Get ahead in 2020 with the latest Doxis innovations

Are you tired of using outdated technology to complete time-consuming processes? Would you like to finally make your daily work, also with your colleagues, customers and business partners, run more efficiently and effortlessly? In that case, you need to integrate your company’s information seamlessly into your processes. Utilize your content automatically with intelligent processes and make it available wherever you need it – regardless of the application system. Doxis makes life easier for knowledge workers in 2020 with many new functions and innovations – whether on-premises, hybrid or fully in the cloud.

One of the primary focuses of Doxis this year is on cross-system information management, which uses intelligent processes for automated content analytics, for example, to further reduce user workload. Innovations that support this goal include enterprise search and new connectors for better interoperability of IT systems with Doxis, e.g. for Microsoft Teams. For this reason, the SER Group is integrating more and more intelligent methods into the Doxis platform and services. When you implement your next ECM projects, new SaaS and managed services will provide you with all the freedom to extend on-premises installations or gradually move them to the cloud.

Companies expect nothing short of miracles from the application of AI in corporate IT: autonomous process control, automatic analysis and provision of information of all kinds, etc. The potential of these technologies is certainly real. When used for cognitive document automation, companies can independently enrich business processes with relevant information. However, a lot of experience and AI know-how – for example, from highly specialized data scientists – are required to implement specific projects. You have to be able to identify the right method for every use case, set up the corresponding systems, and train them effectively.

You can achieve the goal of intelligent information management in your company faster and reduce the workload on your data scientists by using a content services platform for information processing. When a platform already has AI technology built-in in the form of intelligent services, then you will achieve this goal even quicker. The SER Group successively adds machine-learning algorithms directly to the Doxis platform and follows an AutoML approach, i.e. automated machine learning. Basically, this approach automates the decision about which algorithm is suitable for which application and which features should be learned. One use case, for example, involves identifying similarities in texts in order to find documents with comparable content. A first release of the Doxis platform with integrated AutoML capabilities will be out later this year.

For specialized applications such as inbound mail and invoice processing, we have equipped the Doxis Classification & Extraction Service with preconfigured templates that can be used to quickly implement corresponding projects. In addition, this cognitive service can be applied in many other scenarios with automated utilization of information. With Doxis Learning Information Extraction, for example, unstructured documents are automatically analyzed and the desired content is extracted. For instance, specific clauses can be automatically searched for in agreements and information in the text about the contracting partners can be extracted. The Doxis Classification & Extraction Service will also be developed further this year.

Databases, servers, Microsoft SharePoint, file directories – companies have numerous sources of information – mostly in silos and difficult to find. However, business processes do not stop at system boundaries. Information from various applications and departments is often required for business cases. Customer information can be found, for example, in the CRM, in email inboxes of sales and service employees, in accounting and possibly also in the legal department. If you have to search for the required content in every single system of every department or have to ask colleagues for it, this will cost you a lot of time – time that could be spent more productively.

To spare you this hassle, SER is expanding its search methods in Doxis for handling distributed content and information. Serving as an information hub, Doxis will search for the desired content across systems and departments, within the company or even across company boundaries. The advantage over pure search engines?: With Doxis, you don’t just find and open the content you are looking for. Rather, Doxis enables search to action, i.e. you can carry out many other actions after the search. This includes, for example, launching workflows, compiling external content in eFiles, commenting on content, adding metadata and finally transferring the content to Doxis yourself, if necessary, and thereby filing it in an audit-proof manner.

As a central means of initiating company-wide searches, you can also apply a federated search. With this method, you search across (federated) content in other systems without adding these external sources first to a common full-text index. This is particularly relevant for line of business (LoB) systems, for example, if you want to display structured SAP data dynamically in electronic files.

Getting started in your daily work with eFiles or approval workflows is faster if you use preconfigured solutions or solution templates. The basic structure of a standard solution is the same in most applications; you only have to adapt it to your individual requirements. One of the first new Doxis solutions will be a simple eFile that can be quickly implemented on the Doxis platform. Depending on the department, add a few special record folders – and you're done! You can start working promptly with your eFile solution. In the coming months, the SER Group will develop and launch additional solutions of this sort. Doxis “beginners” will be able to get started faster and with minimal effort.

The SER Group also continues to extend the integration of Doxis with other ERP, CRM and collaboration systems. Solutions for integration with SAP, including SAP Fiori, and Salesforce are already available; Microsoft Teams integration will follow in 2020.

Rumors of the death of email are certainly premature. This also applies, unfortunately, to email chaos. Agreements with business partners continue to disappear in personal mailboxes, important emails are lost in the proliferation of new inboxes, etc. As an electronic business letter, the email has lost neither its importance nor will it in the foreseeable future. It is therefore important for companies to automatically assign emails to the relevant business context, in order to ensure that digital correspondence is also available to downstream business processes.

With Intelligent Context Control (ICC), SER integrates smart functionality in Doxis SmartOutlook Plus, which treats emails as business documents and manages them in the relevant context. In Microsoft Outlook, it makes suggestions for the storage of emails in the relevant business context and prevents duplicate storage of emails. The solution will be released in 2020 in a completely redesigned version.

The time for pure on-premises installations is also waning in the world of enterprise content management. For more and more companies, the gain in flexibility outweighs concerns about cloud solutions. Of course, the desire to be able to use innovative technologies faster without having to grow know-how, personnel and infrastructure is also playing a greater role. New offers for different scenarios give SER customers the greatest possible freedom and flexibility when deploying Doxis solutions.

We are convinced that on-premises and cloud offerings will coexist in the future, which is why SER will continue to develop Doxis so that on-premises and cloud deployments can be implemented with the same architecture. The customer should select what fits them best: Doxis on-premises in the company or own data center or in the private cloud, or Doxis running as a complete SaaS solution or in hybrid use. In hybrid scenarios, companies can add SaaS offerings to their on-premises installation. You can even simply add – as an extension to your own in-house solution – individual managed services, for example, to classify documents or to convert them to other formats (rendition). The Doxis cloud offerings will continue to be developed.

With its intelligent innovations, Doxis can support you in 2020 to integrate your information even more effectively into your processes and to flexibly adapt your information infrastructure to your business models – whether on-premises, hybrid or fully in the cloud. Doxis will help drive your digital transformation and create the conditions for your company to keep its edge in the future.