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FileNet announced this week the acquisition of compliance specialist Yaletown Technology Group for an undisclosed amount.
In conjunction with its new purchase, FileNet Corp. introduced the latest version of its FileNet Records Manager Suite 3.5.
The suite features new “Intelligent Retention” and “Content Federation Services” capabilities, according to Craig Rhinehart, director of Compliance Products and Markets for FileNet in Costa Mesa, Calif.
A software development and OEM partner of FileNet for over 10 years, Yaletown Technology Group of Vancouver, BC, will allow FileNet to assume control over its Records Crawler and E-Mail Manager products.
Integrated with FileNet P8s Records and E-Mail Manager suites, Record Crawler uses preset rules to monitor network file systems to automatically determine when a piece of content is created, moved or altered, and the content then undergoes classification as to whether it should be managed as a record.
Intelligent Retention, equipped with a rules-by-variability system, allows users to manage content more effectively once it is under control, according to Rhinehart, who said this helps simplify the diverse state and federal rule sets surrounding specific forms of content.
FileNets enhanced Content Federation Services improves records management control with access controls as well as offering the centralized ability to manage documents in other repositories as official company records, the company said.
Overseeing a major project to shift his corporation toward a stabilized and common records management, Larry Hawkins, director of records and information compliance for Akron, Ohio company FirstEnergy Corp., said the process is tedious but necessary.
“This company is over 110 years old. In the past 10 years we have quadrupled in size, a lot of that growth by acquisition and expansion of our coverage area across other state borders,” Hawkins said.
“Weve acquired a lot of different companies and architectures and we were outgrowing those clothes as we speak … [records management] was hard with those disparate systems in place.”
Compounding the problem, he said, was the fact that each separate site managed its own regulatory requirements, record-keeping practices and facilities with different rules and software in place.
In order to realign his organizations various records management, compliance, and common practices in a single repository, Hawkins has deployed FileNets software.
The mammoth project involves merging 10 different index imaging systems and mapping up to 20 million physical records. Corralling e-mail is on deck for next year through FileNets new technology.
“Our e-mail, [as is] typical of most companies in the United States, was not tightly managed from day one. Right now we believe there are a lot of business records and potential evidence that sit in our e-mail,” Hawkins said.
“I see the FileNet application being the repository of things we capture and retain outside the e-mail system. It will be a tremendous time saver.”
In related news, next month Open Text Corp. will unveil LiveLink ECM (enterprise content management) for Records Management 3.0.
The updated product provides a single management interface offering the ability to extend records management classifications across multiple content repositories, as well as across compliance and archive layers down to storage devices, said officials of Open Text, based in Waterloon, Ontario.