Running Smarter In HR: How OPG-3 Has Developed A Better Way To Administer Paperless HR

Shhh…don’t tell a soul. OPG-3 has developed such an incredible way to manage HR, that executives offer to buy Laserfiche just so they can have access to our new HR spreadsheet and systems.

OPG-3, the sixth largest Laserfiche sales and support company in the world has developed a new way to help HR Departments and Staff administer all their paperwork and business processes better. And, as always, we know how to keep your HR files, processes and successes a secret. Shhh!

• Imagine a simple fast way to file incoming HR-related documents.
• Imagine a paperless folder structure that emulates what you have in file cabinets, but based in Laserfiche on Type of Document rights and privileges.   
• Imagine having Laserfiche Workflows and Forms work like automatic “Butler” following-up on all the shuffling paperwork in HR.
• Imagine watching all your work get done by Laserfiche Workflows and Forms.
• Imagine that OPG-3 can launch a customized paperless HR System for you in about twenty hours, and train you in a few hours!

What is HR Automation?

Enterprise content management (ECM) software reduces the time it takes to complete tasks—without sacrificing quality of work. Organizations use ECM to capture, store, secure and access information by:

• Importing documents into a digital repository, whether they originate on paper or in a digital format.
• Organizing them in the repository, where authorized employees can search for, retrieve and edit documents.
• Keeping files in a standard format (such as TIFF) that can be easily shared across devices.
• Archiving records as non-editable files and retained according to a compliant records retention schedule.
• Making information simpler to locate during an audit or records request.

You can automate your HR system with OPG-3 too.

Call 651-233-5075 today or email info@opg-3.com for a free demonstration. But Shhhh…don’t tell anybody that OPG-3 can make your HR jobs much easier.

https://www.laserfiche.com/ecmblog/what-is-hr-automation/

 

The Top U.S. VAR of Q3 Is . . .

www.opg-3.com

 

OPG-3, Inc. of Saint Paul, MN, has been named the Top U.S. VAR of Q3 after increasing its quarter-over-quarter revenue by 211% (compared to Q3 of 2015). “This past quarter, we had a good number of quality sales that contributed to our overall success,” said Ivan Franklin, Vice President at OPG-3. “We like to individually look at each client and recommend what’s in the unique interest of that organization, and that approach has helped us close some exciting new   deals with Laserfiche Forms and Connector.”

In addition to providing high-quality, tailored solutions to its clients, OPG-3 has also found a new way to accelerate its sales cycle and close more deals.

“We have developed some canned process packages in human resources and finance, which we are using to quickly close deals and improve our sales process,” said Clay Baer, Director of Technology at OPG-3.

According to Franklin and Baer, some of the most popular business process solutions among OPG-3 customers include:

·         Open enrollment

·         HR onboarding

·         Contract processing

·         Government licensing

To continue optimizing processes for its diverse client base, OPG-3 made several key business and staffing changes this year. “We’ve added three engineers in 2016 to help cover the large increase in professional services and helpdesk traffic,” said Franklin. “The addition of these three individuals has also helped in the area of sales, as we are now able to utilize our more tenured support engineers in best practice briefings and sales presentations.”

“Q3 was a byproduct of our efforts throughout this year,” Franklin added. “We have focused on gaining as much experience as possible with Laserfiche Workflow, Forms, Connector and various custom solutions. The more knowledge we have, the greater our success will be.”

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 [DK1] [DK1]Clay Baer, Director of Technology at OPG-3 (center-left) and Ivan Franklin, Vice President at OPG-3 (center-right) accept an award at the 2016 Winners Circle.

Laserfiche Basics: Bar Code Scanning Into Structured Data

I asked one of our Laserfiche Engineers the other day if a client had any documents in their repository. He laughed and replied, “No.” Frankly, I was shocked. How can a Laserfiche client have no documents in their repository?

In the evolution of Electronic Content Management (ECM) Systems, we’re capturing more structured electronic content from Forms and Workflows now than before. We move data more than we house data because Laserfiche is now an enterprise-wide shared-data solution. However, have we forgotten our first love and dread? Well-managed ECM’s make us rock stars, but, lost or misplaced information can get somebody fired or jailed.

4 Ways to Manage Unstructured Data with ECM

“The information contained in unstructured data is not always easy to access and identify because it is not as easily queried as information categorized in a database or spreadsheet. Because it is often difficult to access, unstructured data can be a liability in the event of an audit or lawsuit.” (Joanna Slusarz)

Laserfiche helps you capture data, route data, process data, and store data. Our new Forms Suite and Business Process/Workflow Suites move actionable electronic content enterprise-wide. But, what about scanning paper files and easily adding metadata? We’re still faced with the dilemma: Does it matter if your content repository is filled with unstructured data?

Look at your “F Drive” or any standard file share drive on your network, and tell me what’s in there. It’s a silo of unstructured data, and that’s okay. At some point in time, you should determine what to do with all this information—either purge it or store it—and you need rules and guidelines. How can you determine actions with information, if you don’t know anything about it?

The Engineers at OPG-3 haven’t forgotten what separates us from other ECM Support Companies; we help you with the basics better than other providers. Helping you scan better and faster is where we become invaluable to your bottom line. And, we hold free training classes each month to teach you the basics. Nobody is better at teaching the basics of Laserfiche than the OPG-3 Technical staff.

OPG-3 teaches the basics of Bar Code scanning. Huh? Aren’t Bar Codes so 1999? No!

When you’re asking part-time or over-worked staff to scan boxes of paperwork, you need the most simplistic and effective system possible: Bar Coding. Plus, if you’re processing Quick Fields (Intelligent Capture) on the server, you want near-perfection from Bar Coding, and not “Sixty-seven percent accuracy is good enough.”

“Laserfiche Quick Fields is a collection of image processing and enhancement tools designed to simplify automated capture, classification, and organization of documents. Quick Fields supports a suite of add-ons that can expand its capabilities.” [Bar Codes are one of many options within the Quick Fields Suite for intelligent capture. It's also the most effective.] (Joanna Slusarz)

Bar Coding 101: It’s a font. By changing a font and adding a Bar Code to a check stub or cover sheet, Laserfiche Quick Fields can read the Bar Code and open an ODBC (Open Database Connection) to another application to add metadata without keying fields, and create folder and file structure automatically. Bar Coding the OPG-3 way creates structure automatically, by auto-naming and auto-filing large batch scans. Note: OPG-3 offers our proprietary Bar Code Cover Page Creator System to our clients free of charge.

*Laserfiche* (becomes…) 

*Laserfiche*

(The asterisks tell Quick Fields the beginning and the end of a bar code. It’s as easy as changing a font. However, if you can't see the Bar Code above, you may need to download  Free Bar Code Font )

 
You can address the problem now with a simple Bar Code, or you can create multiple problems later by creating more unstructured data. At OPG-3 we’ll teach you how to fix it faster before multiple uploads of unstructured data becomes a nightmare. Bar Coding, regardless of the naysayers, is nearly one hundred percent accurate. It may take an extra minute to configure, but then there’s less time wasted fat-fingering keying-in data, and correcting errors.

“When unstructured data is accessible, searchable, available and relevant (i.e., provided within context), it is transformed into information that an organization can use to make better decisions, respond to client requests and ensure transparency. An ECM system allows organizations to harness the power of unstructured data to improve their performance.” (Joanna Slusarz)

OPG-3 will help you build a repository of actionable structured data, and not another unstructured “F Drive.” When you meet with an OPG-3 Engineer, you’ll notice we listen and offer the best way to capture data as if we benefit more from you saving wasted time scanning and adding metadata. If "the Devil is in the details," then ask our experts in departmental details to help you repair devilish problems.

Please contact us today for basic advice. www.opg-3.com

OPG-3: Introducing Laserfiche Forms 10

Laserfiche Forms 10 is a major release that adds a wide-ranging number of features to the product. The following sections highlight some of the biggest additions.

 

Teams: Teams provide a way to organize and route tasks in Laserfiche Forms. Tasks can be assigned to an entire team and be visible to all team members in a central list. From this list, team members can chose to complete tasks that interest them or managers can directly assign the tasks to team members. 

Assign, reassign, and release tasks to make sure they are completed by the correct person and to balance the workload. Additionally, you can configure your process to automatically assign tasks to users, a team, or a subset of a team. You can even automatically assign tasks round-robin.

In addition, the tasks list now features a new interface that allows you to customize columns and configure sorting and filtering options. You can also save tasks as drafts to complete later.

The tasks list can now also update in real time. Newly assigned tasks will display in a user's task list without the need to manually refresh the page.

Team administrators and managers can edit team members and team roles.

Improved Workflow Integration

The Workflow service task can now retrieve values from workflows and assign those values to forms variables.

 

Operational Dashboard: The new operational dashboard provides a quick and easy way to view status information on a process. You can view how many instances are currently running or at a particular stage, and how many tasks are close to reaching their deadline, or are already overdue. If you organize your processes to use stages, you can easily identify exactly where in the process each instance is.

 

Canvas Enhancements: The canvas now features a grid system. Objects on the canvas will snap to grid cells.

Look for the Auto Space option to compact a process diagram. Forms will run a best-fit algorithm to remove excess grid whitespace.

Processes can now be organized into stages on the canvas. Managers can use the new operational dashboard to view process progress based on these stages.

 

Instance Monitoring: Administrators now have the option to view the status of all process instances or view all instances of a specific process. For example, if an administrator wants to see if any instances have been terminated, they can quickly do so. Make use of the new filtering and sorting options on these views to quickly see issues with running instances. View error log entries directly from the report.

 

New Process Diagram Objects

• Terminate End Event: This event will end the entire process and all sub-processes, not just the process flow with this event.
• Signal Event: The signal intermediate event lets you interrupt a process flow and then jump to another process flow that starts with a corresponding signal intermediate event.

New Process Variables: The Business Process Step and Business Process ID variables correspond to the running process in the overall business process (i.e., the main process or a specific sub-process). The Current Step Name and Current Step ID variables correspond to the currently running step in the process. The Previous Submission variables refer to the user or service task that last submitted a form in the process, and the Previous User Submission variables refer only to the last user task that submitted a form in the process. 

 

Form Fields Enhancements:

• Geolocation field: Geolocation fields are a specialized field types that accept longitude and latitude coordinates for a location. If you are filling out a form from a device with location services enabled, this field can automatically get and store your current location. Adding this field to forms makes it easy to track where forms are filled out.
• Number fields now support decimals and the option to display a comma as a thousands delimiter.
• Number, text, date, and currency fields now support calculation functionality. If you want to perform a calculation such as calculating an age from a date field, or calculating a price based on several sale variables, you can now do so directly in Forms, without needing to use custom JavaScript. The Advanced tab includes a Calculation section where you can specify formulas based on the OpenFormula standard, the same standard used by Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets.

Lookup rule enhancement for tables and collections: Lookup rules can now insert data as new rows in tables and collections.

Automatically Load The Next Task In The Process

If the next user task in the process is assigned to the same person as the previous user task, you can configure the user task's form to appear immediately after the user submits the previous user task's form.

 

Laserfiche Directory Server User Authentication Support: Laserfiche Forms 10 now supports user authentication through Laserfiche Directory Server. This includes single sign-on support across the Laserfiche 10 web products. 

In the Directory Server administration site, group user accounts into Directory Server groups. Then use the Forms Configuration site to provide a Directory Server location use Directory Server groups to control which Directory Server accounts can sign in to Forms.

Changes from 9.2

• Search filter options are reset when switching between tabs. (120067)
• The Reports page no longer displays the - character as the initiator IP address for submissions submitted in a previous version of Laserfiche Forms before Forms started recording the value. (119437)
• When connecting objects in the process diagram, moving the mouse quickly over an object could leave the hotspot gray dots visible even after moving the mouse cursor off the object. This issue is now resolved. (118200)
• Drop-down lists that show a list of forms in the Message Start Event, User Task, and Save to Repository service task now sort by form name. (117510)
• Forms no longer displays a "Last saved ..." message on the form designer. (113901)

By adding Laserfiche Forms from  OPG-3, organizations will manage shared data and/or projects better. Contact us today: 651-233-5075 or jblackford@opg-3.com

OPG-3: Shared Data Solutions