Alfresco Software, a commercial, open source software company, announced today the availability of powerful, new Information Governance capabilities for the Alfresco Digital Business Platform. Alfresco has updated its Alfresco Governance Services, introduced new Federation Services that enable ‘Manage in Place’ records management, enhanced its E-Discovery and ‘Legal Hold’ with artificial Intelligence (AI), and added Governance to Desktop Synchronization.
Managing exponential increases in regulatory changes (e.g. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation [GDPR], the Freedom of Information Act [FOIA], California’s Consumer Privacy Act [CCPA] etc.) has lead to an upsurge in compliance risk, and the accompanying rise of regulatory fees (and fines) are some of the many significant, ongoing concerns for executives across all organizations – no industry or government is immune.
Tony Grout, Chief Product Officer, Alfresco, said: “Businesses and government agencies have a duty to protect their customers’ or citizens’ personal information and adhere to policies and procedures that include demonstrating a clear audit trail of compliance. The Alfresco Digital Business Platform offers automated records management and AI-assisted information governance for compliance officers and data caretakers. Our solution can help them minimize risk and protect the integrity of electronically stored information (ESI) across multiple, different and disparate repositories, and take this level of control all the way to a users’ desktop.”
New Federated Search and Manage-in-Place Records Management
Alfresco Federation Services is a new addition to Alfresco’s portfolio and provides a powerful federated search and manage-in-place functionality to access, control and govern content residing in more than sixty different business and content repository types. This also enables users to conduct a search across multiple, disparate databases from a single application and without the need for content migration.
This allows users to search, view, and manage content from Alfresco and non-Alfresco repositories (e.g. Network File Shares, OpenText, Documentum, Microsoft SharePoint, Dropbox and more) from a single search user interface (UI) and take action upon the search results – for instance, place the content on hold or export it in the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) XML export format for ingestion into e-discovery or review tools.
Grout noted: “Regardless of where the content lives, users can search and govern documents living in Dropbox, Documentum, FileNet, Sharepoint, Google Drive, Jira tickets, Slack and email conversations, and many other content repositories – without ever leaving their Alfresco environment.”
With Federation Services, Alfresco Governance Services now provides a single point of access – with a modern responsive user interface – to all the information resources in an organization. With Alfresco Federation Services powering federated records management, users are able to improve information governance across all their content repositories from the same Alfresco user experience.
Search and Legal Holds Supercharged with Artificial Intelligence
Alfresco Governance Services now includes enriched search and ‘Legal Hold’ supercharged by AI. The ‘Legal Hold’ process is frequently complex due to the sheer volume of structured and unstructured data that needs to be scanned and evaluated, resulting in massive scale and costly e-discovery tasks. Alfresco uses AI to enrich the discovery of relevant content and metadata, thus helping accelerate the identification, hold, and control of legally-sensitive information.
Grout added: “‘Legal Hold’ is not a new concept, but the complexity and challenge of e-discovery grows exponentially when data needs to be retrieved or managed across geographic borders and across different systems. Special compliance and operational issues arise concerning privacy and protection laws in the location where the content is stored – adding to the overall complexity of managing the data. Transferring content between jurisdictions within a country can also raise issues. By using Alfresco’s Digital Business Platform, users can manage the data that may be relevant to an e-discovery task, manage discovery-associated costs, and create a holistic view of the data lifecycle of their organization.”
Alfresco’s AI-assisted ‘Legal Hold’ can significantly help legal and IT professionals by providing enhanced document search and management capabilities, better enabling them to quickly and comprehensively identify the facts and relevant content that matter for litigation purposes for improved, cost-effective legal outcomes.
Grout continued: “Importantly, legal and IT professionals can continue to use the applications that they are most accustomed to using (for example, Microsoft Outlook and/or others) to perform their ‘Legal Hold’ discovery, which means they don’t have to learn new programs or struggle through complex, new processes.”
Desktop Synchronization
Further, the Alfresco Digital Business Platform now includes Desktop Synchronization, which not only synchronizes content between a repository and a desktop, but also synchronizes the records management policies associated with that content. This ensures all documents – even those working documents stored on a user’s desktop – retain a predefined level of governance.
When a user accesses a document and reviews it on their desktop computer, they will have the same record management policies applied as if they were viewing the document from the source repository. If a user declares a document as a record on their desktop, then that document will automatically be declared a record in the repository and on any other desktop computers that synchronize with that piece of content.
Additional Information Governance Innovation
Other new additions and capabilities on the Alfresco Digital Business Platform include:
- ‘Manage-in-Place’ without migration – This enables organizations to keep content stored in its current location (i.e. OpenText, Documentum, Microsoft SharePoint, Dropbox and more), but still enjoy the benefits of the Alfresco Digital Business Platform that provides a connection between the content and repository to facilitate retention, holds, dispositions and workflow;
- Automated Digital Filing – This leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning leveraging Alfresco Intelligence Services for greater security and protection. This enhanced functionality includes the automation of digital filing and detection of Personal Identifiable Information (PII) (for GDPR, CCPA, …) as well as the automation of records declaration, classification, and disposal of records using rules and processes;
- Invisible, frictionless governance – This provides the automation of records management to make it an integral part of the business process, building an invisible, automated, and compliant records management platform. This means people in the work environment do not have to think about records management as it happens automatically and to the satisfaction of records managers;
- Long Term Storage Options – The provision of storage connectors for long term storage options for digital preservation and transformation to the PDF/A format;
Grout added: “Organizations are facing stricter compliance regulations and the prospect of substantial penalties. Even though many have responded to immediate pressures, Alfresco Governance Services provides capabilities that can better enable these organizations to more effectively and efficiently manage their risk and control processes. And those organizations that deliver an improved quality of information governance will be able to offer improved customer service and outcomes, reduce their compliance costs, and mitigate the risks in their operations.”
About Alfresco
Alfresco Software, Inc. (“Alfresco”) is a commercial, open source software company that builds and markets a cloud-native, process, content and governance intensive Digital Business Platform. It is a single, integrated platform built from the ground up by Alfresco and is used to digitize processes, manage content and securely govern information. Alfresco is used by more than 1,300 industry-leading organizations, including Cisco, Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Delta Dental, Liberty Mutual, LexisNexis, Pitney Bowes, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, NASA, RBC Capital Markets and the US Navy Department. Founded in 2005, Alfresco has its headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts, USA and operations in Atlanta, GA., Maidenhead and London, UK, and Sydney, Australia. For more information about Alfresco, please visit http://www.alfresco.com.
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