ACOM Streamlines Access to Content in EZCM and SharePoint

February 16, 2010 Alex Woodie

ACOM Solutions last week announced a new version of its EZRetrieve software that makes it even easier to access documents stored in its Windows-based content management system, EZContentManager (EZCM). With version 2 of EZRetrieve, users now have one-click access to content by either pressing a hot key, or by clicking a button in the Windows taskbar. The new version also brings support for Microsoft SharePoint.

EZRetrieve is one of several optional add-ons for EZCM, the budget-priced content management and workflow system that runs on Windows and is used by a good number of ACOM’s loyal base of System i customers. When EZCM is used to access documents generated by an i/OS-based ERP system, EZRetrieve can provide another way to access important business documents, without accessing the ERP system directly.

The first version of EZRetrieve, which was launched just over a year ago, allowed users to quickly pull up documents stored in EZCM, or conduct a search of documents, by pressing a pre-defined function key. This made it very simple for users in, say, the accounts payable department to pull up certain invoices stored in the content management system.

With the new version 2, EZRetrieve has been expanded in two important ways. For starters, ACOM now allows users to access the EZRetrieve functionality by using a mouse to press a button on the taskbar area of the Windows interface. Previously, it could only be launched by pressing a hot key, such as a function key.

The other enhancement is the capability for EZRetrieve to run as a free-standing utility. This enables the product to work with Microsoft SharePoint, including the capability to perform searches and pull up documents that are stored in SharePoint, which is becoming an increasingly popular product in the midrange and other customer segments.

The capability to stand on its own also allows customers to use EZRetrieve to search for and pull up documents, without even opening EZCM or SharePoint, ACOM says.

“This is a major time and convenience advantage in busy back offices,” ACOM product manager Angela Doolittle says in a press release. “Buttons can be tied to key fields in just a few minutes. Different departments–accounts payable, accounts receivable, human resources–each have different requirements and EZRetrieve 2.0 can be set up quickly to support each group’s needs.”

Other optional add-ons for EZCM include the sticky note functionality launched a year ago, workflow capabilities, a versioning product that tracks changes to documents, a Web services interface, a security tool that further restricts employee access to data, the EZImager OCR (optical character recognition) import utility, and EZCapture, which applies rules based on OCR fields.

EZRetrieve version 2 is available now. Pricing is based on the number of concurrent users and starts at $995. More product information is available at www.acom.com.