Where Records Management is now — and what the solution looks like
A few weeks ago, our team attended the ARMA Live! 2017 conference at the Orlando World Center Marriot. We were impressed with its forward-thinking theme, “Agents of Change,” which focused on the evolving roles of ARMA members everywhere.
In particular, records managers are becoming a key position within organizations because of the increasing importance of collecting, managing, and storing data. More than ever, decision-makers are relying on data to shape internal and external policies. Records storage is also growing at an exponential rate, impacting financial resources and putting organizations at-risk.
Today, records managers are stepping up as agents of change within their organizations as they move them toward updating and modernizing their records management software. As a result, we were particularly interested in their feedback on their current records management solutions, as well as what they’re seeing on the market. During the conference, we did an informal poll. Here’s what we learned.
1. What are the most common records management issues faced by Law firms?
For starters, we repeatedly heard that records managers are increasingly concerned about the state of their current records management software. Many systems are languishing. They’re either being sunsetted or development has been outsourced and ignored. Without regular updates systems quickly fall behind, which inevitably bring critical security concerns.
Other complaints: As their law firms grow in size, current records management software can’t scale to meet demand. Plus, it’s not possible to manage data in multiple repositories, which makes daily work a headache.
Records managers are frustrated that when they provide product feedback about these issues, they don’t see software companies taking any action. Processes don’t improve, and features aren’t upgraded. The result? Being a records manager becomes more difficult than it should be.
2. What software features are most important to Law firms?
When records managers start shopping around for new records management software, they’re particularly interested in these important features.
- Above all, it needs to be easy to understand. Users expect software to be intuitive, and they don’t have extra time to spend on learning new software.
- It must feature modern tools for managing records retention and disposition. This helps reduce records storage costs, eventually enabling the records management software to pay for itself.
- A single pane of glass for viewing all physical and electronic records is important. Being able to access records and data, regardless of repository, is a big boost to productivity.
- Another major time saver is robust reporting capability. Records managers need the software to quickly generate reports so they can always see at-a-glance exactly what’s going on in their department.
3. What is the biggest problem with most records management software currently on the market?
As managers are surveying records management solutions, they’re finding out that a lot of systems are outdated. They feature tired and old user interfaces (UI) that are anything but intuitive. And a bad UI is a big problem because it opens the door for mistakes. That’s when redundancy starts becoming more frequent, which means records managers’ productivity is impacted. After all, they’re the ones who have to spend time in the system cleaning up errors when they become too numerous.
Law firms are increasingly selecting FileTrail
Every day at the conference our booth was humming with people eager to see a demo. FileTrail’s clean, modern UI is one of the biggest reasons that both records managers and end users are excited about upgrading to our records management software. They also really like that it’s a 100% browser-based solution, which means they can access records from their mobile devices. Plus, our reporting tools are the most comprehensive they’ve seen.
Other feedback about what they love about FileTrail: It’s agile and easily scaleable. They’ve also heard about our focus on customer service, which means we release quarterly updates that integrate their feedback.
