Tags: ECM

SynApps Creates New Joint CEO Leadership Team To Spearhead Next Phase Of Growth

08

Mark Winstone and James Paton will work together to take the content management leader forward from July

Maidenhead, UK, 8 July, 2015 – Content management leader SynApps Solutions has today announced that Mark Winstone and James Paton, currently Sales & Marketing Director and Customer Services Director respectively, are to forge a new partnership as joint Chief Executives of the growing UK software firm.

Winstone and Paton will assume their new leadership roles later this month – succeeding company co-founder and past CEO Jim Whitelaw, who will retire at the end of 2015 but who will take up, in the interim, a special role as Associate to provide advice, guidance and support to the new management team during a short transition phase.

The Maidenhead-based firm, which employs 35 people, has been a content management leader for some years, since its formation at the start of the Millennium by former UK EMC Documentum senior executives.

The firm has built a strong base for leading-edge content management solutions based on technology from leaders like EMC and Alfresco, but has recently expanded into the growing Health IT space in the form of a dedicated Healthcare Practice in response to the strong demand for its services in that market; in the past six months alone, four major English NHS Trusts have committed to work with SynApps.

“I am honoured to have been elected as SynApps Joint CEO,” commented Winstone. “It is a privilege to run an organisation that delivers high quality services and innovative solutions to clients,” he added.

“I share the sense of honour, and look forward to making a positive and meaningful impact for SynApps customers,” added his leadership colleague Paton.

The new leadership appointments coincide with the company’s decision to move away from the Director titles and embrace a more internationally-standardised CxO nomenclature.

A great next phase

“I can think of no team better to lead us into the next phase of our expansion,” Whitelaw said. “Mark’s experience as Director of Sales and Marketing here for 11 years, combined with his 25-year career spanning managerial roles at EMC and Cimage and other content management specialists make him a great executive, while James’s track record of success as Customer Services Director for 7 years combined with his years delivering transformational enterprise content management solutions at firms like EMC makes him another fantastic appointment to the top table.”

Further management strengthening is expected at the firm, given its solid pipeline and burgeoning opportunities in markets like the NHS.

About SynApps

SynApps is an independent services and solutions company specialising in Enterprise Content Management (ECM) technologies. Founded in 2003 by former Documentum services professionals, the company provides consultancy, implementation and support services for EMC Documentum, and has authored a suite of content integration solutions, ConXApps, that allow businesses to quickly maximise their investment in ECM technologies. Organisations across healthcare, government and commercial markets rely on SynApps solutions and services to capture and share knowledge more dynamically and efficiently.

Find out more at synapps-solutions.com, or follow the firm on Twitter @Synappssol

VNA Based Content Approaches Of Increasing Interest To NHS Trusts

30

Four major NHS organisations select a Vendor Neutral Archive based clinical and patient data system from SynApps Solutions, built on EMC’s Documentum

 

Maidenhead, UK, 30th June, 2015 – Content management leader SynApps Solutions isdelighted to announce that four NHS hospital organisations have now selected a Vendor Neutral Archive (VNA) content platform, based on the Enterprise Content Management System (ECMS) Documentum® from EMC Corporation, as a standards-based route for next-generation patient data handling.

 

The Trusts are Croydon Health Services NHS Trust, London’s Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust , Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust and Northampton General Hospital, the partners confirmed today.

 

SynApps and EMC helping Chief Clinical Information Officers

 

Croydon Health Services provide acute and community healthcare services across the borough, with 3,500 staff servicing a catchment of 380,000. Its Chief Clinical Information Officer, Dr. Tony Newman-Sanders, confirmed that, “In the past several years we have been working with other organisations across our health community in South West London on how to use the opportunity of re-procuring our picture archiving and communication system [PACS] and associated image data store to do it all better second time around.”

 

London’s Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is a district general hospital supporting 350,000 service users. “We feel we are making real a long-term vision of VNA and electronic data and content management, all living in one unified repository with the SynApps solution,” said its Deputy Director of Information Management & Technology, Norman Harling.

 

Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust is one of the largest and busiest hospital trusts in the North of England with an annual budget of over £400m. 

Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust provides general acute services for a population of 380,000 and hyper-acute stroke, vascular and renal services to a population of 684,000.  The Trust is also an accredited cancer centre and provides cancer services to a wider population of nearly 900,000. “Our new SynApps on-site VNA has a zero-footprint viewer, which means clinicians (and ultimately patients) can look at images on any device, including tablets,” comments Christina Malcolmson, Deputy Director of ICT. “At the moment, that’s just PACS images – but we will grow it and include other images and documents, so we can have a full EPR over time,” she added.

Commenting on securing four major UK Trusts for a VNA-based content approach built on EMC’s Documentum, SynApps Solutions’ Managing Director, Jim Whitelaw, noted, “We are delighted to be working with our key technology partner EMC to help these NHS bodies get ready for a truly 21st century approach to Health IT provision.”
“We are proud to collaborate with SynApps to deliver a proven, enterprise-class, joint solution focused on enabling the NHS transformation toward a truly patient centered healthcare,” comments Michael Graetz, VP of EMEA Healthcare sales Enterprise Content Division, EMC.

About SynApps

SynApps is an independent services and solutions company specialising in Enterprise Content Management (ECM) technologies. Founded in 2003 by former Documentum services professionals, the company provides consultancy, implementation and support services for EMC Documentum, and has authored a suite of content integration solutions, ConXApps, which allow businesses to quickly maximise their investment in ECM technologies. Organisations across healthcare, government and commercial markets rely on SynApps solutions and services to capture and share knowledge more dynamically and efficiently.

Find out more at synapps-solutions.com, or follow the firm on Twitter @Synappssol

EMC and Documentum are trademarks or registered trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries.

SynApps Receives Platinum Status From EMC

05

SynApps Solutions is delighted to announce it has received confirmation from its key technology partner EMC that the company, its content management solutions and its services have all achieved the highest partner quality rating EMC can offer.

‘Platinum’ level accreditation for 2015 has been awarded to the company based on revenue, EMC training, and speciality achievements accrued over the last 12 months.

This is significant given the close relationship between the two parties, with the vendor’s award-winning Documentum Enterprise Content Management (ECM) platform, being core to what SynApps does.

It is, for example, the basis for the EMC-certified SynApps’ ConXOffice and ConXMail content management solutions which provide a seamless Microsoft Office user experience for Enterprise Content Management users.

It is also the basis for the company’s push into the healthcare market in the shape of SynApps’ work with its Vendor Neutral Archive (VNA) content system, already helping a score of UK hospitals better deal with patient imagery and data, which recently evolved into the SynApps’ Clinical Content Store.

SynApps Receives Product Stamp Of Approval From IT Giant EMC

23

Content management leader SynApps Solutions confirms certification from its technology partner EMC for its ConXOffice and ConXMail content management solutions

Maidenhead, UK, 23 March, 2015 – Content management leader SynApps Solutions has received confirmation from key technology partner EMC that SynApps’ ConXOffice and ConXMail content management solutions are fully certified by the IT leader.

The certification process is based on a rigorous validation process by EMC Proven Professionals for functional completeness, performance and scalability – meaning any EMC-trained IT professional can now have full confidence in these solutions, says the partner.

Through the use of ConXMail, knowledge workers are empowered to work with Microsoft Outlook © as usual but now have seamless access to the Corporate repository through the same user interface. Users are able to drag and drop emails and attached documents into the Corporate repository, full Read and Update functionality is also provided for documents thus alleviating the need to utilise another client application. ConXMail allows an organisation to meet the ever changing and challenging requirements of their business ensuring appropriate information and business rules are applied when storing email messages and attachments into the repository, whilst also validating any metadata entered by the user

At the same time, integrating Enterprise Content Management features directly into the Microsoft Office © interfaces, ConXOffice empowers knowledge workers with full Create, Review, Update and Delete (CRUD) functionality that allows them complete control over relevant business documents using common applications which they use on a daily basis. ConXOffice provides users access to the underlying repository directly from within the following desktop productivity tools; Microsoft Word ©, Microsoft Excel ©, Microsoft Powerpoint © , Microsoft Project, Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft Visio

These transformative solutions have been validated by EMC Proven Professional Certified Architects in order to achieve the EMC Certified designation. Certified for functional completeness, these solutions reduce risk and unexpected costs, while delivering faster time-to-value and easy scalability. Rigorous architectural review ensures lower TCO, optimized performance and scalability, meanwhile.

“We are honoured to have received this accreditation,” added SynApps Solutions’ Managing Director, Jim Whitelaw.

“It is very satisfying that our efforts to provide a seamless Microsoft Office user experience for Enterprise Content Management via ConXOffice and ConXMail have been recognised by as important an enterprise IT vendor as EMC.”

About SynApps
SynApps is an independent services and solutions company specialising in Enterprise Content Management (ECM) technologies. Founded in 2003 by former Documentum services professionals, the company provides consultancy, implementation and support services for EMC Documentum, and has authored a suite of content integration solutions, ConXApps, that allow businesses to quickly maximise their investment in ECM technologies.
Organisations across healthcare, government and commercial markets rely on SynApps solutions and services to capture and share knowledge more dynamically and efficiently.
Find out more at www.synapps-solutions.com, or follow the firm on Twitter @SynAppsSol

Synapps To Exhibit At UK e-Health Week, 3-4 March 2015

24

Helping Hospital Trusts Realise Their EPR Ambitions Via VNA

UK e-Health Week comes to Olympia, London on 3 – 4 March 2015, bringing together the latest e-Health innovations for those who commission, implement and use them on the frontline.

The event will feature lively pre-election debates, practical solutions and best practice from the most senior technology and healthcare decision makers and experts.

To connect with SynApps at the show, check out its presence on  exhibition stand No. 152 of our long-term ECM partner Alfresco.

Visit us to find out more about our VNA solution – a standards-based way of extending PACS (Picture Archiving and Communications System) services to incorporate DICOM and other format content so as to make the sharing of medical data easier for clinicians, as well as making patient records available across any combination of service providers.

For more about the event, please visit: http://ukehealthweek.com

Or follow:@UKe_HealthWeek

 

ConxAudit Will Give You a Whole New Management Dashboard You Didn’t Know You Could Have


By Paul Edwards, Co-Founder & Product Manager, SynApps Solutions

Last time we spoke, I started to explain about the problem audit trail users can have with Enterprise Content Management systems; how they do a very useful job, but can get ‘clogged up’ over time, as they record so much data that gets pushed into a database in a way that often makes it hard to work with, plus starts to impair the performance of the overall system – as it often comprises millions of tables after a year or two of serious enterprise use.

Hence our release this quarter of a new addition to the ConXApps) family of products; ConXAudit, which takes that growing audit trail data pile and turns it into a highly indexed form that is not only a lot easier to work with (especially via our graphical front end, which makes it really simple to interrogate the audit log to see who did what with which document) but also removes the audit database’s drag on the ECM (be it Documentum or Alfresco) in terms of overall daily performance.

Another benefit of porting your ECM audit trail to ConXAudit is that it will make it a lot, lot quicker to restore the system should you ever need to – or, indeed, move your work to a different ECM platform, when and if you should need to do that.

I also mentioned that we are helping an early ConXAudit customer work though the issues their huge – 65 million row! – audit database is giving them. That customer is a major transport facility that wants to upgrade to the latest version of its chosen ECM, but which was worried this audit data issue would complicate this process (or not allow it to keep all of the data it really needed, which is a potential compliance headache further down the road).

The great news is that that issue has gone away. Another benefit is that the team says that the amount of time needed to work with audit data has dropped, quite dramatically, since it moved the data into ConXAudit.

That’s because of the wide range of data presentation formats that the app offers, from pie charts and other sorts of statistical analysis tools; you are getting a whole new dashboard piping important usage and security information to you that you would have struggled to get before. And in the case of this early customer work with ConXAudit audit, the team there has told us it actually intends one large display in the support office with a rolling dashboard view displaying system usage as a way of promoting the value of the ECM platform internally.

So, as you can probably tell, I am really excited by ConXAudit, as it solves a problem in convincing ways that will genuinely help ECM users.

Find out more about ConXAudit here, and contact the SynApps ConX team today to start streamlining your ECM audit trail.

ConXAudit: A Powerful Way to Deal with ECM Audit Trail ‘Clog’

10

By Paul Edwards, Co-Founder & Product Manager, SynApps Solutions UK

It’s a great pleasure for me to talk to you, as this is the first blog I’ve written for the SynApps site.

In case you don’t recognise the name, I am one of the six original founders of what recently became an 11 year old company! As I have done from the start, I concentrate on the technical side of things, even from time to time writing some code.

Which is what I want to talk to you about today: some code that we have helped produce, based on talking to customers. I think it’s a system that is going to be of interest and relevance to a lot of people, certainly anyone who’s running the kind of big ECM platforms we work with, EMC Documentum or Alfresco.

The system that’s emerged from these conversations is one that addresses a big issue that many ECM users have struggled with for some time, but never had a way of dealing with; audit trail clog – which is why we have called the product ConXAudit.

Let me explain a bit more about what I mean by ‘audit trail clog.’ Most modern ECM suites of any reputation come with a built in audit trail feature; in practical terms, this is a facility for capturing who has done what on the system at any one time. You will typically want to record who has accessed a document, who checked it out, which team made comments (or didn’t), be sure a certain individual really did read that health and safety update for our compliance records and so on.

So, useful. Which is why most customers turn it on. But the trail builds and builds, as more use is made of the system. In tech terms, you have a database that is growing and growing – until it has, if you are an enterprise user of an ECM platform, millions and millions of rows in it.

That isn’t an exaggeration. One of the first customers of ConXAudit is a major transport entity which has been using Documentum for a few years (and finding it a mission-critical, highly useful system). We’ve been in to help them manage their audit trail its audit log is 65 million rows.

A database that large presents you with two problems. One, it’s inherently difficult to navigate and intelligently interrogate – which takes away the point of having an audit trail, honestly. And two, it acts as a major brake on the overall performance of the main ECM; it’s an invisible anchor on the system, degrading its capacity to do the work you bought it for.

Let your ECM do the work it’s supposed to!

So we have launched ConXAudit to help deal with those two specific issues – the lack of functionality a big, unwieldy audit log gives you and the invisible drag issue. What ConXAudit does is export all of the data into its own index. That has two immediate effects: one, it makes it a lot easier to work with and query; two, it lifts out that big bit of metal holding down the engine of the big ECM, letting you get on with the job at hand. And, of course, it also continues to do what you needed it for in the first place – auditing!

We’ve also worked hard on a key feature of the product – its highly graphical, easy-to-use interface. That’s a front end that means all that exported audit data is made accessible to you and your team in a highly intuitive way, so you have mouse-click driven ways of checking all your audit knowledge base via a range of powerful statistical analysis and graphing tools.

That’s a much easier way of managing and working with this asset than building SQL queries and offers you the best use of that data for checking or report building. In fact, customers are telling us that the graphical analytics capability is one of the major attractions of the product because of the wide range of data presentation formats that the app offers, from pie charts on.

To sum up, I really think ConXAudit is going to be a lot of use to ECM users out there who want to get rid of that audit trail clog issue.

Find out more about ConXAudit here, and contact the SynApps ConX team today to start streamlining your ECM audit trail.