Integrating enterprise resource planning into electronic content management in a South African water utility company

Bibliography: pages 184-207Digital records are either stored in an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system or electronic content management (ECM), or managed without the benefit of either system. In many countries, public and private organisations have implemented ECM systems, some have implemented ERP systems and others generate digital records without the benefit of any controlled system. In most organisations such systems are not integrated resulting in duplication and fragmentation of records. The South African Water Utility company, Rand Water, has implemented both ERP and ECM systems. Investing in these systems as an organisation comes at a cost but it can add value when used optimally to improve the organisation’s productivity and efficiency. To achieve high productivity and efficiency, integration of an ERP system into an ECM system is a requirement but remains lacking. This qualitative study utilised the Actor Network Theory to explore the integration of ERP into ECM at the South African Water Utility company, Rand Water, with a view to developing a framework for integration of the systems. The study utilised a system analysis case design with fourteen interviews conducted at different levels in the organisation and diverse business units using ERP and ECM to perform their operational deliverables in line with the organisation’s business objectives. The interviews were augmented with data from document analysis of policies, specifications and functionalities of the systems to determine the feasibility of integration. The study established that the water utility company has implemented ERP systems (SAP) since 1994 and ECM system since 1991 (Papertrail and later IBM FileNet) with only information flow module integrated. The study suggested that to integrate ERP into ECM, human and non-human actors need to collaborate to ensure that the actor network being integrated is achieved. The study also presents a strategy discussion for integrating ERP into ECM. A further study on the transfer of digital records in ECM into archival custody is recommended.Information ScienceD. Phil. (Information Science

Analysis and design of document centric workflows for automating tasks in a multi-tenant cloud archive solution

Information Lifecycle Governance (ILG) is a cross functional business initiative intended to align the cost of information with its value to the enterprise, increase transparency and control and reduce the risk of legal and regulatory obligations for data. It is this dynamic workload system that enables the users to analyze, formalize and optimize for a cloud environment such for being able to provide a fully managed "Archive as a Service" in private and public clouds. In this context of the Master Thesis a research on the possibilities on how to improve and optimize the information lifecycle governance workloads especially in the context of cloud environments. It looks for a formal definition of the individual ILG workflows using Process management concepts with a Process Engine can be used. The main goal is to allow the definition of generic ILG tasks in a declarative way and to guarantee transactional integrity and check-point restarting capabilities. An end user subscribes to SaaS archive service in the cloud has to move data off-premise and delete data management processes to the service provider without comprising data security and privacy. The first scenario is to evaluate on various workload management solution with document centric workflows. The second scenario to investigate describes the use case where a recurring batch load system periodically imports valuable business data in to the SmartCloud Archive. The thesis also proposes the architecture for the required uses to create the batch load and disposal sweep tasks in an enterprise perspective by eliminating administrative client for SmartCloud Content Management System. The architecture proposed moves the data off the premise into a cloud environment and thereafter managed in an automated way. The management of the data had been made to flexible, easy, reliable and efficient

Technical Conception and Implementation of an IT-System supporting the flexible Distribution of Documents within a large scale Sales Organization

This thesis aims to discuss and present an IT system to distribute documents within a large scale sales organization. Therefore, different sales applications on the market are analyzed and described. Based on this analysis, requirements for the IT system are defined. The requirements are divided into client-side and server-side requirements. The server application is realized using an existing ECM system to support the content throughout the enterprise content life cycle. Therefore, an evaluation of existing ECM systems is performed with a criteria catalog based on the requirements. Afterwards, the conception and architecture of the IT system is described, followed by further insights into the technical implementation of the mobile application. Finally, the features of the overall IT system are discussed and an outlook on how to extend the IT system is presented

EDRMS 101: the basics

This paper presents the basic concepts of an electronic document and records management system (EDRMS), i.e. the what, why, and how aspects of an EDRMS. It identifies the key business drivers for implementing an EDRMS. It also explains how an EDRMS differs from an EDMS and identifies the core functionalities of an EDRMS and discusses the different possible design views in an EDRMS. The key functional specifications that assist in the selection of EDRMS are highlighted. The article concludes with points for consideration by records managers and vendors on the future of EDRMS

Web Site Content Management Systems: Selection and Usage at Land-Grant Universities

American land-grant universities generate large amounts of information for their Web sites, which serve a variety of audiences in addition to students, faculty, and staff. Many of these universities are beginning to search for Web site content management systems (CMS) to help organize this information. However, there are hundreds - if not thousands - of systems in this emerging arena, with no clear market leader. This paper provides a snapshot of the experiences of communicators at several universities where content management systems are in use. The purpose is to provide criteria to help Web site managers at universities and other organizations make more informed decisions as they consider which content management system to implement. Specifically, the study used an online survey followed by a questionnaire to selected Webmasters at land-grant universities across the United States, and tracked comments on a university Web developers\u27 discussion board to determine the Web site content management system that is currently in use or under consideration, usage patterns, advantages and disadvantages, staffing requirements, and advice to colleagues considering such a system. This study does not attempt to offer a definitive answer as to which content management system is the best. After all the questions, comments, and analysis, it confirms Noel Ward\u27s observation (2001), \u27No one-size-fits-all content management solution exists.\u27 However, it does offer some insights into what Owen Linderholm (2001) aptly described as the \u27seemingly endless array of content management software\u27 by identifying some criteria for evaluating CMS choices and it reveals a glimpse into fascinating possibilities for the future of content management systems. Criteria to consider when evaluating a CMS include: Usability of the authoring environment for developers and content providers Internal needs assessment (e.g., cost of the software and the personnel to develop/maintain the CMS and train/coach content providers) Vendor considerations (e.g., what is involved to make the system do what the sales representative says it will do

Digital imaging technology assessment: Digital document storage project

An ongoing technical assessment and requirements definition project is examining the potential role of digital imaging technology at NASA's STI facility. The focus is on the basic components of imaging technology in today's marketplace as well as the components anticipated in the near future. Presented is a requirement specification for a prototype project, an initial examination of current image processing at the STI facility, and an initial summary of image processing projects at other sites. Operational imaging systems incorporate scanners, optical storage, high resolution monitors, processing nodes, magnetic storage, jukeboxes, specialized boards, optical character recognition gear, pixel addressable printers, communications, and complex software processes

Development of TOSCA service templates for provisioning portable IT services

Provisioning cloud computing solutions is a tedious and long process, especially when configuring many components and not only offering the application but also the infrastructure. Today, an administrator has to upload, install and configure all the components of a software solution manually, which not only takes time and is prone to errors but also increases the onboarding costs at the cloud provider. Decreasing deployment times by the use of an automated system is favored. TOSCA provides a specification which allows the deployment and management of cloud services by providing a meta-model. With that it is possible to mitigate all problems in theory. OpenTOSCA is a framework called container, which can interpret the TOSCA specification and is used in this work to deploy an Enterprise Content Management stack on a cloud environment, testing the boundaries of its capabilities. After designing deployment models by the means of a domain specific modeling approach, an implementation is realized and compiled into a deployment file. This file is also called a container file and is processed by OpenTOSCA to initiate the deployment on the cloud environment, including the necessary middleware. The goal of this diploma thesis is to develop a TOSCA Service Template, that provides a topology model and automates the deployment of ECM core components. TOSCA Node Types for the middleware and application components have to be defined. To further help modeling the topology, a domain specific model (DSM) will be introduced by generically defining all components and their operations. That generic model will be used to realize the actual ECM stack components. The ECM stack is then deployed via OpenTOSCA and the execution is reviewed