network drives get messy and disorganized easily, and you can bet users will refuse to use them and save their documents locally. Plus, maintaining compliance with a shared drive is impossible.
There are some benefits to using SharePoint. It’s integrated with Office 365. It’s low code and users like collaboration tools. There are lots of updates, so you get new features.
The problem with SharePoint is it is a web platform, not a content management tool. There are issues with the UX when the trend for ECM is easy-to-use, and it’s not genuinely customizable. SP can become ungovernable, with staff members creating sites willy-nilly. Finally, SharePoint can be expensive.
