DM1905

DOCUMENT 

M A N A G E R 

Dm 

www.document-manager.com 

DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT 

IMAGING & CAPTURE 

WORKFLOW/BPM 

CONTENT MANAGEMENT 

Robotic Process Automation: 

The missing piece in the productivity puzzle? 

Research: 

Document-based malware on the rise 

AI strategies: 

Sifting the digital landfill 

Product review: 

Alaris E1035 

NEWS • PRODUCT FOCUS • USER PROFILE • INTERVIEWS 

ISSN 1351-3222 Vol 27 No 3 May/June 2019

Fujitsu 

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fi-7140 – Document 

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Dm 

COMMENT 

Editor: 

Dave Tyler 

david.tyler@btc.co.uk 

Sub Editor: 

Mark Lyward 

mark.lyward@btc.co.uk 

This issue of Document Manager includes 

Publishing Director: 

John Jageurs 

a number of thought-provoking opinion 

john.jageurs@btc.co.uk 

Sales Manager: 

and analysis pieces that illustrate how 

Abby Penn 

far the world of document and content 

abby.penn@btc.co.uk 

Lead Designer 

management continues to overlap with the 

Ian Collis 

wider IT world, in particular in areas such as 

ian.collis@btc.co.uk 

Circulation/Subscriptions: 

AI and RPA, as well as the broader topic of 

Christina Willis 

data and information management. In this 

christina.willis@btc.co.uk 

Managing Director: 

latter area we feature some new research that 

John Jageurs 

suggests that over half of an organisation's data is 'dark data' - 

john.jageurs@btc.co.uk 

meaning that the business either doesn't know it exists at all, or 

doesn't know how to find or use it. 

Published by: Barrow & 

Thompkins Connexion Ltd 

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Petts Wood 

Kent BR5 1LZ 

Tel: 01689 616000 

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Published 6 times a year. 

Single copies can be bought 

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without prior consent, in writing, 

from the publisher. 

©Copyright 2019 Barrow & 

Thompkins 

Connexion Ltd 

Articles published reflect the 

opinions of the authors and are 

not necessarily those of the publisher 

or his employees. While 

every reasonable effort is made 

to ensure that the contents of 

articles, editorial and advertising 

are accurate no responsibility can 

be accepted by the publisher for 

errors, misrepresentations or any 

resulting effects 

Is this the same as what we in the DM sector have been calling 

'unstructured data' for years? In some senses it almost certainly is, 

but as data is increasingly generated not by individuals pressing a 

key but rather by sensors in IoT systems or automated processes, 

that pool of 'not quite within our grasp' data is undoubtedly 

growing larger, and almost by definition more uncontrollable. 

A staggering 60 percent of respondents in the research said that 

more than half of their organisations' data is dark, and one-third of 

respondents say more than 75 percent of their organisation's data 

is dark. At the same time it is important to recognise that this data 

is not trivial - 76 percent of respondents surveyed agree that "the 

organisation that has the most data is going to win." 

While respondents appreciate the value of dark data, they readily 

admit they don't have the tools, expertise or staff to take advantage 

of it. Worryingly, a majority of senior leaders say they are close 

enough to retirement that they aren't motivated to become dataliterate. 

'Data is the future of work' is the new mantra, but only a 

small percentage of professionals seem to be taking it seriously. 

This represents a huge opportunity for the DM/ECM sector as a 

whole to step and claim ownership of the issue. There is not 

another industry specialist that has the appreciation of unstructured 

content that the readers of this magazine do - and if that sounds a 

bit evangelical, I make no apologies for the tone. As Tim Tully of 

Splunk, the firm behind the research, commented: "Data is hard to 

work with because it's growing at an alarming rate and is hard to 

structure and organise. So, it's easy for organisations to feel 

helpless in this chaotic landscape… This presents a tremendous 

opportunity for motivated leaders, professionals and employers to 

learn new skills and reach a new level of results." Is our industry 

ready to take up that challenge? 

Dave Tyler 

Editor 

david.tyler@btc.co.uk 


May/June 2019 

@DMMagAndAwards 

3

Dm CONTENTS 

2 0 1 9 MAY/JUNE 

8 18 22 28 

Contents 

EDITOR'S comment.....................................3 

CASE STUDY: Laydex…….........................……6 

STRATEGY: RPA……….............................…..8 

CASE STUDY: UPSS…….........................…..10 

Features 

STRATEGY: RPA………...............................................................…..8 

The so-called 'threat' of AI is not all it's cracked up to be, argues Neil Murphy 

of ABBYY 

APPLICATION FOCUS: HR……..................................................…..12 

HR records management is an area ideally suited to innovative scanning 

and workflow approaches, explains Amy Wright of Storetec 

APPLICATION FOCUS: HR……...............…..12 

TECHNOLOGY: AI……..........................…..14 

CASE STUDY: Flow Free Drainage…….............…16 

ANALYSIS: Storage trends…….........................18 

CASE STUDY: Warren County.…...................….20 

PRODUCT REVIEW: Alaris E1035…..................22 

CASE STUDY: Dajon Data Management………...…24 

STRATEGY: Dark Data….................................28 

TECHNOLOGY: AI………...............................................................14 

David Jones of Nuxeo offers some insights into how AI could help manage 

what he describes as the 'digital landfill' in your organisation 

ANALYSIS: Storage trends……......................................................18 

Chris Adams of Park Place Technologies discusses the vast and constantly 

evolving range of storage solutions and approaches that we can look 

forward to as the data universe continues to expand 

STRATEGY: Research…..................................................................28 

New research suggests that over half of an organisation's data is 'dark data' 

- meaning that the business either doesn't know it exists at all, or doesn't 

know how to find or use it 

CASE STUDY: DNV GL……........................….30 

RESEARCH: Malware….............................….32 

CASE STUDY: Liverpool Record Office…................34 

RESEARCH: Malware……......................................................……32 

As new research shows the number of document-based malware attacks 

seeing an unprecedented rise, we take a closer look at the types of attack out 

there, and some approaches to help detect and block them 

4 @DMMagAndAwards May/June 2019 www.document-manager.com

Dm CASE STUDY: LAYDEX 

Building momentum 

Northern Irish building materials supplier Laydex has streamlined Accounts 

Receivable and Accounts Payable functions by removing paper from its processes 

Paperwork can cost businesses 

enormous sums of money through 

inefficient processes, searching 

and retrieval and lost paperwork. 

Receipts and dockets take time to 

search through, whilst misfiled 

documents can waste hours of time 

and posting documents is costly and 

slow. Read on to find out how a 

combined solution from Enterprise 

Imaging Systems (EIS) and Fujitsu 

scanners, helped leading construction 

materials supplier Laydex Limited save 

time and money by digitising their 

paper processes. 

Northern Ireland based company 

Laydex are distributors of the leading 

brands of products in construction 

materials, covering roofing systems, 

commercial flooring and a wide range 

of building products and materials. 

They were looking to automate a 

number of processes in their accounts 

department and contacted Fujitsu to see 

how their range of scanners and 

software could help them. 

DOCKET DELAYS 

There were two main areas in which 

Laydex Limited relied on slow, inefficient 

paperwork, the first of which was in the 

Accounts Receivable department. Paper 

delivery dockets were supplied with 

every delivery, which were signed by the 

customer as proof of delivery. 

These paper dockets would then be 

collected at the trade counter, or by the 

delivery driver after delivery was 

complete. The dockets were then filed 

by day, week and month, in case the 

customer requested a copy. If a 

customer requested all delivery dockets 

for a period of a month, this would take 

time to retrieve, copy and then post to 

the customer. The originals would then 

need to be refiled again. 

Fortunately, Fujitsu partner EIS were 

able to offer the perfect solution to 

this problem, with their Trax software 

and the Fujitsu fi-7160 high speed 

scanner. This gave Laydex the ability to 

quickly scan the returned delivery 

dockets in batches of fifty utilising the 

automatic document feeder on the 

scanner. Once scanned the digital 

dockets were processed by the Trax 

Software and then automatically filed 

by docket number, customer name and 

delivery date. 

The accounts department is now able 

to search and email the dockets directly 

to customers when requested, or even 

allow the customers direct access to 

their account to search for the dockets 

themselves. What's more, they can also 

run a missing dockets report to make 

sure all delivery dockets have been 

scanned and filed correctly. 

INSTANT ACCESS 

The second area which Laydex wished 

to automate was in the Accounts 

Payable department. Purchase invoices 

which came via post, were filed 

manually, and emailed purchase 

invoices would be printed out and also 

stored manually. By scanning the posted 

invoices through the Fujitsu fi-7160 

scanner, and importing the scanned 

files and emailed invoices into the Trax 

software, invoices could be 

automatically filed under the SAP B1 

transaction number and securely stored 

- thereby removing the need for manual 

6 


May/June 2019 

www.document-manager.com

CASE STUDY: LAYDEX Dm 

"THE ACCOUNTS DEPARTMENT IS NOW ABLE TO SEARCH AND EMAIL THE DOCKETS DIRECTLY TO CUSTOMERS 

WHEN REQUESTED, OR EVEN ALLOW THE CUSTOMERS DIRECT ACCESS TO THEIR ACCOUNT TO SEARCH FOR THE 

DOCKETS THEMSELVES. WHAT'S MORE, THEY CAN ALSO RUN A MISSING DOCKETS REPORT TO MAKE SURE ALL 

DELIVERY DOCKETS HAVE BEEN SCANNED AND FILED CORRECTLY." 

filing, whilst making access and 

retrieval instant. 

The TRAX document management 

system from EIS has been installed at 

over 1,100 companies throughout 

Ireland, UK and Europe. The system is 

aimed at those who require a system 

capable of growing with their 

organisational needs. It is simple to use 

yet contains the power to revolutionise 

the way your business manages 

documents. TRAX can capture, index, 

distribute and retrieve documents 

electronically. 

The Fujitsu fi-7160 image scanner is 

the very latest in scanning technology, 

with scanning speeds of up to 120 

images per minute, capturing every 

detail at 300 DPI. The scanner has 

exceptional paper handling, with skew 

prevention technology, and iSOP 

(Intelligent Sonic Paper Protection), 

which actually listens to the sound of 

the paper passing through the scanner 

to automatically pick up any 

irregularities. 

More info: emea.fujitsu.com/scanners 

INVITE: FUJITSU ISV PARTNER DAY 

Register your interest now in attending Fujitsu's ISV day at their Hayes office this Summer - date to be confirmed 

Fujitsu are pleased to announce that we now have four of our ISV partners in place who are looking forward to spending 

time with you to run through their software and discuss further the opportunity for you to explore with your existing and 

potentially new customer bases. Spaces will be limited so register today at the website below. 

ITESOFT: Successful across multiple sectors, ITESOFT's impressive capture solution utilises the latest in Robotic Process 

Automation (RPA), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data best practices to deliver the very best in financial process 

automation. Discover how you can open up conversations with your customers around automating the processing of their 

paper and digital invoices. 

Winner of Accounts Payable/Invoicing Product of the Year award for 'Streamline for Invoices' at the 2018 DM Awards. 

Document Logistix: In conjunction with our fi-7300NX and other fi scanners Document Logistix's unique and scalable 

software suite (Document Manager) can aid your customers with bulk scanning, workflow and securing archiving. Their 

solutions help to eliminate the use of paper, improve records management and automate their business processes. 

Winner of the Workflow/BPM Product of the Year award for 'Document Manager' at the 2018 DM Awards. 

Lemmana: Automate and streamline the classification and extraction of data from your business documents using Machine 

Learning and Computer Vision algorithms. Lemmana Content Services removes the need to build complex training 

processes, rules, templates and system configuration. Chat to them about how your customers can simplify and reduce the 

cost of document processing. 

iDocs Solutions: Understand the benefits your customers can gain from working with iDocs Bindr SafeSend offering secure 

file transfer and confidentiality. Address specific concerns such as automating GDPR Subject Access Request fulfilment, 

including redaction of Personally Identifiable Information. Reduce mundane and repetitive tasks, eliminate errors and 

maximise operational efficiency all whilst reducing costs. Get a feel for strong vertical sectors for targeting such as 

healthcare, legal & financial. 

Register now to reserve your place - www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/isv-introductions-and-product-launch-day-tickets-60125313431 


May/June 2019 


7

Dm STRATEGY: RPA 

RPA: the missing piece in the productivity puzzle? 

The so-called 'threat' of AI is not all it's cracked up to be, argues Neil Murphy of ABBYY 

Britain's productivity crisis doesn't 

show signs of stopping any time 

soon. According to the ONS, the 

average British worker produced 16 per 

cent less than their G7 counterparts in 

2016. We often hear that technology - 

from artificial intelligence (AI) to 

robotic process automation (RPA) to 

robots and more - is here to solve the 

ongoing crisis, yet at the same time we 

are inundated with claims that AI and 

the rise of robots is threatening our 

jobs and livelihoods. 

But what if we could solve the 

productivity puzzle while improving job 

satisfaction, rather than sacrificing 

employee happiness in pursuit of 

pumped-up production? 

THREAT ANALYSIS 

Despite what scaremongering headlines 

might tell you, the job market as we 

know it isn't facing an existential threat 

from automation. Not only has recent 

analysis from PwC revealed that AI will 

create as many jobs as it will displace in 

the next 20 years, but our research has 

found that two-thirds of UK workers 

actually want to delegate some tasks at 

work to robots. 

Humans shouldn't always be first 

choice for many of the tasks that make 

businesses run smoothly. Take the 

repetitive and work-intensive processes 

like collecting, classifying and 

processing large numbers of 

documents and data. Businesses have a 

choice: either give these tasks to 

humans, who will spend hours sorting 

through huge piles of documentation 

at the expense of other tasks, or to a 

machine that will complete the job in a 

few seconds - without a single error. 

Not only will this provide staff with 

more time to get on with uniquely 

'human' work - such as creative 

brainstorming, building relationships 

with clients and customers, or 


STRATEGY: RPA Dm 

"HUMANS SHOULDN'T ALWAYS BE FIRST CHOICE FOR MANY OF THE 

TASKS THAT MAKE BUSINESSES RUN SMOOTHLY. TAKE THE REPETITIVE 

AND WORK-INTENSIVE PROCESSES LIKE COLLECTING, CLASSIFYING AND 

PROCESSING LARGE NUMBERS OF DOCUMENTS AND DATA. BUSINESSES 

HAVE A CHOICE: EITHER GIVE THESE TASKS TO HUMANS, WHO WILL 

SPEND HOURS SORTING THROUGH HUGE PILES OF DOCUMENTATION AT 

THE EXPENSE OF OTHER TASKS, OR TO A MACHINE THAT WILL COMPLETE 

THE JOB IN A FEW SECONDS - WITHOUT A SINGLE ERROR." 

analysing data - but it will also rid 

them of their most hated work tasks. 

What's more, it will boost the UK's 

productivity in the process. 

WHAT I HATE ABOUT WORK 

From meetings to reading documents - 

and even speaking to colleagues or 

your boss - there are plenty of tasks 

that UK workers hate. We surveyed 

2,000 UK adults last year, and found 

that attending meetings, reviewing 

long documents, and speaking to 

customers were the top three most 

hated tasks at work. These were 

followed by speaking to your boss, 

manual data entry, and tracking your 

time. While it seems that these tasks 

plague most industries and job levels, 

this doesn't spell the whole picture of 

how UK employees wish robots - the 

kind that mimic user actions on a 

computer - could improve their 

working days. 

While these tasks may be dreaded, 

workers don't necessarily think robots 

would be able to do them all better - 

particularly those requiring good 

communication and people skills. They 

clearly recognise the value that a 

human touch can bring to certain 

activities, choosing rather to delegate 

tasks such as manual data entry, taking 

minutes, and electronic filing to 

robots. These seem to be the manual 

tasks that employees both dislike and 

that take up a lot of their time, 

aligning the UK workforce's wishes 

with where most industries have been 

digitally transforming - or planning to 

- in recent years. 

According to Forrester, in 2018, RPAbased 

digital workers (in short, robots) 

will replace or improve 311,000 office 

and administrative positions, spelling a 

"reengineering" of operating models in 

the process. This will include not only 

traditional RPA but embody the whole 

RPA revolution, where processing 

content - applying text mining and 

natural language processing to 

unstructured content - hugely boosts 

the value RPA can bring to a business. 

What's more, Forrester predicted that 

robots will ease the burden of certain 

work tasks, but highlights the need to 

re-skill workers in order to manage 

modern automation - and warned that 

those who don't risk being "automated 

out of their jobs". As RPA integrates 

with content intelligence and becomes 

better at carrying out more advanced 

tasks, selling automation to the 

workforce and providing the necessary 

training and onboarding is vital to 

ensuring that humans can work in 

harmony with robots. In turn, this will 

enable them to help their businesses, 

and the UK's productivity, thrive. 

PASSING THE BUCK 

Yet, British workers don't always 

prioritise this highly sought-after 

productivity when it comes to the tasks 

they hate, instead choosing to simply 

avoid tasks they dislike. Over a quarter 

of workers polled said they wait to be 

reminded by somebody else to do the 

tasks they don't like, and one in seven 

try to avoid these tasks altogether. This 

can seriously hamper business 

efficiency - and overall levels of 

productivity. 

ONS data from 2017 shows that just 

five sectors are responsible for twothirds 

of the UK's decline in 

productivity growth - some of which 

are ripe for improvement by the 

introduction of robot colleagues. 

Banking, telecoms, legal and 

accounting services are all documentheavy 

industries in which manual tasks 

such as reviewing long documents and 

processing invoices could be 

automated and delegated to robots. 

The widescale introduction and 

integration of robots into these 

industries could be the final piece of 

the UK's productivity puzzle - while 

also improving employee satisfaction. 

Automation technologies provide an 

opportunity for many maligned tasks to 

be delegated to robots, meaning that 

business won't suffer, and employees 

can spend their time on the tasks they 

want to do - and are better at. Enabling 

employees to work in partnership with 

robots enhances their job satisfaction, 

allowing them to spend more time on 

adding value to their businesses where 

it matters most. Thankfully for both 

employers and employees, technology 

such as content intelligence can help to 

take away these tasks without replacing 

workers - all while boosting dwindling 

UK productivity. 

More info: www.abbyy.com 


May/June 2019 


9

Dm CASE STUDY: UPSS 

Cutting down on payment processing 

Netherlands-based Unisys Payment Services & Solutions (UPSS) is broadening its secure 

specialist scanning services offerings, leveraging its investment in high volume scanners 

from ibml 

Capitalising on its proven track 

record, modern IT infrastructure 

and expertise working in the 

financial services sector, Unisys Payment 

Services & Solutions (UPSS) is 

expanding into new markets such as 

healthcare, legal and government to 

offer secure and trusted scanning 

services for organisations seeking to 

realise the benefits from digital 

transformation. 

UPSS is to utilise its investment in 

three ultra-high volume ibml ImageTrac 

scanners and SoftTrac Capture Suite 

(SCS) software to work on projects 

where the management and safe 

processing of highly sensitive 

information is crucial. 

Marie-Christine Delvaux, UPSS' general 

manager says, "We're not an ordinary 

BPO scanning operator. ISO accredited 

in areas like quality, security and 

business continuity (UPSS is ISO 90001, 

ISO 27001 and ISO 22301 accredited), 

all our procedures, staff and facilities 

are tuned to meet the exacting needs 

of our banking customers. We're 

therefore the perfect partner for 

organisations in other industry sectors 

who want to process high volumes of 

paper-based information safe in the 

knowledge that there are quality and 

secure processes underpinning this." 

Since 2014 when it acquired 

Interpay's business, UPSS has grown 

rapidly to establish itself as the leading 

BPO scanning bank giros and other 

bank payment related paperwork in the 

Netherlands. It works with the five 

largest banks in Holland - Rabobank, 

ABN Amro, ING, SNS and Van Lanschot 

- along with two major banks in 

Belgium. Furthermore, in the UK, it 

provides fraud detection services for 

TSB and digital archiving solutions for 

Clydesdale and Cooperative Bank. 

In addition to expanding its core 

business working with international 

financial services groups and targeting 

the remaining banks in Belgium, UPSS 

will focus on new business generation 

approaching firms in other European 

countries close by. 

WORKHORSE OF GIRO PROCESSING 

The ibml ImageTrac technology is 

designed to cope with huge volumes. 

Annually, UPSS processes 30 million 

documents per annum for its banking 

customers, with the ImageTrac scanners 

set to digitise between 14,000 and 

17,000 bank giros per hour. 

Peter van Eeuwijk, UPSS' IT director, 

explains, "The system of making nonelectronic 

payments in Europe is based 

on a remittance approach where an 

individual writes out a giro payment 

order to a third party, provides it to 

their bank who then makes the 

transfer. This is in contrast to the UK, 

for example, where a cheque is given 

to an individual or company who then 

deposits it at their own bank for 

payment. The process flow is obviously 

completely different." 


CASE STUDY: UPSS Dm 

"WE'VE USED IBML FOR SOME YEARS NOW AFTER SWAPPING OUT EQUIPMENT FROM A COMPETITOR WHICH 

WAS END OF LIFE, EXPENSIVE TO MAINTAIN AND DIFFICULT TO OPERATE. THE IMAGETRAC SCANNERS ARE 

OBVIOUSLY SUPER-FAST, EASY TO USE AND CAN PROCESS DIFFERENT SIZES AND THICKNESS OF PAPER. THEY 

OFFER REAL FLEXIBILITY - CRUCIAL AS WE EXPAND TO OFFER BROADER SERVICES." 

Every morning, UPSS receives tens of 

thousands of giros from each bank, 

envelopes are opened, documents 

prepared, scanned and fraud checks 

completed. The ibml scanners digitise 

each giro with the images then 

integrated into its IRIS capture and 

workflow platform which has been 

adapted for UPSS' purposes. OCR is then 

used to extract account numbers and 

payment amounts with this information 

securely transferred using XML to the 

DNB - the central bank of the 

Netherlands - for inter-bank settlement. 

While volume patterns vary based on 

the week, month and even year, UPSS 

has to meet tight SLAs and key 

performance indicators for giro 

processing. Scanning typically starts at 

6.30am and has to be complete by 

mid-afternoon. 

To do this, UPSS employs a team of 

45 staff at its highly secure bureau in 

Leusden and uses two ibml ImageTrac 

scanners day to day along with ibml's 

SoftTrac Capture Suite (SCS) software. 

A further machine is located offsite at 

its DR facility near Amsterdam Schipol 

Airport. The ibml scanners connect to 

a modern virtualised server 

infrastructure, with data stored onsite 

in UPSS' own data centre. 

Van Eeuwijk adds, "We've used ibml 

for some years now after swapping out 

equipment from a competitor which 

was end of life, expensive to maintain 

and difficult to operate. The ImageTrac 

scanners are obviously super-fast, easy 

to use and can process different sizes 

and thickness of paper. They offer real 

flexibility - crucial as we expand to 

offer broader services." 

The scanner and software solution 

was supplied by ibml partner Spigraph, 

who also provide ongoing 

maintenance and support for UPSS. 

Delvaux says, "As electronic banking 

becomes prevalent, giro volumes have 

decreased around 10% year on year. 

However, we believe this has slowed 

and even bottomed out. There will 

always be a need for a certain number 

of giros to be processed as banks cater 

for the so-called 'off line nation' - 

people who are disconnected from the 

digital word. So, with volumes now 

lower, this gives us scope to extend 

services and work with other firms in 

different sectors to address their 

information management needs." 

Steffen Unmuth, ibml's EMEA sales 

director commented: "The interesting 

thing about the UPSS project is it 

illustrates how ImageTrac technology 

has been engineered to provide real 

flexibility to BPO organisations who 

want to offer a range of solutions to 

their customers and cater for new 

work streams. Given the open track 

roller design, our equipment can be 

used to scan a range of document 

types without jamming, with the SCS 

software easily configurable for quality 

image capture - first time, every time." 

More info: www.ibml.com 


May/June 2019 


11

Dm APPLICATION FOCUS: HR 

Employing technology 

HR records management is an area ideally suited to innovative scanning and workflow 

approaches, explains Amy Wright of Storetec 

The importance of accurate and up 

to date documentation within 

Human Resources cannot be 

underestimated. An employee's record 

of documentation is essentially a written 

account of his or her actions, 

discussions, performance, positive 

contributions and any disciplinary 

proceedings. Such documents may be 

necessary to support urgent workplace 

actions or engagements. 

Furthermore, without access to HR 

records it can be difficult if not 

impossible to effectively monitor 

performance and productivity levels. A 

lack of such important information can 

hinder both the growth of the business 

and the development of the individual 


APPLICATION FOCUS: HR Dm 

employee, meaning everyone benefits 

from access to accurate, up-to-date 

records. 

Whilst documentation relating to 

current employees will require more 

frequent access, something which is 

often underestimated is the importance 

of leaver or 'ex-employee' files. We 

understand that no employer likes to 

dwell on the possibility of litigation, 

but a termination may result in legal 

action. A complete employee record 

could provide justification for your 

actions as a company. Needless to say, 

both current and leaver employee files 

contain a wealth of information that 

needs to be stored in a secure, 

accessible environment. 

Keeping employee files isn't just a 

convenience for businesses, it's also a 

legal responsibility. Maintaining 

certain employee documentation is 

required under statuary retention 

guidelines for example wage and tax 

information. Furthermore, access to 

files containing such personal 

information is required to ensure 

compliance with the General Data 

Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2018. 

GDPR CONCERNS 

The new GDPR data protection 

legislation that came into force in 

2018 aims to protect personal 

information belonging to individuals 

across the UK and Europe; so how 

does it affect HR departments? HR 

departments notoriously store and 

process large quantities of personal 

documentation relating to their 

employees, meaning they have a lot of 

data subject to GDPR. 

GDPR sets out strict mandates around 

reporting the theft or loss of personal 

data. While for most companies, this is 

more of an issue for customer data, be 

aware that employee-related data is 

still highly personal in nature. Under 

GDPR employees also have a number 

of rights to their documentation; 

including the 'right to be forgotten' 

and to 'withdraw their consent'. In 

order to process such requests, 

organisations must ensure the correct 

policies and procedures are in place 

for accessing the records, and taking 

the necessary action to complete the 

request. If HR departments cannot 

locate documentation requested by 

the individual, they will fail to comply 

with GDPR. 

RETENTION PERIODS 

Another key reason why organisations 

should scan their HR files into an 

electronic format, is to ensure they 

are adhering to retention periods. 

Much legislation exists which 

stipulates statutory retention periods 

for specific HR records. For example, 

The Taxes Management Act 1970 

requires organisations to retain 

wage/salary records (including 

overtime, bonuses and expenses) for a 

minimum of 6 years. 

These types of records are processed 

by almost every business in the UK, 

unless third party accounting 

organisations are used. More specific 

records which apply to a smaller 

bracket of organisations may have 

much longer retention periods. For 

example, any medical records under 

the Control of Asbestos at Work 

Regulations (which contain details of 

employees exposed to asbestos) have 

retention periods of 40 years from the 

date of last entry. At Storetec, we 

advise that if employers are in doubt, 

it's always a good idea to keep records 

for at least 6 years, to cover the time 

limit for bringing any civil legal action. 

CLEAR SOLUTION 

Compliance is something HR 

professionals and organisations cannot 

avoid, and in our experience, the best 

record-keeping method is to scan the 

HR files into a digital format. 

Understanding that different 

documents or sections within each 

employee file has different retention 

periods, the best methodology would 

be to scan each 'document' as a 

separate electronic file. With Storetec's 

scanning service, we can custom create 

file tree structures and apply indexing 

fields to the electronic documentation. 

This will allow organisations to achieve 

a clear, defined structure whereby they 

can access the documents they require 

quickly and effectively. 

NOW AND IN FUTURE 

The digitisation of all documents in the 

future is almost inevitable, but it is vital 

that HR departments scan current and 

leaver employee files today. 

One of the main advantages of 

having a digital archive is the 

enhanced security of 

documentation. Business-critical 

records can be safeguarded behind 

password authentication and data 

encryption measures. A digital 

archive also acts as a backup in case 

of the worst-case scenario, that the 

paper copies are accidentally 

destroyed and lost forever. 

By converting your paper 

documents into a digital format, 

you will save valuable office space 

which could be put to better use. 

This can be extremely beneficial for 

businesses located in major cities 

such as London, Edinburgh or 

Dublin where office space can be a 

huge expense for companies. 

Finally, by switching to a more 

digital way of working, you will 

vastly reduce the amount of paper 

used in the office and therefore 

boost your 'eco credentials' - being 

an environmentally friendly and 

sustainable business in today's 

world is of the utmost importance! 

When done right, scanning HR 

documents can vastly improve 

productivity and efficiency, enable 

quicker access to vital records and 

greatly boost the security of your 

documentation. Digital access can also 

assist managing and abiding by 

compulsory retention periods and 

GDPR regulations. Depending on your 

company's needs, there can be many 

more benefits. 

More info: www.storetec.net 


May/June 2019 


13

Dm TECHNOLOGY: AI 

Treasures among the trash? 

David Jones of Nuxeo offers some insights into 

how AI could help manage what he describes 

as the 'digital landfill' in your organisation 

Enterprise leaders have long awaited 

the potential information 

management benefits of artificial 

intelligence (AI). Machine learning, 

natural language processing, and other 

AI-based technologies are already helping 

companies by automating the 

classification of files and simplifying the 

way employees engage with content. But 

the real promise of AI goes beyond just 

helping organisations classify content 

during the capture or ingestion process - 

it lies somewhere in the "digital landfill" 

that exists within modern organisations. 

Today's companies have a mass of 

content and data stored - often randomly, 

and almost always in silos - across various 

systems and repositories. This is what I 

mean by 'digital landfill'. Employees 

looking for important information must 

sort through this information quagmire, 

which is a thankless task that's both timeconsuming 

and inefficient. Imagine 

having to search the town dump for a 

pair of car keys mistakenly thrown out 

with the trash - that's basically what 

information search comes down to for 

most organisations. 

This is where AI comes in. AI can help 

companies quickly and efficiently sift 

through their own digital landfills by 

automatically unearthing specific items of 

relevant information. AI also can go 

through the digital landfill and recycle 

useful information, as well as discard any 

content that no longer serves a useful 

organisational purpose. 

This is a sizeable opportunity. The era of 

Big Data and Big Content is upon us, and 

information management challenges will 

only increase as organisations begin to 

include audio, video, and image content 

as part of their digital transformation 

journey. Having these digital assets stuck 

in the mud of an organisation's digital 

landfill makes it impossible to extract 

value from them without the proper 

technology tools in place. 

Here are three ways that AI can help 

companies extract that value from the 

digital assets residing within their landfill. 

METADATA ENRICHMENT 

Information about information - that's 

what metadata fundamentally provides, 

and it's invaluable to companies that 

want to manage their content in an 

effective way. 

Suppose you have a legacy enterprise 

content management (ECM) system that 

your company uses to store customer 

documents. These contracts and other 

customer information are invariably 

managed in a haphazard fashion, and 

eventually customer reference numbers 

are the only relevant metadata attributes 

associated with these documents. 

Sound familiar? This is a classic 

document management scenario in days 

of yore. Each stored document served as 

the focal point for invoice processing, 

claims management, and other processes. 


TECHNOLOGY: AI Dm 

Moreover, each of those documents 

contained a set of metadata attributes, or 

tags, associated with it. Typically, this was 

limited to include things such as 

filename, date created, author, and type 

of content. For most systems, once the 

set of metadata stored - or metadata 

"schema" - was defined, it usually 

remained untouched because changing 

metadata schemas required tedious 

development work and mass updates to 

all content related to that metadata. 

The modern content services platform 

(CSP) changes that. By using a CSP to 

pass that content through an AI 

enrichment engine, you can potentially 

append additional metadata attributes to 

each and every one of the files currently 

stored, which automatically injects more 

context, intelligence, and insight into 

your content management ecosystem. 

This increased capability and the ability 

to utilise metadata much more effectively 

is a distinct benefit of a modern CSP over 

a legacy Document Management or ECM 

solution. But what about the content 

stored in those legacy solutions? 

Another unique aspect of a CSP is that 

is can connect to content from legacy 

systems, leaving the content itself inplace 

(in its legacy repository), but 

providing access to that content from 

the CSP. 

It also offers the ability for legacy 

content to make use of a modern 

metadata schema from the CSP - 

effectively allowing you to add metadata 

properties and data to the legacy 

content, without making any changes to 

the legacy system at all. This is massively 

powerful - especially when combined 

with AI so that this process is automated. 

IDENTIFYING MISSION-CRITICAL 

CONTENT 

What is the 'what', exactly? Providing 

insight to this question is a central 

element of enriching metadata. This 

capability is a core facet of knowledge 

management, including simply 

identifying a document as a 

presentation, brochure, contract, or 

invoice. It comes down to the ability to 

surface and share information and 

content that is relevant to other 

situations. Without reliable metadata on 

the content, these insights are 

impossible - whether it's providing 

existing solutions to technical support 

questions on a help-desk, providing all 

contracts that relate to a particular 

customer, or anything in between. 

Moreover, compliance requirements 

within each industry mandate that 

organisations retain different type of 

documents and records for specific 

periods of time - these are known as 

retention policies or rules. If you can't 

determine the type of the content, how 

on earth can you apply a retention policy 

to it? In the past, companies attempted 

to comply in one of two ways - manually, 

or not at all. The manual approach was 

incredibly tedious, error-prone, and very 

time-consuming - prompting many 

organisations to adopt a "keep 

everything, just in case" approach. 

But by using an AI-driven engine to 

classify content stored within legacy 

systems, this becomes much easier to do. 

Even simple AI tools can identify the 

difference between a contract and a 

résumé, but advanced engines expand 

this principle to build AI models based 

on content specific to an organisation. 

So, for example, if your business needs to 

know the difference between a personal 

life insurance document and a life 

annuity document, then this can be 

incorporated into a specifically-trained AI 

model, which in turn will deliver a much 

more detailed classification than could 

ever be possible with a generic 

classification. 

Using a content services platform to 

apply this to the mass of content stored 

in those legacy systems can add 

significant benefit to your business and 

increase the visibility you have into both 

your key information assets and liabilities. 

OUT WITH THE OLD 

The "keep it all just in case" approach 

described above not only exacerbated 

the digital landfill effect but also meant 

that a lot of information that could (and 

often should) have been destroyed, was 

not. Aside from the cost of having to 

store this content ad-infinitum, there are 

significant legal issues that arise from 

keeping information longer than you 

need to. 

There is a whole industry dedicated to 

managing records, and we're not going 

to get into the technicalities of that here. 

But AI can be used to help mitigate this 

problem significantly. 

Part of the challenge of managing 

records, or even simply applying 

retention policies, is the sheer volume of 

content that needs to be managed. And 

the only way to go through this in the 

past was document by document. 

A key point here is that, due to the legal 

ramifications of incorrectly declaring (or 

not) a record, there is a desire to still 

include a human interaction (or 

checkpoint) as part of this process in 

most organisations. 

AI can help with this. By using AIclassification 

of content with a CSP, it is 

possible, at a massive scale, to quickly 

and easily determine what is NOT a 

record. According to numerous research 

studies the significant majority of content 

stored is ROT (redundant, trivial or 

obsolete) - so by clearing out huge 

chunks of that ROT, the task of 

identifying relevant content to apply 

retention policies to become much, 

much easier. 

And yes, AI can then be used on the 

remaining content to identify the type of 

content in more detail, match that to the 

retention rules, and then make 

recommendations to the relevant staff 

members. 

This makes the whole process of 

identifying, declaring and managing 

records (for which I really mean anything 

that needs to be retained against a 

retention rule) incredibly straightforward, 

much more scalable than before, and 

much more cost-effective given that the 

storage requirements for old content just 

got slashed. 

Trash removal can be gratifying - and 

rewarding. Whoever thought that sorting 

out the trash could be such a rewarding 

exercise? It is when it's about optimising 

your organisation's digital landfill. 

More info: www.nuxeo.com 


May/June 2019 


15

Dm CASE STUDY: FLOW FREE DRAINAGE 

Going with the flow 

Paper was overwhelming the expanding business of Flow Free Drainage until a 

mobile/cloud solution eliminated it - much to the relief of managers, admin 

and accounts staff 

Flow Free Drainage has deployed 

innovative mobile worker and cloud 

technology as part of a paperless 

system that connects mobile apps to 

back-office management software. With 

the JobWatch system from BigChange, 

Flow Free has achieved 40 percent 

annual growth with an actual reduction 

in office administration resources. The 5 

in 1 BigChange solution combines 

customer service (CRM), job scheduling 

and invoicing software with real-time 

vehicle tracking and smartphone apps. 

With a fleet of 18 vehicles and a team 

of field service engineers covering 

mainly the South East of England, Flow 

Free maintain and repair drainage 

systems. Flow Free are part of Property 

Consortium Drainage, a network of 

drainage specialists undertaking 

insurance-related work. 

Operating 24/7 year-round, Flow Free 

work to stringent Service Level 

Agreements with guaranteed fast 

response times dealing with burst pipes, 

blocked drains and leaks causing 

disruption and damage to premises. 

Based on the Hertfordshire-Essex border, 

the company also has national contracts 

with major retailers and land owners. 

"BigChange provides us with a single 

system to manage the entire business 

digitally, from the initial call out to 

invoicing and management reporting. It 

really has revolutionised the way we 

work and had a very significant impact 

on our efficiency and productivity." says 

Steven Cornelius, Managing Director of 

Flow Free Drainage. "We started using 

JobWatch 18 months ago and last year 

we grew the business by 40 percent; 

even though we actually reduced 

numbers of staff in the office." 

Using the BigChange back-office Flow 

Free log incoming calls on the CRM for 

optimised scheduling of the most suitable 

resource by skill, equipment and location. 

JobWatch has also helped speed up 

quotations and invoicing. As Job Sheets 

are completed by engineers onsite, the 

office is immediately notified of any 

additional service requirements and 

quotations are raised with 24 hours; less 

if the material requirements are simple. 

"Being real-time and paperless, 

JobWatch has dramatically reduced 

administrative work. Five or six people 

used to be tied up managing jobs, 

generating quotes and invoices 

manually. Now we can deal with 

typically 60 jobs a day with just two 

people involved. That frees up time for 

customer service and sales work and is 

central to our plans to grow the 

business," says Cornelius. "Things are just 

better controlled and quicker; one client 

couldn't believe we could actually send 

out an invoice within an hour of the job 

being completed!" 

BigChange tracking devices are also 

providing valuable data to reduce fuel 

consumption through better job 

planning, route optimisation and better 

driving. Flow Free use BigChange to 

monitor driving performance with a 

reward for the best driver each month. 

This has led to a 25 per cent 

improvement in driving and less 

accidents, leading to lower insurance 

premiums. 

More info: www.bigchange.com 

16 


May/June 2019 


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Total Distribution

Dm ANALYSIS: STORAGE TRENDS 

The expanding data universe 

Chris Adams, President and CEO of Park Place Technologies, discusses the vast and 

constantly evolving range of storage solutions and approaches that we can look 

forward to as the data universe continues to expand 

Fiber optic cable, the backbone of 

much of the internet, carries data at 

122,000 miles per second - yet 

airplanes are apparently faster. This a 

surprising takeaway from the first ever 

black hole photo. 

Almost as widely shared as the image of a 

somewhat blurry, glowing red ring around 

a black hole in the Messier 87 galaxy, 

which some viewers compared to the Eye 

of Sauron from Tolkien, was an image of 

computer scientist Katherine Bouman with 

a pile of hard drives holding the data to 

make that single, iconic image possible. 

The Event Horizon Telescope, after all, is 

a virtual, planet-sized telescope, which 

uses the coordinated contributions of 

eight different observatories around the 

globe. Recording over several nights for 

this project, the teams generated five 

petabytes of data, equivalent to 5,000 

years' worth of MP3s. Transmitting to the 

correlation centre at standard internet 

speeds would have taken years, so a halfton 

of hard drives were shipped by plane. 

At 5,000 miles away from MIT, the 

roughly 700 terabytes of data took 

about 14 hours of flight and layover time 

to make the trip - a rate of 

approximately 14 gigabytes per second. 

It goes to show that when dealing with 

large quantities of data, older 

technologies have a lot to offer. 

SEISMIC CHANGE 

The data storage and transmission demands 

of groundbreaking science may seem a far 

cry from the everyday needs of the 

enterprise, yet this event foretells our 

coming challenges. Over the next several 

years, global data volumes are expected to 

swell to over 175 zetabytes, or 1 trillion 

gigs. Posing with the hard drives required to 

store that much information would be 

impossible, as there would be about 12.5 

billion of them. 

We are currently undergoing a transition 

from human-generated data, where our 

documents, images, and other output 

comprise the bulk of stored information, to 

a sensor-dominated future in which most 

information is produced by IoT devices. 

Perhaps most concerning about the vision 

for 2025, nearly 30 percent of the data 

generated will be real-time. Such volumes 

threaten to overwhelm existing and next 

generation networks, including the muchtouted 

5G mobile. 

Unfortunately, the data explosion is 

happening at the same time the IT industry 

approaches the end of Moore's Law, the rule 

of thumb by which processor performance 

doubles every 18 months down to the limits 

of materials science. Post-Moore, experts 

predict that the need for continued progress 

in AI and other compute-intensive fields will 

spark a diversification in the architectural 

stack on the order of the Cambrian Age in 

Earth's history, challenging today's cloudcentric 

infrastructures. The cloud will grow, 

too, but it will not be enough. 

"ALL OF THE ABOVE"? 

Even amidst ongoing virtualisation, IT 

hardware will be critical in navigating the 

coming era. Yet cost remains an equally 

important factor. Already, enterprise 

hardware spending is on a path toward 

$1.5 trillion by 2020, according to Gartner, 

in many cases competing with the core 

business for funding. 

Enterprise dynamics will, therefore, push IT 

toward a blend of old and new solutions. 

Much like the currently dominant hybrid 

multi-cloud strategies employed by most 

organisations, tomorrow's infrastructure will 

be a combination, often developed ad hoc 

in response to particular needs, challenges, 

and technical limitations. The cloud is a 

foregone conclusion, but other solutions will 

join it to provide the scale of data storage 

and processing enterprises will demand 

within the unbreakable physical bounds of 

data transmission speeds. The mix of 

technologies will span edge computing to 

magnetic tape storage and just about 

everything in between. 

STORAGE AT THE EDGE 

Edge computing is one obvious solution to 


ANALYSIS: STORAGE TRENDS Dm 

"WE ARE CURRENTLY UNDERGOING A TRANSITION FROM HUMAN- 

GENERATED DATA, WHERE OUR DOCUMENTS, IMAGES, AND OTHER 

OUTPUT COMPRISE THE BULK OF STORED INFORMATION, TO A SENSOR- 

DOMINATED FUTURE IN WHICH MOST INFORMATION IS PRODUCED BY 

IOT DEVICES. PERHAPS MOST CONCERNING ABOUT THE VISION FOR 

2025, NEARLY 30 PERCENT OF THE DATA GENERATED WILL BE REAL-TIME. 

SUCH VOLUMES THREATEN TO OVERWHELM EXISTING AND NEXT 

GENERATION NETWORKS, INCLUDING THE MUCH-TOUTED 5G MOBILE." 

the conundrum. By moving storage and 

compute closer to the end user, the 

industry can slash the volumes of 

information transmitted to data centres for 

processing purposes. 

It's important to note that edge is more a 

concept than specific layer, and we can 

expect different degrees of storage capacity 

to be added at various points. Smarter IoT 

devices will take on more workload at the 

point of data generation, with more 

onboard memory and compute power. 

On-premises data centres will remain or 

be created alongside large data-generating 

operations, such as factories, to coalesce 

and process information on the LAN. 5G 

tower-based pods will provide yet another 

locus of compute and storage offered by 

third-party telecommunications 

companies, and local and regional data 

centre and colocation providers will cut the 

distance data travels for initial processing. 

With edge-based triage, raw data will be 

processed into higher level, more valuable 

information, often in various stages up the 

chain. Finally, compiled data can be 

transmitted to enterprise data centres 

and/or hyperscale cloud facilities for 

storage, backup, analytics, machine 

learning projects, and more. 

HARDWARE PROGRESS 

The emerging software-defined data 

centre itself will rely on customised, highquality 

hardware. For example, chip 

design is becoming specialised with 

various purpose-built chip sets. The range 

of AI hardware-accelerator architectures 

now includes neural network processing 

units, field programmable gate arrays, 

application-specific integrated circuits, 

and so-called neurosynaptic architectures. 

The days of the x86 hardware 

monoculture is over. 

Although these are processing 

advancements, AI and machine learning 

projects will also demand storage 

solutions. NVMe-oF is among the 

technologies that can help bring the 

requisite speed to storage for dataintensive 

applications, but there will be 

more progress to fill out the storage 

component. 

OLD SCHOOL MEETS INNOVATION 

It doesn't garner much attention, but 

magnetic tape is still used to house 

substantial data the world over, in fields as 

diverse as particle physics, national 

archives, and banking. The appeal of tape 

storage actually increases as enterprises 

strive to balance energy costs and archival 

needs. Moving rarely accessed information 

to cold storage systems or latency-agnostic 

data to robotic tape solutions offers 

significant advantage. 

Unlike disks, which are approaching the 

Moore's Law threshold, tape will not reach 

its upper limits for capacity scaling any 

time soon, so capacity can continue to 

double every two to three years for the 

foreseeable future. This will make tape, 

already more space- and cost-efficient than 

disk, an important option for large-scale, 

long-range storage. 

DECENTRALISED STORAGE 

We would be remiss to overlook 

blockchain, which offers a decentralised 

alternative to cloud storage. In this model, 

data is housed on dozens or hundreds of 

nodes around the globe with no central 

organisation. Although scalability has not 

reached enterprise level, there is a 

possibility that fragmented, encrypted data 

in a decentralised storage structure will 

provide new options for security, privacy, 

efficiency, and data redundancy. Dubai, for 

instance, has just announced a pilot 

blockchain storage program as a sort of 

"digital sandbox" for its smart city initiatives. 

DECLUTTERING 

As vital as storage hardware will be, 

storage strategy will be more so. With 

regulatory fines for holding personal data 

for too long and increasing security risks, 

enterprises need to counter their hoarding 

impulses. This means effectively managing 

the data lifecycle alongside the asset 

lifecycle. Periodic reassessments should be 

conducted to determine what information 

to keep as is, what to archive in cold 

storage, and what to safely and 

permanently purge. 

CONTINUED COMPLEXITY 

The bottom line is that hardware will 

remain central to the enterprise. The 

transition to cloud will continue, but an 

increasing array of counter-currents will 

bring data back to on-premises facilities 

and edge sites. There will be vendors, 

ranging from 5G mobile providers to local 

colocation specialists, available to take on 

some workloads. However, the reality of 

the coming data universe will demand 

enterprises control and coordinate 

storage across a wider variety of 

environments, using more diverse 

hardware than ever before. 

More info: 

www.parkplacetechnologies.com 


May/June 2019 


19

Dm CASE STUDY: WARREN COUNTY RECORDS CENTER AND ARCHIVES 

A universal solution 

In an implementation that won the 'Project of the Year, Public Sector' prize at 

the 2018 DM Awards, e-ImageData supplied a unique all-in-one solution to 

Ohio's Warren County Records Centre and Archives 

The Warren County Records Center 

and Archives is the main source of 

vital information for Warren County 

in Lebanon, Ohio, USA. Serving over 

225,000 people within a 400-mile 

radius and offering on-site records 

storage, records delivery, retention and 

disposition management, comprehensive 

records training, document imaging, 

and microfilming services to all County 

agencies, it is focused on assisting 

patrons and county agencies with their 

records retention, archival and digital 

imaging needs. 

The Imaging and Microfilm Division of 

the Records Center captures countygenerated 

records in digital and 

analogue formats to produce product in 

both electronic and microfilm media. 

The Division also specialises in wide 

format large scale imaging, high 

capacity multipage scanning and 

converting digital images for long term 

preservation in microfilm format. 

Because the Division had previously 

replaced their old reader/printer - that 

was costly and severely inhibiting 

efficiency and productivity - with e- 

ImageData's ScanPro 2000, they were 

familiar with the quality and 

innovativeness of the ScanPro products. 

They were impressed with the ScanPro 

2000's performance to produce highquality 

images and valued the timesaving 

capabilities which cut costs and 

increased productivity. Subsequently, 

when the Division was about to take on 

larger projects and there was an 

immediate demand for another unit they 

turned to e-ImageData again. The 

requirement for the additional unit 

specified that the unit incorporate both 

an on-demand and a conversion 

application that was easy to use, 

efficient and reliable. In addition, it had 

to be affordable to fit within the 

County's budget. 

'BEST PRODUCT POSSIBLE' 

After talking with their reseller, World 

Micrographics, the Division team 

decided that e-ImageData offered the 

best match to the solution they wanted. 

They were impressed with the ScanPro 


CASE STUDY: WARREN COUNTY RECORDS CENTER AND ARCHIVES Dm 

"OUR NEWEST ADDITION (THE SCANPRO 2200+ ALL-IN-ONE) HAS TURNED WHAT WAS INITIALLY ANOTHER VERY 

TEDIOUS MICROFICHE JOB INTO A BRIEF ASSIGNMENT THAT FREED UP VALUABLE TIME FOR OTHER 

ENDEAVOURS. IN OTHER WORDS, WHAT WOULD HAVE TAKEN MONTHS TO ACCOMPLISH WAS DRASTICALLY 

SHORTENED TO ONLY TWO SHORT WEEKS. WE TRULY APPRECIATE EVERYTHING THIS MACHINE AND THIS 

COMPANY HAVE AFFORDED US." 

2200+ All-In-One because they could 

easily and accurately read, edit, print 

and scan on-demand plus convert all 

film types (including their microfiche 

and 16mm film), all while utilising the 

same compact unit. 

This scanner includes all of the 

features of a ScanPro 2200+ such as 

live image editing, fully automatic 

image adjust and automatic scanning, 

plus the capabilities of the new AUTO- 

Carrier. This new unit would allow their 

staff to operate the AUTO-Carrier 

entirely by on-screen controls, moving 

directly through fiche image-by-image, 

or anywhere on the fiche, with a single 

click. They are able to automatically 

scan a range of images, groups of 

images or the entire fiche, seamlessly 

and with unparalleled accuracy. In 

addition to its automatic fiche-scanning 

capability, the ScanPro 2200+ All-In- 

One automatically scans microfilm, 

making it the most universal solution 

for the County. 

In December 2017, the Division team 

made the decision to purchase the 

ScanPro 2200+ All-In-One from e- 

ImageData. They implemented the unit 

seamlessly and were able to streamline 

their entire on-demand and conversion 

applications. The ScanPro 2200+ All-In- 

One has ticked all the County's boxes of 

criteria for efficiency, productivity, 

reliability, and cost. The fact that the 

County could get all this versatility and 

performance in one compact unit 

(capabilities the competition lacked) 

was a major deciding factor in their 

purchase decision. 

"We recommend the ScanPro 2200+ 

All-In-One to any entity who has a need 

and a desire to get the best possible 

product on the market," said Jana Wells, 

Imaging Supervisor, Warren County 

Records Center and Archives. 

DRAMATIC RESULTS 

With the ScanPro 2200+ All-In-One, 

the team has completed many projects. 

Their Juvenile Court records microfiche 

project was projected to take 8-9 

months. With the ScanPro 2200+ All- 

In-One it took only four months to 

complete. This saved time, saved 

money, and it produced the clearest 

image available, providing the best endresult. 

The ScanPro 2200+ All-In-One 

streamlined their process and made 

research and conversion easier, more 

efficient and more affordable than ever 

before for Warren County. 

Regarding another recent project, Jana 

Wells reports, "Our newest addition (the 

ScanPro 2200+ All-In-One) has turned 

what was initially another very tedious 

microfiche job into a brief assignment 

that freed up valuable time for other 

endeavours. In other words, what 

would have taken months to 

accomplish was drastically shortened to 

only two short weeks. In addition, 

where other companies can be very 

straining to work with, our e-ImageData 

reseller, World Micrographics, has gone 

above and beyond to ensure that both 

their products and their customer 

service is entirely satisfying. We truly 

appreciate everything this machine and 

this company have afforded us." 

SPREADING THE WORD 

The Center continues to use their 

ScanPro 2200+ All-In-One for a variety 

of projects requiring the conversion of 

thousands of 16mm film and microfiche 

images. A current project is inspecting 

microfiche images from the 1970's with 

poor image quality, digitally improving 

the images, and converting them back 

to microfiche. "Using the auto-scan 

function we were able to get clean, 

crisp digital images that we originally 

thought would be impossible as the 

fiche we were attempting to copy were 

quite old and distorted," says Jana 

Wells. Moreover, the Center's success 

with the ScanPro 2200+ All-In-One has 

influenced other County departments. 

The Probate Court has also purchased 

a ScanPro 2200+ All-In-One to help 

digitise their records and increase their 

effectiveness with their large workloads. 

"e-ImageData continues to be the 

innovation and performance leader in 

bringing new and relevant technologies 

to the world of microfilm. Our focus at 

e-ImageData is to continue to lead the 

industry by developing innovative and 

economical products which will serve 

the needs of our customers for years to 

come. Our latest scanner, the ScanPro 

2200+ All-In-One is a low-cost, highspeed 

microfilm conversion scanner for 

roll film, fiche and jacketed fiche, a 

product that you have to see in action 

to believe," says James Westoby, 

President of e-ImageData. 

Warren County has experienced the 

only truly universal microfilm solution 

on the market today. The ScanPro 

2200+ All-In-One has made a 

significant improvement in the way they 

work - now much faster and with 

higher quality results. With the cuttingedge 

technology to do what no other 

microfilm scanners can do, e-ImageData 

offers a product that revolutionises the 

way people work with microfilm and 

microfiche. With a high level of 

continuing innovation and the scanners' 

ability to be fully upgraded at any time, 

the ScanPro All-In-One scanners offer a 

lifetime of use for all film types. 

More info: www.e-imagedata.com 


May/June 2019 


21

Dm PRODUCT FOCUS 

ALARIS E1035 

The newest scanners 

from Alaris, the 

E1000 series, 

represent a step 

forward in setup and 

ease of use from a 

long-standing market 

leader. Our review 

model (the faster 

E1035 device) was 

ready to use within ten 

minutes of unboxing, 

including download 

and install for the Alaris 

Smart Touch software. 

The E1000 series is aimed at SMEs as 

well as departmental/workgroup type 

users, and this is exemplified by the 

intuitive software offerings as well as 

the devices' small footprint and fast, 

quiet use. Weighing just over 3kg and 

barely a foot wide, the E1035 is smaller 

than many desktop printers and almost 

silent when scanning. 

Performance is impressive and the 

E1035 feels like it could run all day if 

needed: it can scan up to 35 A4 pages 

per minute (70 images per minute 

duplex) whether black-and-white, 

grayscale or colour, at 200 or 300 dpi. 

Recommended daily volume is 4,000 

pages for the E1035, 3,000 for the 

other model in the new range, the 

E1025 (which, as the model number 

might suggest, can scan up to 25 

ppm/50ipm). 

Paper handling too is as good as users 

have come to expect from Kodak/Alaris 

in recent years: it will handle mixed 

document batches, ID cards, bank 

cards etc. as well as passports and 

larger documents (the last two each 

require an optional accessory). Feeder 

capacity is better than many 

workgroup scanners in its market 

space, holding up to 80 sheets. 

Perfect Page image management 

software behind the scenes ensures 

optimum image quality every scan 

without user intervention: this includes 

automatic straightening, brightness 

and colour balance adjustment, punch 

hole filling, and blank image deletion. 

Software-wise, users have the option 

of either Capture Pro LE or the 

aforementioned Smart Touch, which 

we used for our review. Smart Touch 

allows users to use any of nine 

preconfigured options for managing 

and routing scanned 

images, and these 

options are easily fine 

tuned without any 

technical expertise 

required. Scans can be 

saved in the 'usual' 

formats - PDF, JPG, 

Office documents etc. - 

and sent to specific 

destinations including 

applications, Cloud 

services, email, 

SharePoint and the like. 

A novice user could simply 

use the presets that come with the 

software and never have to alter their 

configuration. 

The user interface on the scanner 

itself could hardly be more 

straightforward: a small LED display 

shows the option (1-9) selected, with 

touch-sensitive buttons to shift up and 

down, and similar buttons for start and 

stop, as well as a Power On button. 

And that's all there is to it. The scanner 

can also be driven direct from the 

attached PC of course, where a right 

click of the Alaris icon shows you the 

options list and allows the user to edit 

the configuration if required. Here 

users can easily alter the destination 

application, file type, naming format, 

as well as scan-specific options 

including 'edit image before saving', 

'separate by barcode' and the like. 

More info: www.alarisworld.com 

VERDICT 

The scanner itself is every bit as efficient, fast and office-friendly as we've come to expect from Alaris, but what 

really sets the E1000 series apart is the extraordinarily user-friendly Smart Touch software that makes scanning a 

simple process for any user. 


Dm CASE STUDY: DAJON DATA MANAGEMENT 

Changing for the good 

Scanning specialist Dajon Data Management is 

reaping the benefits of a new scanner fleet that can 

process almost four times as many documents per 

day as their legacy scanners 

Dajon Data Management is a 

London-based specialist 

document scanning company 

with a global client base. Renowned for 

providing high quality, competitively 

priced services, the company has over 

two decades' expertise in document and 

data management solutions, with 

significant experience in complex 

handling requirements. Its 

comprehensive range of supporting 

services enable clients to transition paper 

documents and data to any electronic 

format, then process and action 

business-critical information using 

document management and integrated 

workflow systems. 

CHANGE OVER TIME 

Dajon was running a nine-strong fleet of 

mid- to high-volume production scanners, 

which it recognised were no longer fit for 

purpose. The company first established 

the scanning bureau in 2007 when the 

majority of paper documents it processed 

required little preparation, pages were 

cleaner and in standard formats, and 

indexing requirements were minimal. 

However over time, the use of metadata 

to index documents had become more 

critical in order to make information 

accessible on demand, the bureau was 

now handling many different types and 

sizes of documents, and volumes 

continued to increase exponentially. 

"Historically, when making new 

technology investment decisions we 

simply purchased new scanners to 

manage increased throughput and stuck 

with the same brand. This was primarily 

because our people were used to them 

and were working in their comfort zone," 

Chief Technology Officer Albert Tsan, 

explains. "But what we didn't do was to 

24 


May/June 2019 


CASE STUDY: DAJON DATA MANAGEMENT Dm 

tackle the real issues - we were 

experiencing repeated feeding issues and 

problems around output stacking, the 

scanners were processing volumes 

nowhere near their rated speeds and we 

were increasingly putting in longer shifts 

to get to the levels of throughput we 

needed to deliver jobs on time." 

It was when processing one job for a 

construction company which required 

large volumes of carbon paper and 

receipts to be digitised that Dajon 

reached a tipping point, explained Albert: 

"This job highlighted that the legacy 

scanners just couldn't cope. We 

encountered multiple feeding issues, the 

scanners did not like receipts and we 

were lucky if we achieved a throughput 

of 15-20 pages per minute (ppm). The 

job took significantly longer than it 

should have and we realised then that 

doing what we had always done wasn't 

sustainable and it was time to change." 

He continued: "We couldn't keep buying 

more scanners and more PCs (each of 

which required staff to operate them), 

we had literally run out of space. Plus we 

had to look at the bottom line: the 

market is extremely competitive and we 

have to ensure that we achieve a profit 

on every piece of business. It was time to 

stop compromising because we were 

used to using one type of scanner, and to 

look for alternatives." 

SOLUTION SUMMARY 

STREAMLINING THE FLEET 

Albert approached Alaris, a Kodak Alaris 

business, for advice on how Dajon could 

leverage new technology to improve its 

current scanning model. Rather than 

focus on the products' features and 

benefits, and suggest like-for-like 

replacement models, Alaris' approach 

was consultative. The pre-sales team 

looked at the volume and types of papers 

that Dajon was processing, how 

documents were prepared during the 

pre-scan process and the amount of 

manual steps this involved. 

Alaris recommended streamlining the 

fleet, replacing nine legacy devices with 

three Kodak i4650s scanners. With a fast 

(up to 130 ppm) throughput, this 

production scanner delivers hours of 

uninterrupted scanning and its straightthrough 

paper path ensures thick 

materials such as cardboard and file 

folders plus extra-long documents, fly 

through the scanner. The Kodak i4650s 

also offer a host of features including 

Intelligent Document Protection which 

monitors the condition of paper being 

scanned and listens for the sound of 

paper crumpling, preventing document 

damage by stopping the scanner 

automatically prior to jams. Combined 

with exceptional image quality no matter 

how challenging originals are, this 

ensures high productivity. A 500-sheet 

Challenge 

With feeding issues, problems around output stacking, and low throughput, 

Dajon's fleet of production scanners were no longer fit for purpose. 

Solution 

Three x Kodak i4650s Scanners 

Two x Alaris S2000 Series Scanners 

Benefits 

Dajon has totally transformed its scanning operation, dramatically improved 

efficiency and profit margins. The i4650s Scanners are processing almost 

three times more images than the legacy models and the scanners' 

additional functionality, consistent feeding, controlled output stacking and 

the ability to detect staples etc. are paying dividends in terms of 

productivity and efficiency. 

input tray and controlled stacking 

technology means staff spend less time 

adjusting documents and more time 

getting work done. 

"Alaris installed a unit for us to 'try 

before buy' and within two weeks we 

had raised a purchase order number," 

Albert said, adding: "We ran the scanner 

alongside one of our legacy models to 

handle a large project which involved 

digitising 13,000 boxes of historical 

documents including carbon paper and 

card. The difference was night and day, 

the Kodak Scanner powered through 

between 115-120 ppm (almost 

maximum throughput), while the existing 

scanner processed between 45-50 ppm. 

That was the turning point, the decision 

was made." 

Dajon is also utilising two Alaris S2000 

Series Scanners to handle digital 

mailroom items for its clients. These fast 

desktop scanners serve to isolate the high 

speed, high volume production away 

from ad-hoc items, whilst bolstering 

efficiency on the production line. 

EMBRACING CHANGE 

Dajon initially purchased two i4650s 

Scanners for the scanning bureau, 

adding a third one a little later. "The 

biggest stumbling block was a resistance 

to change so we gradually made the 

changeover," Albert explained. "The 

product is great, but the support we 

received from Alaris and the onsite 

training really helped staff embrace the 

change and made the transition to new 

products much easier." 

Scanning operators are now reaping 

the benefits of the new scanners: 

"During the trial period our head of 

scanning was delighted with the 

performance and really saw the 

potential. The additional functionality, 

consistent feeding, controlled output 

stacking and the ability to detect staples 

etc. are really paying dividends in terms 

of productivity and efficiency." 

Dajon has also realised additional time 

and cost savings. "The metal detection 

feature means we are no longer paying 

for new parts, due to forgotten staples 

and paperclips scratching the scanner 


May/June 2019 


25

Dm CASE STUDY: DAJON DATA MANAGEMENT 

"WITH THE NEW SCANNERS, WE 

HAVE TOTALLY TRANSFORMED OUR 

SCANNING OPERATION, 

DRAMATICALLY IMPROVED 

EFFICIENCY AND OUR PROFIT 

MARGINS. THE NEW SCANNERS 

CONTINUOUSLY RUN AT RATED 

SPEEDS AND SEAMLESSLY HANDLE 

MANY DIFFERENT PAPER TYPES, IN 

FACT THE I4650S SCANNERS ARE 

PROCESSING ALMOST THREE TIMES 

MORE IMAGES THAN THE LEGACY 

MODELS." 

glass - that's been a strong saving," 

Albert explained. "We are also saving 

money on supplies as the overall running 

costs are lower." 

The company has also been able to 

redeploy staff within the scanning 

bureau for increased efficiency. Under 

the old regime, nine scanners required 

nine scanning operators, with 

additional staff tied up prepping pages 

to be scanned. Now, just three 

operators are charged with scanning, 

which has freed up additional resources 

to handle document preparation and 

post-scan processes. 

Albert enthused: "With the new 

scanners, we have totally transformed 

our scanning operation, dramatically 

improved efficiency and our profit 

margins. The new scanners continuously 

run at rated speeds and seamlessly 

handle many different paper types, in 

fact the i4650s Scanners are processing 

almost three times more images than the 

legacy models." 

To illustrate the impact Albert said: "Per 

Kodak Scanner, we typically process 

46,000 images during an eight-hour 

shift - that's compared to an average of 

just 16,000 images on one legacy device. 

On a 'bad' day we will scan around 

38,000 originals: in comparison, the old 

devices would only manage between 8- 

10,000 pages in the same shift due to 

feeding issues." 

Future plans include a transition to 

Alaris Capture Pro software. "We initially 

decided to stick with our current 

software which works seamlessly with 

the Kodak Scanners, largely due to the 

fact staff are familiar with it and 

comfortable using it, but now we have 

had the hardware in place and it's been 

well received, we are highly likely to 

change in the future," Albert said. 

The new scanners are currently running 

at 80 per cent capacity, providing room 

for future growth. Dajon is planning to 

relocate into new larger premises which 

will provide more space to conduct 

document preparation and scanning and 

enable it to win more new business. 

Albert said: "The new premises will safely 

accommodate up to 12 scanners, giving 

us plenty of opportunity to grow. We 

have a number of large prospects in the 

pipeline, the i4650s Scanners and new 

premises place us in a strong position to 

win and if we are successful, we will 

invest in more Kodak scanners, confident 

in the knowledge that they will ensure 

we deliver." 

Dajon has retained two of the legacy 

scanners for business continuity 

purposes. "I think it says a lot about the 

new scanners when our staff would 

rather wait for an engineer and do 

document preparation rather than turn 

the old devices on!" Albert concluded. 

More info: www.alarisworld.com 

26 May/June 2019 www.document-manager.com 

@DMMagAndAwards

Dm STRATEGY: RESEARCH 

Dark times ahead? 

New research suggests that over half of an organisation's data is 'dark data' - 

meaning that the business either doesn't know it exists at all, or doesn't know how 

to find or use it 

US data specialist Splunk has 

released research that shows 

organisations are ignoring 

potentially valuable data and don't have 

the resources they need to take 

advantage of it. The research reveals 

that although business executives 

recognise the value of using all of their 

data, more than half (55 percent) of an 

organisation's total data is "dark data," 

meaning they either don't know it exists 

or don't know how to find, prepare, 

analyse or use it. 

'The State of Dark Data Report', built 

using research conducted by TRUE 

Global Intelligence and directed by 

Splunk, surveyed more than 1,300 

global business managers and IT leaders 

about how their organisations collect, 

manage and use data. In an era where 

data is connecting devices, systems and 

people at unprecedented growth rates, 

the results show that while data is top 

of mind, action is often far behind. 

76 percent of respondents surveyed 

across the U.S., U.K., France, 

Germany, China, Japan, and Australia 

agree "the organisation that has the 

most data is going to win." 

60 percent of respondents said that 

more than half of their 

organisations' data is dark, and onethird 

of respondents say more than 

75 percent of their organisation's 

data is dark. 

Business leaders say their top three 

obstacles to recovering dark data is the 

volume of data, followed by the lack of 

necessary skill sets and resources. 

More than half (56 percent) admit 


STRATEGY: RESEARCH Dm 

"DATA IS HARD TO WORK WITH BECAUSE IT'S GROWING AT AN ALARMING RATE AND IS HARD TO STRUCTURE 

AND ORGANISE. SO, IT'S EASY FOR ORGANISATIONS TO FEEL HELPLESS IN THIS CHAOTIC LANDSCAPE… THIS 

PRESENTS A TREMENDOUS OPPORTUNITY FOR MOTIVATED LEADERS, PROFESSIONALS AND EMPLOYERS TO 

LEARN NEW SKILLS AND REACH A NEW LEVEL OF RESULTS." 

that "data-driven" is just a slogan in 

their organisation. 

82 percent say humans are and will 

always be at the heart of AI. 

SLOW TO SEIZE OPPORTUNITIES 

While respondents understand the value 

of dark data, they admit they don't have 

the tools, expertise or staff to take 

advantage of it. Plus, the majority of 

senior leaders say they are close enough 

to retirement that they aren't motivated 

to become data-literate. 

Data is the future of work, but only a 

small percentage of professionals seem 

to be taking it seriously. Respondents 

agree there is no single answer, though 

the top solutions having potential 

included training more employees in 

data science and analytics, increasing 

funding for data wrangling, and 

deploying software to enable less 

technical employees to analyse the data 

for themselves. 

92 percent say they are "willing" to 

learn new data skills but only 57 

percent are "extremely" or "very" 

enthusiastic to work more with data. 

69 percent said they were content 

to keep doing what they're doing, 

regardless of the impact on the 

business or their career. 

More than half of respondents (53 

percent) said they are too old to 

learn new data skills when asked 

what they were doing to educate 

themselves and their teams. 

66 percent cite lack of support from 

senior leaders as a challenge in 

gathering data and roughly one-infive 

respondents (21 percent) cite 

lack of interest from organisation 

leaders as a challenge. 

AI: THE NEXT FRONTIER? 

Globally, respondents believe AI will 

generally augment opportunities, 

rather than replace people. While the 

survey revealed that few organisations 

are using AI right now, a majority see 

its vast potential. For example, in a 

series of use cases including 

operational efficiency, strategic decision 

making, HR and customer experience, 

only 10 to 15 percent say their 

organisations are deploying AI for 

these use cases while roughly twothirds 

see the potential value. 

A majority of respondents (71 

percent) saw potential in employing 

AI to analyse data. 

73 percent think AI can make up 

for the skills gaps in IT. 

82 percent say humans are and will 

always be at the heart of AI and 72 

percent say that AI is just a tool to 

solve business problems. 

Only 12 percent are using AI to 

guide business strategy and 61 

percent expect their organisation to 

increase its use of AI this way over 

the next five years. 

REGIONAL VARIATIONS 

There are some key differences in the 

UK specific results. For example, 39 

percent of people in the United 

Kingdom believe AI can make up for 

the skills gap versus only 27 percent 

globally. UK employees are also the 

most likely in the world to say they 

need to learn more data skills in order 

to get promoted again, 83 percent 

compared to the global figure of 76 

percent. Additional UK specific results 

include: 

The UK often comes second only to 

China in its enthusiasm for data and 

AI, and its belief in the importance 

of data skills 

67 percent of UK companies agree 

"data-driven" is just a slogan at their 

organisation, compared with only 

56 percent globally 

The majority of respondents in the 

UK market (61 percent) report 

understanding AI extremely or very 

well - one of only two markets in 

which a majority make that claim 

(the other is China, at 77 percent). 

The global average is 48 percent. 

"Data is hard to work with because it's 

growing at an alarming rate and is 

hard to structure and organise. So, it's 

easy for organisations to feel helpless 

in this chaotic landscape," says Tim 

Tully, Chief Technology Officer, Splunk. 

"I was pleased to see the opportunity 

people around the world attach to dark 

data, even though fewer than a third 

of those surveyed say they have the 

skills to turn data into action. This 

presents a tremendous opportunity for 

motivated leaders, professionals and 

employers to learn new skills and reach 

a new level of results." 

More info: www.splunk.com 


May/June 2019 


29

Dm CASE STUDY: DNV GL 

Knowledge shared 

The legal department at DNV GL is enjoying the benefits of global collaboration and 

knowledge sharing 

Headquartered in Oslo, Norway, 

DNV GL is the leading provider 

of risk management and quality 

assurance services to the maritime, oil 

and gas, and power and renewables 

industries. The company is also a global 

leader in certifying management 

systems of companies across all types 

of industries, including healthcare, 

food and beverage, automotive and 

aerospace. DNV GL has 350 offices 

located worldwide. 

The company's Group Legal 

Department is also headquartered in 

Oslo, but lawyers are distributed 

internationally - from Shanghai in 

China to Houston in the USA. 

OVER-RELIANCE ON EMAIL 

As with any Legal Department, document 

management is an essential functional 

business requirement at DNV GL, and the 

team was using a variety of tools 

including file servers and SharePoint for 

the function. In the absence of a central 

repository and with 25 lawyers in the 

Legal Department spread across nine 

different locations, document 

management, communication and 

collaboration were proving difficult. 

"We had substantial communications 

challenges due to our team of lawyers 

spread across the varied time zones," 

Thina E. Ytterhorn, Deputy Group Legal 

Director, DNV GL Group, elaborated. "As 

we didn't have a formal, structured 

system, our individual Outlook accounts 

too served as a document management 

system. So, while we could create folder 

structures in our individual Outlook 

systems, of course, no one else could 

access that information. 

Given that typically a lawyer receives 

anything between 50 - 100 emails (with 

attachments) a day, a huge amount of 

critical information on matters resided 

in lawyers' inboxes. File servers and 

SharePoint to an extent helped with 

information sharing in local offices, but 

weren't conducive to sharing 

knowledge and experience across an 

international team." 


CASE STUDY: DNV GL Dm 

"WE'VE GOT OFF TO A VERY POSITIVE START WITH IMANAGE. 

ALREADY WE HAVE MADE GREAT STRIDES IN MEANINGFUL 

KNOWLEDGE SHARING AND COLLABORATION ACROSS THE GLOBAL 

TEAM. THE SOLUTION HAS REMOVED MANY OF THE ISSUES THAT 

PREVIOUSLY INTERFERED WITH OUR CORE BUSINESS ACTIVITY." 

UNDERSTANDING REQUIREMENTS 

The Legal Department presented its 

business challenges to DNV GL's IT 

Department who undertook a broad 

investigation of the various solutions 

available on the market to present a 

shortlist of the top three options. 

The Legal Department chose iManage 

Work. "iManage ticked all the boxes. The 

solution's integration with Outlook 

represented an easy next step for the 

team. The user interface is excellent and 

familiar, given that Outlook is our key 

work application," Ytterhorn 

commented. 

DNV GL explored the market for an 

implementation partner too, shortlisting 

two technology vendors. Ytterhorn said, 

"We spoke to several firms that had 

already adopted iManage in Norway. 

Ascertus came up in many instances and 

the feedback was very positive every 

time. During the negotiation process it 

became apparent very quickly that 

Ascertus would be the best fit for us 

from every aspect - price, their 

understanding of our requirement 

through to their approach to technology 

deployment and post implementation 

support. Most importantly, we were able 

to establish a personal rapport with the 

Ascertus team during the negotiation 

phase itself." 

MINIMAL DISRUPTION 

Ascertus worked closely with DNV GL's IT 

Department to understand the 

organisation's infrastructure environment 

and security needs. 

Jon Wainwright, Sales Director, 

Ascertus Limited, explained, "We 

undertake a thorough process to 

understand the customer's IT 

infrastructure and the skills needed at 

our end, right up front. This investment 

on our part ensures that there are no 

unforeseen road blocks during the actual 

implementation." 

Working closely with the Legal 

Department, Ascertus helped design the 

matter folder structure in iManage Work 

so that the system configuration 

adequately supported the business 

requirements. Ytterhorn commented, "It's 

only the design phase that took up our 

time and we were happy to invest in it to 

ensure that the solution met our needs. 

The solution implementation was entirely 

handled by Ascertus and our IT 

Department. There was minimal 

disruption to our work, which we were 

delighted about." 

Rather than undertaking a mass 

migration of all the data, the Legal 

Department identified the specific data 

sources that it initially wanted to 

transfer into iManage Work. Now, with 

iManage Work up and running, the 

Legal Department is gradually migrating 

key data from the file servers and 

SharePoint into the knowledge share 

section of the system. 

EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE 

First and foremost, the Legal Department 

now has a single location for all its data 

globally. This is enabling knowledge 

sharing. The Legal Department has 

created an archive for knowledge-led 

information in iManage Work, to which 

the global team contributes and is 

continuously being augmented. 

The search functionality provided by 

iManage Work has proved to be very 

beneficial to the legal team. "This is a big 

win for us," Ytterhorn said. "The team 

can easily search iManage Work for 

similar matters and documents. For 

instance, my colleague in a different 

location can search for a company name 

and identify the lawyers who have 

previously worked with that organisation 

and build on the work that has already 

been done for that customer. This was 

impossible before." 

The solution is facilitating seamless 

collaboration across the Legal 

Department. Lawyers collaborating on 

matters work from within the same 

workspace in iManage Work. Team 

members have complete visibility of the 

status of matters, projects and 

contracts. They can also contribute with 

their expertise across different projects, 

regardless of where in the world they 

are located. 

To ensure the necessary confidentiality 

of matter information, lawyers set the 

appropriate security and access levels so 

that only those with authorisation have 

access to sensitive data. 

The Legal Department has also 

integrated iManage Work with Microsoft 

Power BI. The Department is developing 

insightful reports on the status of 

matters being worked on, which 

organisations across the globe the 

company is working with, where they 

are located and so on. 

Ytterhorn concluded, "We've got off to 

a very positive start with iManage. 

Already we have made great strides in 

meaningful knowledge sharing and 

collaboration across the global team. 

The solution has removed many of the 

issues that previously interfered with 

our core business activity. We will 

continue to incrementally improve the 

design as we get better at using the 

solution so that it evolves with our 

business requirements." 

More info: www.imanage.com 


May/June 2019 


31

Dm RESEARCH: MALWARE 

Is that file safe to open? 

As new research from Barracuda shows the number of document-based malware 

attacks seeing an unprecedented rise, we take a closer look at the types of attack out 

there, and some approaches to help detect and block them 

Researchers at Barracuda Networks 

have uncovered what they describe 

as 'an alarming new rise' in the use 

of document-based malware. A recent 

email analysis revealed that 48% of all 

malicious files detected in the last 12 

months were document-based. In total 

more than 300,000 unique malicious 

documents were identified. 

Since the beginning of 2019, however, 

these types of document-based attacks 

appear to have been increasing in 

frequency - and dramatically. In the first 

quarter of the year, 59% of all malicious 

files detected were documents, 

compared to 41% the prior year. 

With document-based malware, 

cybercriminals use email to deliver a 

document containing malicious 

software, also known as malware. 

Typically, either the malware is hidden 

directly in the document itself or an 

embedded script downloads it from an 

external website. Common types of 

malware include viruses, trojans, 

spyware, worms and ransomware. 

A MODERN MALWARE 

FRAMEWORK 

After decades of relying on signaturebased 

methods, which could only be 

effective at stopping a malware strain 

once a signature was derived from it, 

security companies now think about 

malware detection by asking "What 

makes something malicious?" rather 

than "How do I detect things I know 

are malicious?" 

The focus is on attempting to detect 

indicators that a file might do harm 

before it is labelled as being harmful. 

A common model used to better 

understand attacks is known as the 

Cyber Kill Chain, a seven-phase model 

of the steps most attackers take to 

breach a system: 

Reconnaissance - target selection 

and research 

Weaponisation - crafting the 

attack on the target, often using 

malware and/or exploits 


RESEARCH: MALWARE Dm 

"AFTER DECADES OF RELYING ON SIGNATURE-BASED METHODS, WHICH COULD ONLY BE EFFECTIVE AT STOPPING 

A MALWARE STRAIN ONCE A SIGNATURE WAS DERIVED FROM IT, SECURITY COMPANIES NOW THINK ABOUT 

MALWARE DETECTION BY ASKING 'WHAT MAKES SOMETHING MALICIOUS?' RATHER THAN 'HOW DO I DETECT 

THINGS I KNOW ARE MALICIOUS?' THE FOCUS IS ON ATTEMPTING TO DETECT INDICATORS THAT A FILE MIGHT 

DO HARM BEFORE IT IS LABELLED AS BEING HARMFUL." 

Delivery - launching the attack 

Exploitation - using exploits 

delivered in the attack package 

Installation - creating persistence 

within the target's system 

Command and control - using the 

persistence from outside the 

network 

Actions on objective - achieving the 

objective that was the purpose of 

the attack, often exfiltration of data 

Most malware is sent as spam to 

widely-circulated email lists that are 

sold, traded, aggregated and revised as 

they move through the dark web. 

'Combo lists' like those used in the 

ongoing and widely reported sextortion 

scams are a good example of this sort 

of list aggregation and usage in action. 

Now that the attacker has a list of 

potential victims, the malware 

campaign (the delivery phase of the kill 

chain) can commence, using social 

engineering to get users to open an 

attached malicious document. Microsoft 

and Adobe file types are the most 

commonly used in document-based 

malware attacks, including Word, Excel, 

PowerPoint, Acrobat and PDF files. 

Once the document is opened, either 

the malware is automatically installed 

or a heavily obfuscated macro/script is 

used to download and install it from an 

external source. Occasionally, a link or 

other clickable item is used, but that 

approach is much more common in 

phishing attacks than malware attacks. 

The executable being downloaded and 

run when the malicious document is 

opened represents an installation phase 

in the kill chain. 

Archive files and script files are the 

other two most common attachmentbased 

distribution methods for malware. 

Attackers often play tricks with file 

extensions to try to confuse users and 

get them to open malicious documents. 

DETECTING/BLOCKING ATTACKS 

Modern malware attacks are complex 

and layered; the solutions designed to 

detect and block them are, too. 

Blacklists: With IP space becoming 

increasingly limited, spammers are 

increasingly using their own 

infrastructure. Often, the same IPs are 

used long enough for software to 

detect and blacklist them. Even with 

hacked sites and botnets, it's possible 

to temporarily block attacks by IP once 

a large enough volume of spam has 

been detected. 

Spam filters and phishing detection 

systems: While many malicious emails 

appear convincing, spam filters, 

phishing detection systems and related 

security software can pick up subtle 

clues and help block potentiallythreatening 

messages and attachments 

from reaching email inboxes. 

Malware Detection: For emails with 

malicious documents attached, both 

static and dynamic analysis can pick up 

on indicators that the document is 

trying to download and run an 

executable, which no document should 

ever be doing. The URL for the 

executable can often be flagged using 

heuristics or threat intelligence systems. 

Obfuscation detected by static analysis 

can also indicate whether a document 

may be suspicious. 

Advanced Firewall: If a user opens a 

malicious attachment or clicks a link to 

a drive-by download, an advanced 

network firewall capable of malware 

analysis provides a chance to stop the 

attack by flagging the executable as it 

tries to pass through. 

More info: www.barracuda.com 


May/June 2019 


33

Dm CASE STUDY: LIVERPOOL RECORD OFFICE 

City, slicker 

Liverpool Record Office is using Preservica's cloud-hosted active digital 

preservation software to make its archives accessible online while protecting 

over 800 years of the city's history 

The Liverpool Record Office, part of 

Liverpool City Council's Libraries and 

Information Services, has chosen 

Preservica's cloud-based active digital 

preservation software to create a new 

online archive and to digitally preserve 

culturally significant records dating back 

to the 13th century. 

The new cloud-based system will 

enable greater use of the archive's digital 

collections by academic researchers, the 

local council, community groups and the 

general public. Currently many requests 

to the archive are handled manually with 

material transferred and made available 

on CDs and memory sticks. 

The Record Office, based at Liverpool 

Central Library, will start with the ingest of 

its large photography collections, 

including thousands of digitised images 

from the City Engineers collection, dating 

from 1897 to 1995, which documents 

the work done by the department and is 

of local and national value. 

It is a detailed record of almost every 

aspect of the development of the city, 

which was, for much of the period in 

question, 'the second commercial city' in 

England. The archives also include the 

Letters Patent from King John, signed on 

28th August 1207, to mark the beginning 

of the city of Liverpool. 

Other highlights feature the large 

archive of the Merseyside Jewish 

Community that dates back to the 18th 

Century, and the Everton Football Club 

collection containing football shirts, 

programmes and correspondence from 

Liverpool's first football team. 

Much of the material requires 

digitising, including oral histories 

collections, which are stored on a 

combination of VHS, audio cassette and 

other obsolete mediums. Some of the 

analogue material has not been 

accessible for many years and so the 

Record Office will use Preservica to 

ensure the council's digitised (and borndigital) 

materials are not only useable by 

future generations, but also readily 

accessible online. 

In its search for a digital preservation 

system, the archives team used the UK 

government's G-cloud digital 

marketplace to learn about Preservica, 

and to do comparisons and streamline 

the procurement process. 

Preservica's active digital preservation 

software provided a complete and 

affordable cloud-based solution without 

the need for local IT resources. 

This included an out-of-the-box 

connector to the existing CALM 

catalogue and an easily customised 

online portal for controlled public access 

to digital collections and records. 

Liverpool City Council's Digital Archivist 

Carl Kenneally explained how the new 

system will increase the value of the 

archives: "Previously, public access to 

digital collections was limited but as the 

collections are uploaded to the cloud, 

Preservica will enable us to showcase 

and drive interest in them online to a 

much larger audience than ever before. 

This will help us to really demonstrate 

the value of the archive and the role it 

plays in highlighting the incredible 

cultural history of the City of Liverpool." 

Preservica CEO Mike Quinn added, "We 

welcome the Liverpool Record Office to 

the growing community of UK local 

authorities choosing Preservica to meet 

government mandates to safeguard and 

provide greater public access to digital 

records and collections.” 

Quinn concluded: “Using Preservica 

hosted in the cloud is a secure and costeffective 

solution for many local 

government institutions, and we look 

forward to working with the team at 

Liverpool City Council to protect and 

showcase the value of Liverpool's unique 

cultural and historic assets." 

More info: www.preservica.com 

34 


May/June 2019 


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