What's New in Content Services - Release 16 EP4

Editor's Notes

• #4: Two distinct use cases for managing content have emerged First is the digital workplace. We need to ensure users are working with digital tools that make them productive, giving them rapid access to the information when and where they need to do their jobs. They need simple tools for content creation and collaboration – to help manage ad-hoc business processes. And with 90% of content being created is via Word, Excel, PowerPoint, AND email, content which then gets communicated in… again… email, we need to provide simple, consumer like user experiences integrated to the productivity tools they use every day. And to help minimize the reliance on email we need to make it easy for them to create and share content with those outside their organizations. This add-hoc content and collaboration we’re talking about isn’t necessarily the most in critical information to the organization, but it does tend to be where the lawyers and the people associated with compliance come looking for that information and so - we do need to control it. The other side of the coin in the digital business. Organizations are rapidly moving away from the analog business model and moving to digital – which requires digital transformation. This digital transformation has actually caused the creation of more silos - silos that are happening inside of process applications such ERP, and CRM. As well, the silos occur inside the productivity applications used in the digital workplace, like Office 365. With the lack of an integration layer between these applications, bridging the silo’s becomes the job of the user. Of course, this is unproductive, prone to error and puts the organization at further risk of compliance or security breaches. And, if you don’t have access to accurate, consumable and valuable information, how can you possibly make good decisions to drive the organization forward?   And if you ask where does OpenText fit in in all these, we are there to make your digital business processes better, to make them more effective. And to do this we need to help you address both use cases.
• #5: As a result, progressive enterprises are now embracing simple, lightweight solutions–ones that nimbly address varied and specific productivity and governance issues. These targeted applications can be in the cloud or on-premises and, like blocks in a foundation, build on each other to result in optimal, cross-enterprise ECM coverage. OpenText connects the content to your digital business. As an innovator in transforming the way organizations use ECM, OpenText breaks the cycle of underutilization and poor adoption by extending content services into the lead applications where content is created and managed. OpenText bridges the gap between the digital workplace and the digital business. From an ECM perspective, this makes us different from all the other ECM vendors. By extending content services into a business process, we break down the silos, help derive value from content and in the process automate the application of metadata to content to ensure it can be effectively controlled and managed throughout its lifecycle.
• #6: How do the Content Services EP4 releases help build on the capabilities OpenText provides to balance the needs of the users in the digital workplace with the transformation and automation goals of the digital business? Content Services EP4 expands on the simplified user experiences delivered to date in R16, further deepens integrations with leading process applications to drive productivity, strengthens compliance with automated capture of metadata, and enhances cloud readiness.
• #9: With the release of EP4, the development of OpenText Content Suite advances even further. Let’s look at the top three ways OpenText solutions can now simplify how a user connects with their digital business:   1. Evolve your user experience for increased productivityIn today’s connected world, users demand access to their content from anywhere, anytime, and virtually from any interface. The following product enhancements enable users to focus on tasks and productivity rather than technologies and tools. Extended Smart View: The Smart View continues to evolve while supporting the needs of audiences across business application platforms and devices, adding visualization capabilities to view permissions, create easy-to-edit HTML tiles, track workflow progress, work with reminders, or create documents using templates. Power-user functionality also makes its way into the Smart View with support for advanced WebReports.  Records Management: Additional functionality is provided in the Smart View including visual indicators of RM status on objects, the ability to apply and remove holds and cross-references, new tiles for My Requested and My Borrowed physical items, RM and Physical Object reports, and a new Security Clearance and Supplemental Markings tile report. Content Server Mobile: The Content Server Mobile application now enables Content Suite users to view and edit content and act on workflows from iOS and Android® devices—allowing easier access to their content from anywhere and anytime. For example, mobile users can now view most content types and add files to Content Server Mobile directly from other applications including Microsoft® Word, Excel, and more. Connected Workspaces: Connected Workspaces is a Content Server module providing template-driven workspace objects that allow organizations to develop integrated business solutions with minimal customization. With EP4, Connected Workspaces further improves collaboration and productivity by adding the ability to set reminders on objects, providing increased visibility to team tasks. In-place migration from Template Workspaces to Connected Workspaces is now available. An optional integration to OpenText Exstream enables the design and delivery of ultra-personalized, consistent, compliant communications.  Enterprise Connect: Designed to enable users to work with content directly from desktop applications such as Microsoft Office and Windows® Explorer. Enterprise Connect EP4 further improves productivity by adding Microsoft Edge extension capabilities. Users can now edit OpenText Content Server documents using Microsoft Office Editor directly from Edge. External file sharing with OpenText Core: Extends existing Content Suite environments by providing a safe space where documents can be shared externally with partners and contractors. External file sharing with Core    enables secure sharing of content with users outside of the firewall, automating the process for end users while ensuring administrators that content is available to only the right users and only when access is required. 2. Streamline AdministrationAn up-to-date system is critical to continue to take advantage of new innovations. Whether your enterprise content management deployment is in the cloud or on-premises, all organizations benefit from accelerated ability to implement new features. In EP4, as Content Suite moves toward continuous innovation and product delivery, the installation and upgrade process have been streamlined. Improvements include pre-installation of Records Management modules, elimination of the need for a staging database, ability to install all modules, and enhanced Transport capabilities.   3. Simplify development and tailoring of the user experienceTailoring interfaces for different roles in the organization can mean significant increases in productivity. Content Suite makes UI configuration simple through out-of-the-box widgets you can drag and drop on a page configuration. Content Suite EP4 now integrates Content Server, Content Intelligence, and Records Management with our Perspective Manager, further expanding the ease and breadth of UI customization. Increased Cloud Automation – Today organizations require a range of architecture and performance options with services and analytics to shape their cloud strategy. Deploying OpenText Content Suite in the cloud allows organizations to accelerate their implementations and, consequently, their business. The cloud presents a new opportunity for better flexibility, scalability, and cost effectiveness. The Cloud Edition Packages offer customers the ability to grow their solutions as they need to. The packages are quickly and easily scalable, so businesses can seamlessly adapt and expand without needing to install new hardware. New in EP4: We are committed to continuously build on our cloud automation capabilities to help customers more rapidly deploy into the OpenText Cloud. Rapid deployment means that customers spend less time worrying about IT management while at the same time improving their processes by shifting their workloads to the cloud with greater speed. Allowing them to stay ahead of their competition. Improvements to the provisioning process means that customers are able to more quickly and efficiently equip their users with access to their content when and where they need. Our Content Suite services are certified with many industry and regional standards and further certifications will be gained over time either to extend coverage or to add certifications as required by the industry and our customers. Blazon is being introduced as a transformation content service delivered via the Core platform. (With increasing functionality with each future EP’s.)
• #58: It is well know that InfoArchive can ingest any data type from any application. This is a major advantage for our customers but we are always looking for ways to simplify and reduce the friction associated with ingestion. In the Extract column we have added extract and ingest/load solution accelerators from the OpenText family of products. These include File Intelligence that can find unmanaged content anywhere on your network analyze it and then ingest selected content into IA. Extream and Xenos provide the ability to ingest customized and high output transactional content directly into IA. OTIC provides over 150 different connectors for ETL processes. These solution accelerators deliver additional value to our customers and reduce the overall time to value of the InfoArcive platform. Additionally, accessibility to the data and content stored in IA provides greater insight for business objectives and business unit decision making. To increase this ability IA is now compatible with Axcelerate, iHub, and xECM.
• #63: Extended ECM for Engineering features an enhanced Smart View dashboard designed to be the starting point for document control managers, engineers and engineering leaders to control engineering change & exchange, integrate engineering and asset information and control engineering risk. The dashboard has been reorganized to put getting engineering jobs done first and highlight sources of risk over just basic document management. The Activity feed widget leverages the Smart View framework to show a real time feed of who is doing what on what content. A new updated My Assignments widget shows users the jobs being asked of them. The Overdue Items widget shows team leaders what is overdue within their realm of responsibility so they can equally take quick corrective actions to keep their engineering work on track. Using these widgets users can focus on getting engineering jobs done and get clear insight on what work needs attention. Enhanced support for Connected Workspaces can be leveraged to model engineering and asset data from multiple sources in richer ways than before. When used correctly, they provide a more intuitive way to access relevant content by organizing across various contexts better than simple file and folder structures. The power search widget enables rapid access to engineering content based on granular engineering criteria that is not present in basic Content Server Search. Lastly, a new Background Jobs widget shows the status of large scale bulk jobs being handled by the system in the background and can be expanded to show status, errors and corrective actions. As this is all in the new highly configurable Smart View framework, customers can configure their dashboards to their wishes rather than being trapped by a one size fits all design. The dashboard is designed to be easier to use than previous design approaches in the Classic UI and will be the main area of investment going forward.