Quadrant Eases ECM Deployments with IntelliChief 3.0

Published: May 11, 2010

by Alex Woodie

Quadrant Software is making it easier to perform initial roll-outs of its enterprise content management (ECM) system, as well as to make upgrades and changes, with a new release of its IntelliChief ECM software unveiled last week at the COMMON conference in Orlando, Florida. The creation of three separate environments for development, testing, and production with IntelliChief version 3 should bring some relief to programmers and administrators tasked with configuring and managing increasingly sophisticated ECM systems, especially those with complex workflow rules.

IntelliChief is a suite of Windows software designed to help companies transition from paper-based documents and workflows to electronic documents and associated workflows. In its basic configuration, which starts at around $15,000, the software provides a simple repository for storing and accessing documents that perhaps originated as spool files on a System i server. More advanced IntelliChief implementations (which cost upward of $80,000) provide functionality such as direct integration with i/OS ERP applications and screens, automated workflow, and document scanning and data capture capabilities.

The transition from paper to electronic documents is a major change for most companies. For this reason, most companies choose to start out with small ECM implementations that allow them to get a feel for how the technology works without causing unnecessary disruption to existing processes. As they get more comfortable with ECM, customers can begin to take advantage of some of the more advanced functionality, which will make their business processes more efficient and drive a higher return on their ECM investment.

Quadrant has responded to the conservative approach of its predominantly System i-using customer base by making it easier and less-expensive to get started and grow with IntelliChief. A quick stroll through the Four Hundred Stuff archives will reveal that Quadrant has made a steady stream of ease-of-use and affordability enhancements since the product debuted at the fall 2005 COMMON conference in Orlando, Florida.

With the launch of IntelliChief version 3.0 at last week's COMMON show, the company has made the biggest move yet to simplify IntelliChief roll-outs. The major architectural changes in IntelliChief 3.0 were made in response to customer requests for easier implementations and upgrades.

The architectural changes are evident in a new "environments administration" module that allows administrators to create new workflows, document processing profiles (DPPs), and other settings that are critical to IntelliChief. These new workflows and document settings are now initially created in a separate development database, instead of simply being added to the production database.

Administrators can promote the new workflows and document settings into a test environment, which Quadrant calls a "conference room pilot," to see how they respond to input from the quality assurance (QA) team or other testers. When everything is ready to go, the workflows and settings can be promoted into the production database.

The new environment's administration module also includes a new "promotion control" function that allows managers to promote specific workflows, DPPs, alerts, or other settings into production with a single click of the mouse. Managers will also get a series of new reports that tell them what changes were made, and which elements exist in each of the three IntelliChief environments.

Quadrant is also giving IntelliChief customers a break on pricing with the new three-tiered architecture. With prior versions, customers would have needed to purchase a separate IntelliChief license for development. Now, they basically get one free version of IntelliChief to play with--and a third to test against--when they purchase one license for production.

For more information, see www.quadrantsoftware.com.

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