iManage recently announced the end of life (EOL) for DeskSite, FileSite, and IDOL Indexer. This move will end support for its core legacy products after December 2023. With the introduction of iManage Work 10, iManage will retire all 9.x versions of its classic clients and add-ons.
So, what does this mean for your firm? It means changes are on the horizon, and firms must leverage technology to meet these changes head-on.
We’re here to help guide firms through this process, informing and instructing their migration to the Cloud.
Our last blog covered the EOL announcement basics, such as what systems will be affected and how you can begin preparing for the move. This post will discuss workspace generation and provisioning strategies to help your firm better align with iManage Work 10 and the Cloud.
Recap: What Systems Do We Lose?
As we mentioned in our previous post, iManage’s decision was motivated by upgrades to Work 10 and their technology partners’ integrations to support the Work 10 interface with the Universal API. A normal part of any technology’s lifecycle, products eventually reach a natural end-of-life phase for various reasons, such as newer and better technologies and changes in the market.
As a result, the following 9.x versions of legacy iManage clients and add-ons will cease:
- iManage DeskSite
- iManage FileSite
- iManage OffSite
- Email management for Outlook and the Outlook Module
- iManage Express Search
- iManage Miner
- iManage DealBinder Add-On
This means if your firm plans to stay on-premises, you will need to plan your upgrade to the Work 10 Server to leverage the Work 10 Client fully. This will include your DMS, communications platforms, and a newly added Preview Server. Third-party apps your firm utilizes will need to be updated, and you will also need to confirm whether they are compatible with Work 10.
Whether your firm plans to upgrade to Work 10 on-premises or migrate to the Cloud, it’s important to start generating and provisioning your workspaces to mimic the Cloud infrastructure.
Workspace Generation and Provisioning
It’s important to remember that we’ve seen an explosion of data over the last two years as the world turns to hybrid business models. Knowledge workers are inundated with data, folders, workspaces, and users. By setting up and provisioning your workspaces and folders as if your organization was already operating under Work 10 (or the Cloud), your firm can mitigate the chaos that a move like this entails.
The way organizations often throw around the term “provisioning,” some users might assume it’s just a fancy way of saying “creating” workspaces, Teams, Channels, and folders.
Automatic provisioning leverages technology that integrates with your organization’s source systems, allowing your admins to automatically generate the necessary projects or relationships across collaboration systems in a matter of seconds. This process also includes the ability to apply templates and standardized naming conventions across workspaces, folders, projects, etc.
Not only does this apply consistency across workspaces, but it also saves precious time and resources when initiating and saving projects.
When admins or employees manually create projects or relationships in collaboration systems, they assign random names or numbers to identify them. When done across thousands of projects, they will most likely forget what name or number was assigned to the project. This makes it difficult to know where to place relevant documents for that project or find them in the DMS.
Technology that enables automatic provisioning can also allow unlimited rich metadata to make this process less frustrating for end-users. This metadata includes unique identifiers assigned to a project or relationship when automatically provisioned across systems. The rich metadata enables users to easily search a project by name, client name, ID, department, office, and more.
When paired with the ability to apply rich, custom metadata to projects through a provisioning engine, organizations enable users to locate data faster, and risk teams understand context across collaboration systems. This means that not only will your users know where to store and access files, but your risk management team will also be able to act quickly in the event of a breach or outage and apply the appropriate security policies.
Integrating iManage with Microsoft Teams
Another key consideration for any organization moving to Work 10 or the iManage Cloud is integrating your iManage DMS with your Microsoft Teams environment (if applicable).
Not only does this integration create consistent naming conventions across systems, but it also boosts provisioning, governance, and document location.
Whether you plan to provision your workspaces for on-premises, the Cloud, or Microsoft Teams integration, it’s important to remember carrying out these processes on your own can be time-consuming and resource-intensive.
That’s where CAM comes in, enabling you to tackle your provisioning and governance challenges.
How CAM Helps
CAM is a Software-as-a-Service platform (SaaS) for adoption and governance of multiple collaboration systems. It allows organizations to provision, classify, protect, manage, and govern data, mitigating data chaos and reducing risks related to privacy and cybersecurity.
CAM enables organizations to create logical locations for users to place data. It provides rich, custom metadata, empowering users to locate documents and risk management teams to understand the business context and apply proper security and data minimization policies.
CAM integrates with Microsoft 365 (Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, OneDrive, OneNote, Planner, Lists), iManage, NetDocuments, file shares, and more.
Here is what CAM can do for you:
- Provisioning of workspaces, Teams, Channels, Lists, users and groups, and folders from Project Portfolio Management, CRM etc., or through a human workflow using readily available templates.
- Rich, custom metadata for project or document context.
- Unified project directory for content location for end users and risk management teams.
- Gain advanced templating ability to support complex business processes.
- Provision automatically or on-demand internal and external users, manage permissions across collaboration systems, and integrate with leading ethical wall systems.
- Data Loss Prevention (DLP) with activity monitoring, bulk security, and metadata changes.
- Data protection by creating a separate archive of documents to access in case of incidents.
- Minimize data by setting automatic data disposition policies or applying litigation hold.
Watch this short video to learn more about CAM, or request a demo.
Posted in CAM,Governance
