EMC

Welcome To ‘Connected Content’: Glue To Help You Work Better

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If you spend any time with us at SynApps, before very long we’re going to start talking about a trend we believe is highly important, ‘connected content.’ So I will spend a minute or two trying to articulate just what that is – and why we are so passionate about it.

There’s lots of words around ‘connection’ in the industry, and if you think of the name SynApps – as in, that wonderful chip in the brain we have millions of, your synapse – we are talking about connections, about connecting brain cells. 

Beyond that, we find that for every single project we get involved in we have to implement some form of integration between the content management system and several line-of-business applications.  These could be SAP Accounts Payable, some form of HR or other point systems such as a claims management system or an insurance package. 

Because we integrate so often, we ended up ‘productising’ the process so as to make that back end business platform linkage happen as quickly as possible; hence our range of connection products, the ConXApps family. What they do is content-enable the major line-of-business applications, e.g. SAP, Oracle eBusiness, plus the leading desktop productivity tools such as the Microsoft Office suite with leading Enterprise Content Management solutions, including Alfresco, Microsoft SharePoint and EMC’s Documentum.

Why this is useful is because instead of a three month project, we can integrate your corporate EDRM with an accounts payable system in a very short space of time by extracting the connection from the core business application to the central document and records repository – so that instead of having to do it differently every time, we do it in a common way.

Connecting up your content like this will not only save you lots of time and resource, it will make you more efficient.

That’s why we’re so excited about it.

The G-Cloud Matters To All Of Us

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Why do you need to be excited about the G-Cloud, especially the latest incarnation Giii, the third version of its core procurement framework?

Simple. It provides a game changer in IT procurement – by which I mean something SMEs can get involved in, providing cloud based services to the public sector.

Let’s put this in context. You may have come across us  SynApps in the context of our work in the NHS, where we are helping Trusts extend their existing imaging databases to become the foundation for something equivalent to the long-awaited electronic patient records.

But that’s only part of what we offer the UK public sector with our involvement in the G-Cloud. In specific terms, what you could get from us buying our services this way is the Public Sector IT buyer, a range of cloud-based business solutions covering document capture, document management, case management and records management. To find out more, we are listed under IaaS, SaaS and Specialist Cloud Services, with our three most prominent partners: secure cloud infrastructure specialist Skyscape, EMC and Alfresco. Our customers tell us that one of the major benefits of contracting with SynApps is our agility and focus – we are 100% focussed on delivering ECM solutions to the UK marketplace.

We believe that there is a strong momentum for cloud services in government right now, and across the board. The programme is geared up to connect SMEs into one of the biggest and most important of all British ICT marketplaces. This is in stark contrast to what it has been for years, which is a playground for the large Systems Integrators.

They are still going to play a role of course with this customer base, especially for big systems work; but some doors have genuinely been opened for companies of our size. This is great for the taxpayer, as speed of procurement will be much shorter for a cloud solution than for an on-premise one.

This is a great development for us as a supplier, for our partners, customers and for the UK too.

SynApps Enterprise Content Management Solutions Listed on G-Cloud III, Paving the Way for Dynamic Document, Records and Case Management across the Public Sector

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Through a strategic alliance with secure cloud infrastructure provider Skyscape, SynApps is bringing cloud-based business solutions based around digital content capture, document and case management, to UK government organisations and public services

Maidenhead, UK – June 10th , 2013 – SynApps Solutions, the content management solutions company, has announced its acceptance onto the latest iteration of the UK Government’s G-Cloud cloud services procurement framework. This makes it easy for the public sector to peruse and buy approved cloud-based technology and application services.

SynApps, which has a strong track record for delivering secure, hosted and cloud-based content management services to the public sector, has been awarded G-Cloud III supplier status for a wide range of IaaS, SaaS and Specialist Cloud Services under Lots 1, 3 and 4. SynApps offers three families of cloud-based business solutions under the GCloud III framework – document capture, document management and case management – in partnership with secure cloud infrastructure specialist Skyscape. This is in addition to a series of basic services such as cloud-based content backup, and a full range of consultancy, implementation and support services that are packaged and priced separately.

SynApps provides cloud services using the market-leading Documentum EDM/EDRM platform from EMC, in the form of SynApps Documentum Document Management in the Cloud. SynApps, a leading EMC partner, implements and adds value to the full EMC enterprise content management product suite.

Another G-Cloud III offering is SynApps Intelligent Document Capture in the Cloud. This enables users to capture key paper-based documents using a wide variety of scanners and multi-function peripherals, index and store them in a secure cloud-based repository. These documents are then accessible online in a controlled, secure environment. The Intelligent Document Capture service is based on EMC’s industry-leading Captiva product suite.

SynApps is also providing innovative case management solutions via the cloud. The core solution, SynApps Case Management in the Cloud, is based on EMC’s xCP case management technologies and provides the foundation for a range of specialist case-based applications. These include SynApps Investigative Case Management in the Cloud; enabling police forces to register and view the status of a crime online, where all case-related documentation can be stored securely.

SynApps is a leading provider of enterprise content management (ECM) solutions and associated consultancy, implementation and support services. As well as on-premise systems, SynApps provides cloud-based ECM solutions to customers ranging from Hampshire Constabulary to organisations in the life sciences industry.

Thanks to SynApps’ strategic partnership with Skyscape, its G-Cloud solutions will be hosted in highly resilient UK data centres. Skyscape’s Cloud Service infrastructure is certified to support all levels of data sensitivity through the G-Cloud programme, from Impact Level 0 (IL0) to Impact Level 3 (IL3). Skyscape has been a G-Cloud provider since its first iteration in February 2012 and counts the Ministry of Defence and HMRC among its clients.

Phil Dawson, CEO of Skyscape, said “Skyscape is very proud to be working with SynApps, and that SynApps has chosen to sell Skyscape’s highly-secure, resilient and agile services through G-iii, many of which have Pan Government Accreditation (PGA) to IL 3 and IL 2.  We fully expect G-iii to be an exciting, highly-competitive and rapidly maturing market, presenting opportunities for buyers and vendors alike”

Previously, SynApps had submitted a single application for inclusion on G-Cloud II – a cloud-service based document management platform and, in a short space of time, it has seen an ever-growing demand for such services. Commenting on the potential of G-Cloud, Jim Whitelaw, Managing Director of SynApps, said, “We have found it to be a powerful vehicle for bringing high-quality solutions to the public sector in the shortest possible time and at best value. Given that enterprise content management is our sole focus, we believe SynApps can add enormous value to the public sector through our cloud services, accelerating organisations’ speed to market with dynamic content-sharing applications based on a choice of market-leading platforms.”

‘Royal’ Approval for VNA-Based EPR

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The deployment of a VNA (vendor neutral archive) based platform as a first step to a proper, working EPR (electronic patient record) at a major Liverpool hospital  is definitely a first for British health informatics.

Let’s look in a bit more detail at what shaped this decision by the pioneering Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust.

The driver for considering VNA was, notably, not anything to do with building an EPR. In fact, it was much more prosaic – it was due to the need to replace an ageing PACS imaging system.

That need became more acute in the period when the NHS Connecting for Health National Programme for IT was introduced, says the Royal. Its response: its technology upgrade might need to go much wider.

The Trust decided on a truly open platform so it could go beyond the scope of PACS and store and manage other content alongside medical images. “To maximise the benefits, we decided to integrate our VNA plans with our electronic document and records management strategy, using the same infrastructure,” is the view of the Trust’s CIO, James Norman.

You will understand what a privilege it us for us to work with the Trust’s team. The Trust is one of the top NHS teaching institutions in the UK, with well-established links to the University of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University and international institutions. Each year the Trust sees more than half a million people in its outpatient department and it deals with around 150,000 emergency patients and day case admissions. So the fact that this size of NHS Trust has selected our technology to meet its future plans is a genuine honour.

The Trust, incidentally, selected our VNA because of our experience and our unique relationship with IT giant EMC – the acknowledged market leader in enterprise document management. We have enormous experience with its system, the Documentum Enterprise Content Management suite.

We hope this engagement is the first of many examples of using VNA as the way to a true EPR. Something tells me it is – even though there is a lot of work to do in order to get there.

Extending Your X-Ray Database Is The Better Way To Get To Electronic Patient Records

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We all know that ‘the Holy Grail’ in healthcare is when we get to a point where patient services can be provided seamlessly and with continuity across any combination of service providers – from acute and mental health Trusts to community GP practices, pop-up clinics and even via the caregiver in the field.