First Peoples Plus Green Forms And Adobe Live Cycle

First People’s Plus
delivers business efficiency,
data burden reduction,
cost savings and reduction
in the carbon footprint of
every organization it touches

Table of Contents
GreenFORMS solutions enterprise-wide.......................................... 2

FPP takes BPA thinking to a new level............................................ 3

The Vision Challenge ................................................................... 4

The eForms Vision Solution .......................................................... 5

Understanding the Value of Business Process Automation................. 9

Data Burden Reduction...............................................................10

Accessible Change .....................................................................10

Carbon Reduction ......................................................................10

The Forms Maturity Model...........................................................13

Where to from here? ..................................................................18

First Peoples’ Plus is an Information
Communications Technology (ICT) solutions
group based in Oshweken and Ottawa,
Ontario, focusing on five key areas of
technology for government and business.

• Professional Services
o Strategy
o Development
o Design
• Software/Hardware Sales
o Adobe
o HP
• User Experience & Design
o Forms and Correspondence
• Business Process Automation
o Workflow
o Data Assurance

Page 1 of 18

GreenFORMS solutions enterprise-wide

First Peoples’ Plus delivers successful definition and implementation of
projects in four business areas – electronic forms, correspondence
management, business process automation and workforce solutions.
We strive to deliver projects and solutions that sit at the intersection of
two identified areas that challenge almost every organization:

• Electronic Content Management – ECM has grown in importance
to almost every government and private sector organization and
saw an investment of $3.2B in 2008. IT professionals are
continuing to invest in projects in this category at an estimated
compound annual rate of 12.2% through 2012, and include all
the aspects of document management that FPP solutions
encompass. "Delivering ECM aligned to line-of-business and
vertically specialized processes increases the overall value of the
ECM software and its ability to support business processes and
better align content to process requirements." (Gartner)

• Business Process Management and Automation (BPM & BPA) has
become essential to organizations looking to increase efficiency,
reduce the data burden and who aim for greener business and IT
solutions. Investment will grow to $5.5B in 2011, fuelled by
expansion of process management software and hardware.
According to Forrester, “Adobe’s vision of linking the customer
experience to a full BPM capability is a sure-ﬁre winner,
particularly in enterprises and government agencies that have
large numbers of paper or forms-driven processes that are also
customer-facing.

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More and more we see considerable overlap in these technology
investments and this provides clear opportunities to combine
investments to single projects in order to save money, optimize effort
and ultimately better solve business problems. Arguably, any
successful document and information management strategy is going to
include an element of BPM in order to route documents and their
information through the right approvals and distribution channels.

Additionally, any business process improvements should be taking into
consideration the required documents, information and reporting
outputs that are required for all users of the systems impacted.
Continuing to invest in separate BPM, BI, ECM and the infrastructure
for these projects is simply no longer the right approach.

FPP takes BPA thinking to a new level
FPP thinks about Business Process Automation as an
opportunity to assist any organization realize the benefits
of a green IT transformation. Therefore, the objectives of
our GreenFORMS strategy is to provide a set of practical
blueprints, best practices and solution accelerators for the
rapid development and deployment of eForms and
Business Process Automation (BPA) solutions enterprise-wide. We
understand that implementing a holistic eForms and BPA strategy is a
long-term commitment that takes careful planning and deliberate
execution.

A key element of the FPP strategy, beyond the solutions and
integration work, is the greening of IT and specifically your
organizations business processes. The World Commission on
Environment and Development defines the term sustainable
development as “meeting the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs.” Every day, we are challenged to think about how we can
continue to move forward without harming our environment, keeping it
healthy for future generations.

Page 3 of 18

Both private sector and government investment continues to grow in
green IT , according to IDC. Service delivery processes are shifting
from paper documents and in-person visits using bureaucracy-centred
workflows with multiple data entry points, to a framework based on
better outcomes, self-service, integrated digital records, and citizen-
centric workflows.

Information and communication technology (ICT) is truly experiencing
a revolution. Digitization or “Greening ICT” for information collection,
exchange and storage impacts all forms of paper-based
communications from marketing collateral through forms, contracts,
reports and personalized correspondence.

Despite market trends and an overall appreciation of the impact BPM
and BPA are having on organizational efficiency, implementation of
these types of solutions across the enterprise remains a relatively new
phenomena. In our experience, the key to any initiative of this kind is
to have a clear vision of what your organization is trying to
accomplish. Once you do, your organization will be on a path to
success – a vision path.

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The Vision Challenge

Many organizations are in the initial stages of defining an enterprise
wide business process automation and eForms and strategy. The FPP
approach is holistic and helps deliver a comprehensive business
transformation vision. In doing so FPP takes on the substantial
challenge of deploying eForms technology and bringing business
process automation to organizations that have disparate groups that
are spread across Canada or around the world. Given the challenges
that executing on a significant business transformation holds, we
believe the level of success is be based on:

• How your organization structures the management and delivery
teams
• Whether the projects mandate is established as an
organizational priority and how this is communicated to business
owners
• Whether the vision to bring this transformation forward is
adopted across the organization

The eForms Vision Solution

It is critically important that your organization take a very deliberate
and calculated approach to how it deploys emerging eForms
technology. It is also vital to understand that BPA is a business and
policy initiative linked to overall organizational transformation and not
just an IT project. It is therefore essential that every organization
establish a well-defined set of strategic objectives at the beginning of
the process to guide it through the process to achieve its vision.

Electronic forms (eForms), including process automation, have evolved
into one of the most critical business tools for any organization hoping
to increase efficiency, reduce the data burden on its key stakeholders
and move to green IT solutions. If leveraged properly an eForms
strategy properly executed should become one of your organizations
single greatest assets and for your key stakeholders one of its greatest
strengths. Automated business processes can now be deployed to
remote users, individuals with limited or slow Internet access and even
to those with no access at all. As part of this outreach, eForms can
now be used to drive almost any business process.

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However, in order to maximize on any technology’s potential, it is
important to first describe the environment needed for success.

Technology projects continue to fail throughout the public and private
sector at a rate of nearly 50%1. This results from fragmented project
teams, poor leadership and a lack of strategic thinking from the outset
of a bulk of technology projects. No doubt, every project starts with
an idea of what the end result should look like, the difference between
success and failure however, often lies in having a complete
understanding the path that will get you there.

Equally as important, you need to know how to stay on that ‘vision’
path. A successful eForms initiative will navigate a defined path that
begins by setting clear strategic objectives – the strategic phase; then
moves through a tactical phase where implementation or process
automation occurs; and finally transitions into an operational phase
where the Return on Investment (ROI) is fully realized. For your
organization to realize its greatest ROI in its use of eForms technology,
two things must occur: first, it must define a vision by building a
detailed strategic roadmap and second, it must commit to the principle
that only with strong leadership, and an engaged and devoted project
authority, will it maximize its chance of success to leverage this
solution to achieve its long term goals. Your approach needs to be
disciplined and straightforward:

1. Figure out where you are going;
2. Determine how long you have to get there;
3. Define the shortest path between where you are today and
where you need to get to; and
4. Ensure your organizations leadership commits to the process and
is actively involved throughout.

Although this sounds simple enough, there are numerous potholes
along the journey that can steer an organization off the path.
Generally the greatest risks to this kind of business transformation are
lack of leadership and a fragmented project team; the introduction of
competing technologies; and having a project team that does not fully
understand the business objectives. As a result, your team will not

Page 6 of 18

become the highly motivated and committed group that will help you
reach your goals. We can help change this.

Project teams, whether internal or outsourced, volunteer or
compensated, are usually well intentioned and share some vision for
the end result, however, the leadership of your organization must
actively participate and lead the team to success. The reason this is so
critical is that technology is simply a tool that allows an organization to
achieve its core objectives, such as overall business transformation. All
too often, technology projects end up on a path that is not aligned
with where your organization is really headed. As is often the case,
technology projects cannot be allowed to take on a life of their own
and they must continue to demonstrate business value based on a real
organizational need.

To help eliminate risk, your organization must establish a core
management team that is involved in all aspects of the process and is
tightly aligned to your organizations leadership. Success factors on
your organizations critical path include:

• A well-defined and understood vision; this is the primary critical
success factor. You should not underestimate the value of a
strong and easily articulated vision;

• Documented principles that will guide you through the process;
these are essential to assist decision makers in the delivery of an
initiative of this kind when formal policies or unforeseen change
occur in the project; and

• Clear and measurable objectives.

To achieve its greatest chance of success, this process must move
through three phases: strategic, tactical and operational.

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Your organization must take the time to crystallize its vision around
BPM/BPA, agree on where this technology can take you and then
articulate and validate your strategic objectives. These objectives must
then be pursued on a daily basis as individuals perform the tasks
required to automate each and every process and get your
organization up the vision path. Everyone that touches this project
must think “VPO”: Vision-Principals-Objectives.

Assuming that you develop a strong vision and lay down a path to
achieve your goals it then becomes essential to understand the value
an automation program will achieve for your organization.

Page 8 of 18

Understanding the Value of Business Process Automation
eForms are the heart of an automated business process and are used
to transport data between all key stakeholders who belong to your
organization whether internal or external. This includes data suppliers,
users of the data or decision makers who must get the data, assess it
and make key organizational decisions based on what data has been
delivered.

If we view the business process as a large transportation network and
the eForm as the vehicle that speeds through the network carrying our
critical data to each stakeholder, then we can begin to understand
where the eForm fits into our organization and the requirement to
have a transportation network capable of fast, efficient and accurate
data transport. FPP leverages Adobe LiveCycle ES as the technology
platform, or transportation network, and we use Adobe Designer to
build safe and secure eForms or the PDF transportation vehicles.

By using LiveCycle to systematically automate processes your
organization will see cumulative growth in capability to get data to
anywhere and anyone in your organization on time, securely and
accurately. In addition you will see increased cost savings as each
process is automated.

Adobe has evolved their enterprise platform into what we believe
today to be a revolutionary technology. Adobe LiveCycle ES delivers
an innovative and robust approach to eForms, Document Creation and
Business Process Automation. This technology acts as a foundation of
your data transportation network supplying the vehicles in the form of
a PDF that you will use to securely transport your data between
departments, people and or outside organizations. So what does this
do for your organization strategically?

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Data Burden Reduction

• Empowered data intake
• Reduced data entry and re-entry
• Eliminate process backlogs

Accessible Change

• Best Practices for new requirements

• CLF Compliance

• All operations meet Accessibility legislation

Carbon Reduction

• Move away from paper intake

• Stop printing and sending

• Increase productivity

From a more tactical perspective the LiveCycle technology platform
drives value and capability at three levels.

Process components

The power of LiveCycle grows as it is applied across the enterprise
through its ability to reuse “components.” Each time you automate a
process you will be required to configure components specific to that
process. These pieces do not exist in isolation however, and become
part of a central library of components that can be called upon for any
future automation where appropriate. The result is that as each
process is automated components designed for your organization grow
and the solution becomes that much more powerful. Additionally,
process automation becomes simpler as the time to build or modify a
process is substantially reduced. Technically, drawing from a central
library of components is called “nested process calls.”

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The advantage of using this “nested” strategy is clear, as it allows the
re-use of a pre-defined, pre-tested and qualified sub-processes. The
one drawback to a components based approach is that if a slightly
different requirement exists within a process, a new component must
be configured. Nevertheless, over the long term, it will be extremely
advantageous to define a series of process components from which
larger processes can be built and the power of your data
transportation network grows.

Fragments

Like components that are built as part of a process and stored in a
library, building eForms can leverage the same concept. A form
fragment is a collection of fields or objects that are grouped together
to form a “fragment” to collect specific information. By creating and
storing these form fragments in a central library, it becomes much
easier to assemble forms and documents. As an example, form
header information, things like your name, address and phone number
will remain consistent across all forms within your organization and by
building a header fragment that includes this basic descriptive
information it can be instantly applied to each form in your
organization as it is built.

In the future as existing forms are converted or new ones created it
can be done using these predefined fragments rather than creating a
form from scratch - one field or object at a time. Over time, as both
the component and fragment libraries grow, making adjustments to
your data transportation network (processes) or building new transport
vehicles (eForms) becomes routine and extremely cost effective.

Additionally, and this point should not be minimized, significant cost
savings are accrued using form fragments to make a change that
impacts all or a wide range of forms within your organization. A policy
change could in theory impact every form in your organization but
because form fragments are stored in a central library file system or in
the LiveCycle ES repository – by making the change to the fragment in
the library every form in the organization gets automatically updated.
This one small function can literally save hundreds of thousands of
dollars instantly.

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Sharing content for Correspondence Management

Reuse of components and fragments clearly drives value in the
creation or modification of a process or form, but LiveCycle takes this
one step further in the way it deals with the actual content that is part
of correspondence, contracts or almost any document. One of the
quick wins that you can realize is leveraging the Correspondence
Management Solution Accelerator, a tool that can quickly automate the
generation of various types of communication - from straightforward
customer letters to complex contracts or regulatory documents. One
of the added benefits is that it does this while helping to ensure
compliance, integrity, authenticity, and confidentiality of personal
information. Like the fragment and component library, you will have a
central “content” library that will significantly cut down the time to
create documents and in many cases completely automate their
creation as part of a process. In our data transportation example,
what this means is we can now very quickly and effectively add data or
cargo to our transport vehicles to get them moving across the
enterprise.

To achieve even greater efficiencies, common content can be written
for use in multiple types of correspondence. The Content Creation
Components module enables the following capabilities:

• Create common document paragraphs and content
• Categorize content and apply rules when paragraphs are added
• Integrate with ECM and LiveCycle repositories
• Import rich text from word processing software

The Content Creation Components module includes content authoring
to create, edit, delete, and manage content used in correspondence
management document templates.

Extend business process with Adobe LiveCycle Reader
Extensions ES

LiveCycle clearly drives value in the creation, modification and
exchange of documents through automation, but where its power
begins to really come forward is in its reach. LiveCycle has the ability
to extend your data transportation network quickly and effectively to a
broad range of locations.

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One of the critical success factors to automating processes is
consideration of where stakeholders are physically located and the
ability they have to access the Internet to actually participate in the
process. LiveCycle Reader Extensions extend the reach of every
automated process by giving users the ability to securely participate
while outside or off the data transportation network. This means even
when they are offline at home, at the cottage, or in some cases in a
remote part of the world. In context of the data transportation network
we are building, this is like adding air service to the rail network we
use to transport data across our enterprise and ensures we can
transport data to those who simply cannot get it by rail.

Reader Extensions unlock key functions and provide the ability to
deploy PDF forms anywhere in a standard format, but more
importantly the forms can be worked on using the ubiquitous and free
Adobe Reader. Adobe Reader is found on more than 900 million
desktops globally and can be obtained easily and at no cost. This
results in huge cost savings as the requirement to provide end users
or staff with any type of software or plug-in is completely eliminated.

Additional Reader Extension capabilities allow forms and their data to
be saved locally; digital signatures to be applied; and comments and
collaboration to be completed and all through the users free Adobe
Reader.

The Forms Maturity Model
Whether your organizations users are internal or external, online or
offline, the FPP strategy includes all key stakeholders and allows them
user-friendly access, where appropriate, to your organizations forms-
driven business processes.
To implement a
holistic eForms/BPA
Strategy your
organization must
make a long-term
commitment and
follow a systematic
and deliberate
approach that
ensures the most
cost effective
solution is
implemented.

Page 13 of 18

A systematic and deliberate approach reduces forms redundancy and
establishes business processes that eliminate manual workarounds
that are prone to errors. The Forms Maturity Model provides your
team with an off the shelf, but very comprehensive strategic roadmap,
to move your organization from its current approach into a streamlined
and centrally managed digital environment in a practical and proven
way. It is however vitally important that expectations are
appropriately set at the beginning of this process and a full
understanding of the progressive nature of this strategy is understood.
In brief, the maturity model follows a path that systematically
increases functionality and efficiency in parallel over time.

In general terms the Forms Maturity Model:

• Creates departmental templates through a common look and
feel, applying standardized naming conventions.
• Initially migrate identified forms to print and fill with save offline
capabilities. (Reader Extensions)
• Adds field and form level validation, digital signatures, and
electronic submit capability. (LiveCycle forms)
• Deploys more complex functionality like dynamic pre-fill, forms
based wizards, and full electronic submission over time.
(LiveCycle Forms, Workflow)
• Adds form level orchestration, data extraction, process
management and complex form based business process
automation that provides system to system or human level
process automation that includes form level policies.

While the Forms Maturity Model provides a strategic path to move any
organization into the digital forms age, FPP’s Best Practice Approach
acts as a practical and proven methodology to move specific forms
through the process and up the maturity model. The Best Practice
Approach follows a well-defined and repeatable sequence of tasks and
events to get a specific and defined set of forms to a predetermined
and agreed to point in the maturity model.

This best practices approach will be derived from key aspects of your
forms strategy and will reveal itself as a centre of excellence inside
your organization, providing end-to-end capabilities, learning and
delivery that ensures maximum efficiency and return on investment.

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BPM Excellence

Centre’s of Excellence serve as internal practices that support
deployment of enterprise-wide business processes.

• Process design
• Actions and change management
• Best practice workflows
• Integration
• Process toolbox
• Process integration modules
• Audit History Reports
• Process dashboard and wiki

Page 15 of 18

Your initial project will also result in two significant standards being
produced as part of your centre of excellence - an organizational
Global Object Library (GOL) that will be used in all future forms
migrations, and a Best Practices Guide that will become the
cornerstone for all future forms conversions and automations.

So what are some the challenges posed by existing static or paper
based processes that we are trying to fix?

• It is often tedious or impossible to determine where a users data
is in the process
• Huge backlogs of forms, documents or associated approvals
accumulate
• There is real difficulty in identifying where bottlenecks are
occurring in many processes
• There is a substantial challenge to keep track of the status of a
process across different internal systems
• Staff members become increasingly more frustrated with the
difficulty in performing what should be routine tasks
• Duplication of effort has become rampant in many organizations
as users develop their own “stove-piped” solutions to solve the
problems inherent in current paper-based or static electronic
processes
• The inability of organizations to integrate these “stove-piped”
solutions, which compounds problems and creates more
frustration

Most organizations have a
considerable backlog of
documents and forms requiring
process. We can eliminate that
backlog quickly, and ensure it is
better managed going forward.

Page 16 of 18

Solution Delivery
If we go back to the very basic approach we discussed earlier it seems
clear that to start we must figure out exactly where it is you are going,
how long you have to get there and the shortest path to achieve your
strategic objectives. FPP follows a proven best practice approach to do
just that.
From its highest level a successful deployment of BPA using LiveCycle
includes three phases.

We call the first phase the Discovery, where we conduct both a
functional and technical site survey of your organization to create a
baseline from which we can all start. Included in the Discovery report
are recommendations on the direction your project should take.
The second phase is a “Proof of Concept.” This should not be mistaken
for simply demonstrating the features and functions of the solution
however; this is a full-fledged automation of an existing business
process within your organization. We normally choose a complex
process that is tied into your critical business systems to demonstrate
the power of the solution from as many perspectives as possible.
Finally we move into the deployment phase, which is the process of
taking your business processes into production.
Breaking our approach down even further, as we automate individual
processes we move through 8 important steps.

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Where to from here?
The first step is to sit down with one of our eForms/BPA experts and
ask as many questions as you have. We will put eForms and BPA into
context for you and explain our vision to assist your organization to
make a business transformation that will change the way you leverage
automated processes forever.

Contact us today.

First People’s Plus

2176B Chiefswood
Ohsweken, Ontario N0A 1M0

Telephone: 519-445-2136

Ottawa: 613-366-1735

Toll Free: 1-866-638-1104

Fax: 519-445-1616

Toll-free fax: 1-866-697-0156

Feedback@FirstPeoplesPlus.com

Page 18 of 18

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