The California State Treasurer’s Office is underway on a technology initiative with Missouri-based KnowledgeLake, which is aimed at modernizing aspects of its processes around records, processing and security. Among the takeaways:
- The Treasurer’s Office makes use of IBM FileNet as its enterprise document solution, a representative told Industry Insider — California via email. However, the need for additional plug-ins to meet “records retention and security policy needs,” as well as cost prompted the office to migrate to Microsoft SharePoint Online, where “all of the features we required are built-in.”
“We also appreciated that we’ll no longer need to host servers and databases to maintain a test and production environment,” the representative said, noting KnowledgeLake is a “trusted partner of Microsoft” and was selected for its ability to use the Office’s existing SharePoint Online licensing and integrated Active Directory roles and security.
“Moving away from our on-premises application to a modern cloud solution will help the State Treasurer’s Office remove technical debt and reduce employee time spent on manual data entry and document search,” Ron Cameron, CEO of KnowledgeLake, said in a statement. “In addition, the State Treasurer’s Office will see significant cost savings in migrating from their legacy ECM solution to the KnowledgeLake Cloud.” The company announced the news Sept. 27. - The office chose KnowledgeLake’s enterprise content management and document processing solution and work began in July. It was selected, the representative said, because it contained the scanning software needed to digitize archival documents, as well as the search and indexing interface that could work with SharePoint Online as the repository.
- The solution is not yet live; it is in the “file migration planning phase.” However, the office estimates it will see fiscal savings as high as 70 percent by migrating off FileNet to the KnowledgeLake/SharePoint Online solution. Among the added benefits, the office will no longer need to support the “aging servers and databases” on which the FileNet solution has relied.
- Takeaways: Consolidation, interoperability are key. When asked for takeaways as a result of the project so far, the office said Microsoft’s platform of services enables it “to consolidate disparate systems and services, so we are able to reduce costs and cut back on infrastructure.” And, as SharePoint is used widely around the world, the task of recruiting and retaining knowledgeable support staff to support it as the office’s enterprise document management solution is made easier.
