The Path to Paperless
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The paperless organization is possible, but it’s often hard to know how to get started. Follow these steps to start on your path towards a paperless and more efficient organization for your Microsoft D365 Business Central, D365 Finance and Operations, and Dynamics NAV.
Do your Research.
There are many new terms, lessons learned, and best practices for enterprise document management systems. Do your research to understand how these systems work and how they can be useful within your organization.
Specific actions you can take now, include:
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Consulting industry standards and training resources such as www.AIIM.org
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Researching both hardware and software systems commonly used for document management.
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Documenting current company software and hardware, and processes used for document management.
Talk it up! Be a Champion! Build a Case!
Be a force for positive change. Use your internal and external research to rally your organization to start a document management project or improve or replace an existing system. Build a case and document the savings and improvements that are possible.
Specific actions you can take now, include:
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Meeting with departmental managers to discuss and document what’s working well and what can be improved.
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Recruiting a sponsor or be the project champion. Use the Datahaven ROI calculator to start building a business case.
Document Goals and High-Level Requirements
Continue to build your case by solidifying attainable goals that are aligned with business strategy. Document high-level requirements so that these requirements can be used to evaluate document management systems and shape the future-state system towards best practices and a better organization.
Specific actions you can take now, include:
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Documenting goals and match the goals to business objectives.
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Documenting both business and technical requirements.
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Getting input from multiple stakeholders who are involved in various parts of the current-state processes being considered for document management and document automation.
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Deciding if the document management storage will begin at the time of Go Live or if past documents will also be incorporated into the future-state system.
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Involving compliance to stay informed about internal, state, federal and other audit and compliance requirements to include.
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Deciding which requirements are “must-have” and “nice to have”, and which ones can be implemented in the future.
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Researching standards organizations; advice for gathering requirements https://goo.gl/965cUV
Schedule Demos.
Formulate a Timeline and Budget.
You’ve done your research, recruited a champion (maybe that’s you), assessed your current environment, and gathered your basic goals and requirements. Now you can search for appropriate systems to meet your needs. Schedule demos, watch webinars and videos, assess alignment to your documented requirements, ask for budgetary estimate for software, hardware and services, and keep track of it all. Be prepared to offer general timeline and budget figures to get in quicker alignment with two or three vendors.
Specific actions you can take now, include:
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Considering the timeline of the project. Be aware of other co-existing project and company busy-times when project resources may already be committed.
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Looking for solutions that meet your goals and high-level requirements.
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Looking inside the Microsoft channel for solutions which already integrate with Dynamics.
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Embedding within the Dynamics environment.
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Certified solutions.
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A reasonable budget should be approved before seeking vendor demos, and the budget can be refined based on the specific solutions presented.
Scope it. Phase it. Start it.
You’ve made a decision – you’ve picked a solution and an implementing partner. Now it’s time to finalize the scope of the project for the first phase so that a final proposal can be created and accepted. The proposal should include a clear list of requirements, licenses needed (number and type of software), hardware and other required software, and a timeline so that resources can be committed to the success of the project. Future phases should be put on a roadmap for planning after the first project is completed and live.
Specific actions you can take now, include:
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Finalizing the scope of the first phase.
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Working with the selected implementing partner to create and finalize the proposal.
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Working on a schedule that considers sensitive timing requirements and that is also realistic.
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Allocating project resources and schedule a project kick-off.
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Follow a standard project lifecycle
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Install Baseline system
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Conducts detailed requirements analysis
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Configure system based on collected detailed requirements
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Document and train users on the new system
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Conduct User Acceptance Testing
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Completed Rework and plan for Go Live
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Go Live
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Go Live Support
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Incorporate post-phase 1 updates based on user and system feedback
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Finalize and accept updated policies and procedure
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Plan for next phase
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