The Business
Problem
Ontario Systems
provides
world-class
receivables
management
systems to
organizations
with large
volumes of
accounts
receivable, such
as hospitals,
banks,
collection
agencies,
utilities and
leasing
companies.
The company’s
intranet, OSCAR
(Ontario
Systems’
Computerized
Active Resource)
helps it
maintain its
position as the
largest provider
of receivables
products. By
enabling
employees to
quickly locate
and leverage
information,
Ontario Systems
is able to
remain an
industry leader
in technology
and customer
support.
However, a
recent
divisional
re-organization
revealed OSCAR
needed to be
rearranged.
“OSCAR was
originally
organized
according to our
organizational
chart,” said
Susan Cook,
information
engineer at
Ontario Systems,
–“which is a
mistake I find
many companies
make. We decided
to re-classify
documents on the
intranet by
subject (Inside
Ontario Systems,
Our Customers,
Products &
Services, Tools
for the Job,
You@Ontario
Systems), while
maintaining each
department’s
publishing
autonomy over
their Web, or
‘piece’ of our
intranet.”
Specifically,
Ontario Systems
sought a
solution that
would:
- allow
them to
build a
category
search and
intranet
navigation
- enable
intranet
publishers
to classify
their Web
pages and
Microsoft
Office
documents to
one or more
of several
pre-defined
categories
- enable
publishers
to add
descriptive
metadata to
their Web
pages and
documents
with as much
accuracy as
possible,
without
adding too
many steps
to the
process
The Solution
Ontario Systems
purchased
Verity’s K2
Enterprise
solutions to
solve the
problem of
organizing
documents into
categories.
“Verity is able
to spider OSCAR
and determine
what category to
index the
documents
according to the
document’s
metadata.
However, we
still needed a
way to embed
metadata into
documents with
as much accuracy
as possible
(i.e. no typos),
as quickly as
possible, and
without adding
too many steps
to the
publishing
process,” said
Cook.
“HiSoftware’s
TagGen and JITI
Builder were the
perfect solution
for painlessly
adding metadata
to our
documents,”
continued Cook.
“The programs
let me create my
own taxonomy and
schema, making
it available to
the publishers
in a tree
hierarchy and a
drop-down list
from which they
can choose. This
ensures the
accuracy of
which I was
concerned. In
addition, it can
be accessed via
Microsoft
FrontPage making
it convenient
for publishers.
The HiSoftware
and Verity
solutions
compliment each
other, giving us
a robust
document
classification
and search
mechanism.”
The Bottom Line
Ontario Systems
currently is in
the last rollout
stages of the
OSCAR
re-organization
project. Ontario
Systems expects
to see these
benefits from
the new system:
-
increased
use of the
intranet due
to decreased
frustration
in finding
the
information
the user
needs
-
increased
efficiency
in resolving
client
problems
-
decreased
resolution
times for
client
problems,
thus
increasing
client
satisfaction
-
decreased
calls to
Frontline
support made
by Ontario
Systems’
clients once
they offer a
knowledge
base
solution on
their Client
Resource
Center,
which also
will
increase
customer
satisfaction
-
increased
functionality
allowing
information
on the
intranet to
serve as a
backbone to
many future
projects
such as
portals/personalization
-
decreased
learning
curves for
new
employees
-
increased
efficiency by
having all
product
information in
one place rather
than having it
scattered
throughout the
intranet in
various
department
sub-webs
“Once
implementation
is complete, we
anticipate
employees will
be able to find
the information
they need more
quickly,” said
Cook. “This
should increase
the efficiency
of our support
teams, which
will in turn
increase
customer
satisfaction.
With the
self-service
support for our
clients that we
hope to
implement in the
future, we
expect to see
increased
customer
satisfaction, as
well as
decreased calls
to our Frontline
support. It also
will help new
employees come
up to speed
faster due to
the ease of
looking up
solutions to
similar
problems.”
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