16 06, 2021

Why is DMS Integration so Pivotal for Digital Mail and Records?

Michael Herzog2021-06-17T12:33:24-07:00June 16th, 2021|Paper2Digital Blog|

Why is DMS Integration so Pivotal for Digital Mail and Records?

A System of Record is Requisite to Information Governance and Managing Risk

In the beginning, document management was a system used to manage versions and eliminate the risk of sending the wrong version to clients. Documents could be more easily shared and re-used when stored in a managed library.

As the market matured, four things happened to change the economics and structure of the market for systems of record solutions and help move this market across the chasm.

In the wake of a dramatic increase in compliance and risk-based concerns (Enron, SarBox, FRCP), organizations realized that they needed better control over their silos.
SharePoint disrupted the market by entering at the low end.
Users realized that they were spending too much on all of their silos.
Users realized that they could only automate across departments if they did something about[1]

Fast forward to today and we see that the top five issues keeping Chief Legal Officers[2] awake at night, three pertain to how law firms handle of their records, including:

Protection of corporate data
Governance and management of data
Ethics and compliance requirements

Why DMS is Necessary

Client information must be managed within the technology framework of the document management system (DMS). Only through the technology of the DMS can we deliver security and the effective, timely, and consistent disposal of physical and electronic information that no longer needs to be retained should be a core component of any Information Governance program.

Email (for better or for worse often) is a corporate “record” just like any other document. Email is the de facto standard for business communication across organizations at this time. Just as any other type of business information and record, email must be included as part of, and adhered to, the organizational standards addressing information and records.

Therefore, scanning inbound postal mail via email is creating a new record that must be filed in the document management system. This is an inefficient, laborious process that puts unnecessary labor on the part of the attorneys who must then file the email.

There are other options such as sending inbound postal mail via the DMS directly to the attorneys without using email. This eliminates the inefficiency of sending via email and protects the firm’s information governance processes.

The Digital Mailroom enables productive, secure delivery of daily mail directly into the DMS. Learn more by downloading our free guide, 7 Reasons to Upgrade to a Digital Mailroom Operation

[1] https://info.aiim.org/aiim-blog/newaiimo/2010/10/20/systems-of-record-and-systems-of-engagement

[2] 2018 ACC Chief Legal Officer Survey

1 06, 2021

5 Steps to Get Information Governance Policy to Control Your Mailroom

Michael Herzog2022-06-15T13:11:40-07:00June 1st, 2021|Featured, White Papers and Articles|

5 Steps to Get Information Governance Policy to Control Your mailroom

Distributed work in some capacity or other is here to stay, and if that means continuing to scan inbound postal mail as an attachment to an attorney’s email, this brings us to the question: Should we be concerned about IG now?

Should the mailroom now be owned by the information governance arm of the firm?

Pre-pandemic, this wasn’t a necessary consideration. Then, when the pandemic hit and sent the workforce to home offices, most law firms quickly started scanning to email to get the mail out. Facilities management or available clerical staff went into the office and cobbled together this new work process. In the midst of the crisis and no indication of its duration, it is likely to say that no firm had information governance on its mind once again.

Mail has been a perfunctory function aligned with other physical office services, but the pandemic shifted mail to a critical, and digital operation. The proportion of U.S. lawyers who now want to work remotely at least one day a week has doubled from the pre-pandemic period.

FULL TEXT ARTICLE
https://www.docsolid.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/5-Steps-to-Get-Information-Governance-Policy-to-Control-Your-Mail-Room-Legaltech-News.pdf

Legaltech News Article

5 05, 2021

Quality Control Over Your Mail and Records Processes

Michael Herzog2022-07-13T09:06:57-07:00May 5th, 2021|Paper2Digital Blog|

Quality Control over your Mail and Records Processes

Quality Control and Shredding Documents

The payback for scanning paper documents is never fully released until shredding occurs. Continuing to distribute, store and manage paper physically after it is made digital is inefficient, posing a risk to your clients and ultimately the firm. Unfortunately, the decision to shred is a big one for a firm and so is often delayed indefinitely seeking that “perfect” time or set of circumstances to make such a move.

A carefully defined, quality control procedure ensuring the digital version accurately represents the physical document could give firm leaders the confidence to shred thereby reaping the benefits from scanning.

Digital Mail and Quality Control

Firms jumped on scanning mail at the start of the pandemic. But most are still distributing mail physically requiring duplicate effort and creating an information governance nightmare. Instead, after each item is scanned, a good quality control procedure should stage the paper in a box ordered by date for a comfortable retention period, say 60 days. This makes it easy to retrieve a physical item when required and bulk destruction once the retention period ends.

DocSolid’s Postmark Platform makes a reliable quality control (QC) procedure possible by turning it into repeatable steps that are easily trained and implemented. Postmark QC innovative and patented workflow ensures that all documents and pages were scanned correctly as well as delivered to the recipient (mail) or requestor (records).

In addition, Postmark QC also instructs the quality control operator on disposition i.e., what should happen to the paper document after it has undergone the various quality checks. This combination of checking image quality, delivery and disposition forms a robust procedure meant to be repeatable and productive, or put another way highly reliable.

The high-level of reliability provides you the confidence necessary to promote shredding as a critical step in your firm’s paper2digital journey.

Interested in learning more? Check out 7 Reasons to Upgrade to a Digital Mailroom Operation White Paper by DocSolid.

28 04, 2021

ALA Webcast May 4, 2021 Sign-up Here

Michael Herzog2021-11-01T11:34:42-07:00April 28th, 2021|Events and Conferences|

Webinar Sign-up

Register

Date: May 4, 2021
Time: 12:00pm EDT

How to Create a Digital Mailroom + Records Room

DESCRIPTION:

Learn how to create a Digital Mailroom and a Digital Records Room with your existing document management system using Airmail2. Daily mail is mission critical with confidential and time-sensitive client information. Digitizing the records room is an essential part of firms’ reducing their real estate footprint.

Law firms are uniquely dependent on inbound paper documents from clients, courts, opposing counsel and research efforts. Some of these paper items mandate a calendared response, or contain sensitive client information or crucial matter content.

Learning Objectives

7 reasons digital mail is essential for a distributed workforce
Optimize daily mail workflows with a batch process into the DMS
Smarter office real estate compression with a digital records room

Webinar Co-sponsored by Canon USA

Video Preview

ALA Related Publication: LEGAL MANAGEMENT – The Magazine of the Association of Legal Administrators

20 09, 2023

Does Your Firm’s Information Governance Policy Include the Mailroom?

Michael Herzog2023-09-20T14:04:56-07:00September 20th, 2023|Paper2Digital Blog|

Does Your Information Governance Policy Include the Mailroom?

Should the mailroom be owned by the information governance arm of the firm? It has been a perfunctory function aligned with other physical office services, but now with fee earners and legal staff frequently working from home, it is mission critical. Mail workflows launch new work, and therefore often billable activity. This means matter centric record creation is starting right from mail delivery, not from a stack of mail sitting on a desk.

Since scanning and document description is involved, it is more technical as well. In short, no matter who this process belongs to organizationally, it needs to be a part of your well thought out information governance policy, and refined on an ongoing basis, just like any other records management.

Inbound mail contains time sensitive client information. The pandemic and work from home led to ad-hoc scanning that was envisioned to be a temporary fix. But if you are still delivering mail physically or re-delivering again after scanning portions of the mail, you are missing an opportunity to elevate this form of record keeping to align it with your information governance policies. Make it digital on arrival and digital only.

The mailroom is now the biggest source of where digital has not yet happened. What if you looked at it as that place where the creation of a fully functional and complete digital matter file (DMF) begins? Digitize all new paper immediately upon arrival.

Digitizing the mail, it will be delivered securely into a document repository (a.k.a. document management system) where it belongs right from the beginning. The document is profiled, put where it belongs, and OCR makes it immediately searchable. It is actually pretty easy to elevate this process and get control.

Daily Mail Flowchart for a Digital Mailroom

Five Tips for Improving Information Governance with a Digital Mailroom

Establish the recipients, and which teams they belong to. You are already getting detail requests of “if you get this, send it there”, or “copy to my secretary/staff…” Formalize it!
If you are not scanning directly to the DMS, you could be, and you should be. This allows images to be routed immediately to specific recipients or someone who can evaluate the importance and take action.
Arm and educate your mailroom staff. Records staff are more valuable when they understand the distinctions among various transactions and their business purpose, right? Same here. Naming conventions are important. Basic examples of the types of mail that determine how mail is rough sorted upon intake, etc.
Officially ‘add’ mail to your records policy and retentions. We know the filtered target documents already have a home here, but there are steps and process before that is determined. And 40% of mail can be “left on the cutting room floor” after it has been checked for anything of value. Let’s have an appropriate destruction bucket for that. There is productivity to be gained from not handling the physical paper any more than is necessary.
If your firm is multi-office, you do have the option to centralize the mail operation – further capitalizing on the efficiencies of the Digital Mailroom. Think of the fully maximized efficiency and savings!

7 04, 2021

Reduce Real Estate by Digitizing Daily Mail and Records – The Right Way

Michael Herzog2021-08-30T14:45:50-07:00April 7th, 2021|Paper2Digital Blog|

Reduce Real Estate by Digitizing Daily Mail and Records – The Right Way

The ways attorneys prefer to work has transformed. 76 percent now favor remote work, according to the 2021 Peer Monitor and Georgetown Law State of the Legal Industry Report.

And if attorneys change the way they work, that means everything changes: from how attorneys receive client mail and request matter files, to large scale financial decisions that affect one of the most expensive costs law firms have after salaries: real estate.

This is why we shouldn’t be surprised when Sherry Cushman, Vice Chair and Executive Managing Director of Cushman & Wakefield, predicts “The legal sector will be downsizing its real estate needs on average 10% to 30% — and in some cases, 40% to 50%.”

The opportunity to recapture real estate costs is extremely attractive to law firms, but firms first need to solve the paper-based problems of daily mail and onsite records.

Paper2Digital Transformation leads to real estate optimization

When it comes to daily mail, attorneys and staff working from home absolutely require reliable, digital delivery of daily mail. Scan-to-email workarounds were hastily applied at the onset of the COVID-19, but now the mailroom needs to be made into a durable, permanent and secure operation.

Legal mail items contain client information, and the methods for processing them digitally should incorporate the same standards applied for all client data at the firm. In retrospect, building a daily mail delivery process based upon email was not a good idea.

A best practice Digital Mailroom operation delivers mail directly to the DMS where sensitive information can be delivered securely and governed according to firm policy. A best practice digital records room is similar, building a digitization project for scanning large volumes of paper records and storing them in the document management system. Built-in quality controls enable confident shredding of the scanned documents. It’s a Paper2Digital Transformation that can make entire file rooms disappear.

These are best practices focused on the critical paper-based workflows inside the law firm. The value proposition is strong just based on eliminating the costs and inefficiencies of paper records and nothing more. However, a multitude of other high value, and high visibility, goals become possible including; repurposed office space, hoteling, and downsizing. Beyond the tangible cost savings, these digital workflows are required to keep attorneys and staff productive, no matter where they may choose to work on any given day.

DocSolid’s Airmail2 Digital Mail + Records Suite transforms a firm’s paper-based mailroom and Records Room functions into streamlined, digital operations supporting both work-from-home and return-to-office strategies simultaneously, while enabling firms to optimize their real estate.

The Airmail2 Suite provides scanned delivery of sensitive and time-dependent mail and file requests via the document management system (DMS), enabling firms to govern, secure, and distribute information efficiently, according to policy and in keeping with individual client guidelines.

More can be learned about the benefits of transforming mailroom operations in our industry white paper:
7 Reasons to Upgrade to a Digital Mailroom Operation .

30 03, 2021

8 Reasons Why CIOs Love Airmail2 Digital Mailroom

Michael Herzog2021-03-30T10:16:34-07:00March 30th, 2021|Paper2Digital Blog|

Law firms now need a formal Digital Mailroom operation, moving beyond the scan-to-email workaround established at the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. Because doing something immediately was driving the decision, the workaround was formulated with little or no consultation with IT or information governance teams.

It has become evident over the past year that attorneys and staff working from home value reliable, digital delivery of daily mail, but it is now time for those mailroom operations to align with firms’ best practices.

For example, scanned legal mail is currently delivered as improperly named PDF attachments stored on Exchange, requiring never-ending growth in storage space at the same time posing a security and compliance risk for the related client.

Legal mail items contain client information, and the methods for processing them digitally should incorporate the same standards applied for all client data at the firm. Email is a key source of phishing and email attachments are a key source of malware. Email attacks are constantly evolving because email represents an open vulnerability for IT systems. In retrospect, building a daily mail delivery process based upon email was not the best idea.

Airmail2 Digital Mailroom was engineered from the ground up to solve the security and compliance requirements of law firms by providing direct delivery of daily mail to the firm’s document management system (DMS), where sensitive information can be protected and governed by the DMS best practices.

Here are the top reasons why CIOs love the Airmail2 Digital Mailroom:

Purpose-built, targeted application replaces the hodge-podge of responses to last year’s immediate need
Moves scanned daily mail storage from the already over-burdened Exchange System to the more scalable DMS repository
Zero footprint deployment to mailrooms across the enterprise, leverages existing scanning devices and workstations
Non-firm personnel, e.g. the facilities management (FM) company can provide Digital Mailroom services because operators do not require access to the DMS
Keeping attachments out of the Outlook Inbox make the information governance (IG) folks happy
Targeted and flexible notifications make attorneys happy and productive: no notification, no mail today
Big opportunity for cost savings by eliminating physical delivery now, and centralizing mailrooms in the future
Wins an important battle in getting attorneys to act more digitally by capturing (digitizing) incoming paper at the point of receipt, the mailroom

10 03, 2021

A How-to Guide to Transform Your Mailroom for the Normal Now

Michael Herzog2021-06-16T18:16:36-07:00March 10th, 2021|Paper2Digital Blog|

A How-to Guide to Transform Your Mailroom for the Normal Now

As law firms transition from crisis management to long-term solutions for the Normal Now, a crafted Digital Mailroom is essential. Inbound legal mail needs to get in the DMS, not the email system where it is delayed and exposed.

If your firm is still scanning daily mail to email, how many of these challenges does your firm experience?

The mailroom scanning operation is not integrated with the document management system (DMS).
Scanned mail recipients must use their email inbox as a workflow tool to process daily mail.
From an IT and security perspective, scanned legal mail ends up as unnamed PDF attachments stored in the email server, clogging storage space and compromising security and compliance for the related client information.
After scanning, the physical paper mail is still manually distributed to attorneys’ or assistants’ desks, or stored in a makeshift file area, replicating the labor of the previous paper-based operation, in addition to the new labor for scanning operations.
Attorneys and staff have complaints about the mail scanning results, such as delays, inadequate notifications, misdirected distribution, and scanned file quality issues.

DocSolid is pleased to offer the industry white paper, “7 Reasons to Upgrade to a Digital Mailroom Operation,” to help guide firms’ transformation to a fully Digital Mailroom. It includes:

Requirements for Digital Mailroom Operation
Why Scan to Email Won’t Cut It
How to Assess the Current Mailroom Operation

Download the white paper here.

Airmail2 by DocSolid is engineered from the ground up to solve the productivity and information security requirements of law firms by providing direct delivery of postal mail to the firm’s document management system (DMS), where sensitive information can be protected and governed by the DMS best practices.

Airmail2 by DocSolid enables clerical operators with minimal training and without login access to the DMS to scan, QC, and directly deliver postal mail in electronic form to the firm’s DMS of choice. DocSolid’s Airmail2 Digital Mailroom provides:

- Scanned mail delivery to iManage and other DMS systems
- DMS matter lookups when full profiling is required
- Mapped mail delivery to attorneys and legal assistants with automated notifications
- Batch workflows for productive alignment with legal office staffing resources
- Internet hosted or on-premise deployment

Learn more about Airmail2 here.

22 02, 2021

DocSolid Announces “7 Reasons to Upgrade to a Digital Mailroom Operation” White Paper Now Available

Michael Herzog2021-02-23T08:09:19-07:00February 22nd, 2021|Press Releases|

DocSolid Announces “7 Reasons to Upgrade to a Digital Mailroom Operation” White Paper Now Available

PHOENIX, AZ – (February 23, 2021) – DocSolid, the legal technology experts for enterprise scanning, workflow and paper reduction solutions, announces the white paper, “7 Reasons to Upgrade to a Digital Mailroom Operation,” is now available. Complimentary access is provided here.

With a distributed workforce, law firms have specific, critical needs for digital delivery of legal mail, specifically DMS integration, efficiency, reliability and security. As the “New Normal: becomes the “Normal Now,” law firms must migrate to sustainable, digital solutions.

Airmail2 by DocSolid is engineered from the ground up to solve the productivity and information security requirements of law firms by providing direct delivery of postal mail to the firm’s document management system (DMS), where sensitive information can be protected and governed by the DMS best practices.

The industry white paper, “7 Reasons to Upgrade to a Digital Mailroom Operation,” highlights include:

Requirements for Digital Mailroom Operation
Scan to Email Won’t Cut It
Assess the Current Mailroom Operation

Download the white paper here.

Airmail2 by DocSolid enables clerical operators with minimal training and without login access to the DMS to scan, QC, and directly deliver postal mail in electronic form to the firm’s DMS of choice. DocSolid’s Airmail2 Digital Mailroom provides:

Learn More

DocSolid Postmark Stamp Dispenser for Airmail2 Digital Mailroom

Self-adhesive barcoded Postmark stamps offer a familiar postal mail metaphor to simplify the work and enable scanning stacks of mail all at once.
Supplied in 100 ct. rolls.

Scanned mail delivery to iManage and other DMS systems
DMS matter lookups when full profiling is required
Mapped mail delivery to attorneys and legal assistants with automated notifications
Batch workflows for productive alignment with legal office staffing resources
Internet hosted or on-premise deployment

“As law firms transition from crisis management to long-term solutions for the Normal Now, a crafted Digital Mailroom is essential. Inbound legal mail needs to get in the DMS, not the email system where it is delayed and exposed. We’re pleased to offer this guide to the industry to help them with this critical transformation,” said Steve Irons, CEO of DocSolid.

FULL PRESS RELEASE

https://www.docsolid.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Press-Release-DocSolid-White-Paper-FINAL.pdf

3 02, 2021

Sterne Kessler Adopts DocSolid® Airmail2® Suite: Digital Mailroom and Digital Records Room for iManage Work 10

Michael Herzog2021-02-05T07:41:26-07:00February 3rd, 2021|Press Releases|

Sterne Kessler Adopts DocSolid^® Airmail2^® Suite: Digital Mailroom and Digital Records Room for iManage Work 10

PHOENIX, AZ – (February 3, 2021) – DocSolid, the legal technology experts for enterprise scanning, workflow and paper reduction solutions, announces NLJ 500 firm, Sterne Kessler Goldstein & Fox has implemented the Airmail2 Digital Mailroom and companion Digital Records Room for direct delivery of daily mail and matter files to the firm’s document management system, iManage Work 10.

Productivity for both home and in-office workers is a high priority as firms transition from the unexpected challenges of 2020 to the “Normal Now” of 2021. Paper-free workflows and real estate compression strategies are central to this; however, neither remote work nor real estate compression can be achieved without the digital transformation of mailroom and Records Room processes.

DocSolid’s Airmail2 Digital Mail + Records Suite transforms a firm’s paper-based mailroom and Records Room functions into streamlined, digital operations supporting work-from-home and return-to-office strategies. The Airmail2 Suite provides scanned delivery of sensitive and time-dependent mail and file requests via the document management system (DMS), enabling firms to govern, secure, and distribute information efficiently, per policy and individual client guidelines.

“We have re-vamped our scan capture solution set with DocSolid and Airmail2,” said Shawn Mitkowski, CIO at Stern Kessler. “The operational productivity, tight iManage integration, and innovative roadmap of the Airmail2 system drives our firm’s digital transformation.”

“To be efficient, secure and always-on for our clients, Sterne Kessler needs attorneys work-ready at home or back in the office,” said Robert Burger, COO at Stern Kessler. “That means we need to be digital. DocSolid’s new Airmail2 solutions are built for these times, to move paper into our digital processes and disciplines.”

“Sterne Kessler already had sharpened digital ambitions,” said Steve Irons, President of DocSolid. “With our new Airmail2 Suite, they now operate a Digital Mailroom and a Digital Records Room, cranked up in productivity, security and process quality. We’re honored to take the field with them.”

The Airmail2 Digital Mailroom enables clerical operators with minimal training and without login access to the DMS to scan, QC, and directly deliver postal mail in electronic form to the firm’s DMS of choice.

The Airmail2 Digital Records Room builds a digitization project to convert paper records for storage in the document management system, so that firms can downsize their office real estate footprint, and deliver requested files digitally for home workers.

Both systems provide:

- Scanned mail and file integration with iManage and other DMS systems
- Mapped mail and file delivery to recipients and proxies with custom notifications
- DMS matter integration for search, profiling and storage, but operators don’t have DMS logins
- Built-in quality controls to ensure confident shredding
- Batch workflows for productive and flexible alignment with staffing resources
- Simple deployment with Web-based clients, pre-built DMS integrations and universal scan device support

Airmail2 Digital Mail + Records Suite for iManage Work 10

Learn more

FULL PRESS RELEASE

https://www.docsolid.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/DocSolid-Sterne-Kessler-AirMail2-PRESS-RELEASE.pdf