We would like to thank those of you who participated in our initial round of testing Bizmanualz On-Line.

Bizmanualz On-line is a software service in which quality professionals, departments heads and managers can review, approve and release controlled documentation as required by ISO and other compliance standards.

Recently Bizmanualz issued free trial and test instances of the Editor module.    On Monday, August 16^th, Bizmanualz will release the Bizmanualz On-line Reader module, a companion web site which automatically displays and organizes all documents released by the Editor module.

Starting Monday, log-in will occur through the Reader module. If you are currently testing the software, you will receive an email with your new link. Your old deep-link will still get you into the editor module. After Monday, we recommend that all users log in using the new link and discard their old link.

Within the reader module, editors will be required to click on an “editor module” button to get into the work flow features that they are currently using. JAVA will load as it has been doing when entering the editor module. The reader module on the other hand does not require JAVA.

Additional Release notes:

A. Only released documents appear in the reader module.
To release documents, click on the editor button in the reader module and use the work flow features.
Test software comes loaded with sample procedures and user help files. Only help files are “released” and therefore appear in the reader module. Any documents released through the Editor module will show up in their respective folders.

B. All readers and editors must have a user name and password.
To create or edit user name and password: Go to the Admin > User tab in the editor module. Enter all the required information.  Select reader and/or editor privileges when you add a user.
Current users will not have to reset their user names or passwords.
Right now as we test the software, editors will have to supply their user name and password a second time to move from the reader module to the editor module. Only one-log-in will be required of editors in the next release.

C. Single point of entry
By having editors log in through the reader module, we are providing a single point for all users to log-in. Sending editors through the reader module will give them easy access to the same view that all employees see, providing editors with an easy way to see what has been released and to see exactly what non-editor (readers) see. We will provide short-cuts to help editors move between the modules in the next release.

D. Your account will NOT lose data as a result of this transition.

E. Unlimited number of users
For now, we have removed the cap on the number of users you may create.
Go to Admin > Users and click the ‘add’ button in the editor module. Add as many users as you want.
When we begin charging for the software, a large but not unlimited number of authenticated readers will be able to log on, even at the introductory price point.

F. Two user-help documents are affected. The log-in instructions have been updated to reflect the new log-in procedure via the reader module. Also, a new use-case has been added that shows basic operation of the reader module. 

New reader module home screen.

G. System will be unavailable Aug 14-15th. You may not be able to log in during the transition while we make the changes described above. Most of the changes will occur over the weekend (August 14-15). Help files will be updated in all existing instances on Monday August 16, 2010. All service will be restored by Tuesday.

H. Response time has improved. As mentioned in a previous release note, we moved the test server you are using to an off-site SAS 70 Type II compliant location. Response time has been greatly improved. Please let us know how fast the server is working for you.

Thank you again for your assistance and feedback as we move this product to market.

We will contact all existing users after the transition for a walk-through and to gather your impressions of the software and the new reader module. Free accounts are issued so that we can gain your input. We reserve the right to cancel your access if we cannot get your feedback. 

Pleaes let us know if you have questions or additional comments.

sales@bizmanualz.com

The “Bizmanualz On-Line” Policies and Procedures management software system is now undergoing testing. When you try it, you’ll see it’s primarily an Internet-based application. Very little runs on your local PC or network.

A few people have wondered about working online, asking, “Why would I want an online policy application that Bizmanualz hosts and maintains, rather than a policy application installed locally?”

#1 - It Costs Less

The Bizmanualz online solution spreads the cost of hardware and software across many customers, so you receive one low monthly fee for editors/authors and nothing for read-only access. If your company wants its own policy server, it wouldn’t enjoy the cost-sharing advantages and it would incur the entire cost of purchasing and maintaining the needed infrastructure.

Some still insist on an in-house installation because it gives them greater control. However, the business world, in general, is moving away from local software and toward hosted software services, software-as-a-service (SaaS), and cloud solutions.  Companies don’t want to pay for software and hardware, especially when it sits idle much of the time. The great thing about software-as-a-service is that pricing reflects what you actually use.

#2 - You Get a Policy Management Solution Now

In large organizations, defining policty management application requirements and allocating resources to buy or build are fraught with political obstacles. Gaining buy-in from all stakeholders takes time. It’s easier for stakeholders to agree on what they need from a policy management software application when they can try it out first.

Because SaaS policy management solutions can be turned on instantly and require no installation, they offer an immediate solution. Users can then define their needs in terms of what the SaaS policy management solutions solutions does or does not do.  You can then offer cost-benefit trade-offs in response to specific user needs.

Meeting user needs is not always possible at an acceptable level of investment. But by establishing good communications with your SaaS policy management solutions vendor, you may better understand the trade-offs and even influence the vendor’s development plans. As the polciy manager who uses the system, it’s easier for you to get a vendor to add the exact policy management features you need than for your company to allocate scarce resources. Under a SaaS model, new policy software features and upgrades are part of the value delivered for your subscription fee.

#3 - Continual SaaS Upgrades and Improvements

While large organizations have business analysts collecting user needs and defining what a policy management software application should do for them, smaller companies often do not. Often that role in an SMB is filled on an as-needed basis by an IT manager, and conflicting priorities may require redeployment of resources right after the software launches.

Software-as-a-service vendors on the other hand live or die by how well they support and improve their product. They must deliver value and ever-improved features and performance in exchange so that customers feel good about their monthly subscription fees.

Under the licensed server approach, improvements often come in annual or longer installation cycles with renewal fees attached. It could be a year or longer before you get upgrades. Furthermore, the cost of upgrading often means putting it off, which means you could fall behind companies that can afford to upgrade. Under the SaaS model, you get upgrades continually and you don’t pay any more for them.

#4 - No Unnecessary Technology Investment

For many companies, installed policy servers just don’t make sense anymore. Big, expensive server hardware and software has to be in place to run your policy procedure management software, but the necessary platform is underused. That is, policy management as a category of software demands little in the way of computing power. Unless yours is a vast organization with intensive policy compliance needs, your investment would sit idle most of the time and you’d end up paying for power you didn’t need.

It makes sense to spread the fixed costs across many companies, and get someone else (Bizmanualz) to take care of all that computing power for you, and that is the advantage of SaaS policy management.

#5 - SaaS Monthly Fees are Cheaper and Easier to Budget

Under a dedicated-server approach, IT departments typically pay annual license and maintenance fees of about 20% to 40% of the up-front software license fees. So our SaaS (on-line) policy solution is actually much cheaper to maintain from IT’s perspective. And because Bizmanualz online fully supports the SaaS solution, your IT department doesn’t have to allocate technical time and talent to maintain a dedicated solution.

SaaS enables you to share most of the costs of the hardware and software across all the provider’s (Bizmanualz’s) customers, while protecting your data. As a matter of fact, policy managers and finance professionals (to name two) who use our policy software are commonly surprised when they approach their IT department heads and find that initiatives are underway to identify SaaS or cloud applications like the Bizmanualz policy management system.

Remote hosting is becoming more common. If you approach IT management with a SaaS option, they may consider you to be a real forward-thinking user!

#6 - Compliance with SAS 70 Type II

Some companies like SaaS as a concept but they don’t want their data to reside outside their firewall. Our hosting is fully compliant and audited to SAS 70 Type II standards. Conforming to Type II standards means your data are fully protected. Has your in-house IT department met the SAS 70 standard?

#7 - Polciy workflow Compliance for editors but users don’t have to do anything differently.

While it is true that draft policy and procedure files are stored on our secure server outside your firewall, your company can store “released” documents on your in-house server. In that way, you could use our workflow management tools and still publish the released files to a location behind your firewall. Authors and editors gain policy workflow and compliance tools, and the majority of employees don’t have to change the way they access released documents. They would simply read the released policy documents as they have been doing in your Intranet or SharePoint, and released documents would reside within your firewall.

Our editing module stores Bizmanualz policies and procedures templates, as well as any changes you make or any other documents that you upload. Most customers tell us that their compliance policies and procedures are not considered sensitive documents. There should be no reason to upload sensitive documents. For most customers, released files are published to a secure web site that your employees - or anyone you want - can access them.

With the trade-offs in mind, the online SaaS policy management approach works for most customers. Furthermore, we can customize a solution for you. Just email sales@bizmanualz.com. Sign up for a free trial and see for yourself.

When many of us see change coming, we’re not sure what to do.  We sometimes fear or mistrust change, or we put off big problems because they’re “too much all at once”, and we stick with outdated, inefficient tools, methods, and processes.

“Better the devil you know than the one you don’t.”
Anon.

We sense that the way we go about developing policies and procedures isn’t producing satisfactory results, yet we keep at it. We can’t afford to continue doing what we’ve been doing if we’re to remain competitive.

Now we proceed with the ten-step program for developing procedures:

1. Understand the process – walk through it (literally) and map it out. See for yourself where the bottlenecks are. Determine where your resources are going to waste, not value. If an activity doesn’t add value, customers won’t pay for it.
2. Estimate the resources you need to craft the procedure (people, time, etc.). Set your goals and milestones.
3. Now, document (author) the process.  For the best effect, combine pictures and words: either is good but together, they’re great!
4. Once you author the procedure, have the process “doers” and their manager review it.  Note: Here is where a document management system can improve your review process.
5. Based on the results of the procedure review, revise the procedure.
6. Repeat #4 and #5 once. Resist the urge to keep “tweaking” documents before releasing them – there is no such thing as a perfect procedure.
7. Next, have other interested parties review the procedure (for example, the managers of the processes immediately before and after the process in question).
8. Revise the procedure one last time, if necessary.
9. Gain final approval of the procedure from top management. In the case of a small business (or SMB), that might be the owner, the president, your chief financial officer, and others.  Top management needs to be involved because every process – hence, every procedure – is a reflection of the company’s vision, mission, and objectives.
10. Once the procedure is approved, release it to the company.  Releasing a procedure involves:

• Announcing the procedure to the entire company;
• Circulating it, or making sure it’s readily accessible to employees;
• Training the doers – those responsible for carrying out the procedure, and their managers; and
• Explaining the procedure to those who may be affected indirectly (for example, one process forward and one back).

Keep Procedures Fresh and Meaningful

As we said in step #6, perfect procedures don’t exist. The business environment changes, your company changes, and your procedures need to reflect that. Once you’ve released a procedure, there are two more things you must do:

11. Conduct a periodic procedure review. You review a procedure when something really big comes up that has a direct impact (a new or revised regulation, an audit finding, a new owner, etc.), correct? Oftentimes, nothing comes up – or we don’t notice when they do. That’s why we need to routinely review procedures (a rule of thumb is to review annually).

12. After the review, revise the procedure (if needed), review it, approve it, and release it.

What about you? Have any questions or comments? What do you – or would you – do differently? Do you have a system for writing and managing procedures – one you’d like to share with us?

Customers Say They Want A System for Sharing their Day-to-Day Operating Documents while Maintaining Control, Traceability and Compliance

Our customers cite ‘organizational improvement’ as their main reason why they purchase policies and procedures. From many conversations we have gleaned that customers want to implement a system for continuous improvement and compliance. In a system, procedures are continuously reviewed, revised, and updated. New issues need to be identified, now procedures written. Old procedures need to be replaced by new procedures.

To remain compliant with your industry standards, government regulations, and quality requirements such as ISO, document changes must be managed and traceable through the document management cycle: DRAFT | REVIEW | APPROVE | RELEASE. This cycle is the heart of compliant document work flow.

So Bizmanualz is currently testing an on-line document management software for driving document management and compliance. Because the software is available as an on-line service, organizations of any size can manage and share their policies, procedures, work instructions and other operating documents.

During this test period, Bizmanualz is providing a few customers with access to a prototype of our new document management software. The customers are providing feedback which is helping us improve the first release of the product which will take place soon (If you are interested in testing the software, please read this post. Also, see our frequently asked questions (FAQ), or call us at (314) 863-5079.)

For more background on how document management software can help you, please see our blog.

Walking Through Bizmanualz On-Line

In our pre-release testing program, we’re asking testers to perform common operations, such as logging in, setting up users (assigning permissions, etc.), loading documents, and organizing them. The work flow starts with drafting documents and includes reviewing, revising, approving, and releasing documents.

The following “use case” illustrates work flow in our new software. Use cases like this are provided to testers so that all testers are following a similar path, which makes it easier to evaluate their responses. As the software matures, users will need less instruction and use-cases will be more general.

To log in to the Bizmanualz On-line editing module, click on a link and enter a user name and a password that you received via e-mail. When logged in, users will see the following ‘Home’ Screen (figure 1), which shows announcements posted by the administrator and other users of the system.

Figure 1: Click screen shots for larger images.

To manage a document, click on the document tab (figure 2), which is the second tab from the left. Then click on the production department folder in the left-hand navigation to show production-department documents (Bizmanualz templates that you purchase come pre-loaded and you can upload your own documents).

Figure 2

Expand the folders by clicking on the plus sign in the Department navigation on the left-hand side (figure 2) to show its contents and browse for documents in the list in the main window (figure 3).

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5

The document itself may be viewed from this window by clicking on the binoculars icon, or edited by clicking on the document-edit icon. Delete the document by clicking on the delete icon, which will issue a warning before deleting the document.

Managing Document Workflow

Workflow in the Bizmanualz On-line system is essentially a three-stage process of accept/reject review, approve/reject revision, and release/obsolete revision. We will look at the basics of each step here.

This guide assumes that you have created users, and set permissions at a department level. See those use cases for full information.

Set up Document Permissions

Here we will review the optional step of setting permissions at the document level, which override department-level permissions governing access to a group of documents.

System administrators can set all permissions for themselves and all users. They can submit drafts (DRAFT), accept or reject reviews (REVIEW), approve or reject revisions (APPROVE), and release documents (RELEASE).  This cycle—Draft | Review | Approve | Release—is consistent with all document management protocols, industry standards, government regulations and quality standards.

By default, authors cannot review or release their own work. But administrators can change work flow permissions and defaults for single documents in the People tab (figure 6), overriding department or group-level permissions. If you are logged in as an administrator, you will have access to the People tab while you are on the Details view of any document.

Figure 6

In this example, the administrator has granted himself full permissions, and another employee Approver and Reviewer permissions, overriding permission defaults.

Accepting and Rejecting Reviews

Dan has permissions as an author, which means that he can ‘Submit draft’, which causes the ‘Accept Review’ and ‘Reject Review’ buttons to light up (figure 7) per the permissions he set in the previous screen.

Figure 7

E-mail Notification

Reviewers are notified by e-mail when documents are ready for them to review. E-mails are sent when the document has to be submitted for review. All users who have review privileges for the document will receive an email (Figure 8).

The document may be attached to the e-mail so you can read it right away. But documents can only be released through the system. Any revisions you make to the attachment will not be reflected in the controlled draft or released document unless you upload it to the system.  If you do that, it will cause another work flow cycle to occur on the document you have uploaded. To avoid proliferation of documents, we suggest using the attachment for reference only doing all your revisions while logged into the system.

Figure 8

In this example, the revision number is still 0.0.0.0 because the document review has not yet been accepted. Clicking on the ‘Accept Review’ button which is lit up in figure 7, will create a document revision.

If you ‘reject draft’ you get a message that prompts you to enter a reason (figure 9).

Figure 9

Approving and Rejecting Revisions

Ultimately, revisions can be released by clicking the ‘release revision’ button (figure 10). You will only be able to release the document if you have permission to do so, per the settings on the ‘People’ tab. Talk to the document author or system administrator to find out what permissions you have.

Figure 10

When you click ‘release’ you will be asked if you would like to send the document via  FTP to a server other than the Bizmanualz server (figure 11). Select ‘yes’ if you are pushing released documents to SharePoint or another local server other than Bimanualz. If you are not sure, ask your administrator or Bizmanualz.

Figure 11

When you release a document for the first time, the version number changes to 1.0.0.0, indicating that the first release of the document has been achieved (figure 12). Note that many reviews may have occurred before e the first release.

Figure 12

Unreleased documents cannot be seen by the general user population. They will only see what you released to your customized Bizmanualz web site or to your SharePoint or Intranet. Only users of the Bizmanualz On-line editing module can see the drafts.

So, what do you think? Are you ready for Bizmanualz document management software?

We are currently testing our new policies and procedures document compliance software, and plan to release it for customer testing in the near future. Potential testers have been asking a number of questions. Here are questions, and the answers:

Is your policy management software accessed as a service over the Internet (Software as a Service - SaaS) or must your policy solution be installed on your computers?

Bizmanualz policy management software is in fact a ‘software-as-a-Service’ available as a subscription over the Internet. The first time a user accesses the service, a small amount of code loads on the client machine in about 30 seconds, similar to when using GoToMeeting or any number of on-line services. The user never is required to install, launch or maintain any software.

Can we upload our existing documents into the system?

You can upload all your existing documents into the system, and open them, so long as your local machine has the software that was used to create the document. For example, MS WORD documents are can be uploaded. In fact, Bizmanualz publishes the world’s most complete set of pre-written policies and procedures, all in MS WORD format. Any policies and procedures template that you buy from us comes pre-loaded in the software. We keep the templates up to date; but we don’t change any documents that you save, upload or change, even if the document started as a Bizmanualz template.

Are documents easy to update?

Documents are edited in their native software on your local machine; they are saved to our server. Our system tracks and controls all document revisions so everyone accesses the latest version. It’s easy to roll back to a previous version if necessary.

Are employees or other users notified when a policy changes or is updated?

Notifications of policy changes are sent by e-mail to policy document authors and ‘followers.’  Administrators and document authors can assign ‘follower’ rights to any user for any document. Users can independently follow any document to which they have permission. Followers receive e-mail notifications of all policy changes. There are also announcement and action item screens within the policy management software that can be used to communicate information about documents.

Can multiple users access policies and procedures at the same time?

Yes, any number of users can access your policy and procedure documents. If two people work on the same document at the same time, their work will be saved (but not released) as two separate drafts. Built-in compliance workflow assures that only one draft can be released, so there are never multiple releases of the same policies and procedures document floating around.

How do you price your policy management software? Do you charge by the seat, or do you sell one license for the whole organization?

We charge per seat for administrative and add/change/delete privileges. Released policy and procedure documents are published to a web site which can be viewed for free by anyone you want. Typically, that would include all your employees and your auditors if you have a formal quality system.

We have an Intranet for reading our documents on-line. How does your software work with Intranets?

If you already have an intranet or a document publishing platform (SharePoint for example) and want to keep using it, our editor module can ftp documents to your existing publishing platform so that user’s viewing habits don’t have to change. But your editors and document managers would benefit from using our editor module for policy and procedure document control, workflow, version control, notifications, etc. while your general employee population would continue to read documents as they’re doing now.

Can I assign different levels of access to users and documents?

We offer a full access control at the document, user and department level. That is, all users assigned to, for example, the accounting department can be granted permission to all accounting procedures with a global command. Additional restrictions can be placed on individuals within a department. Access privileges can also be set at the document level.

Is your policy management software compliant with my quality management or document control requirements?

Yes, the Bizmanualz policy management software is consistent with the document control requirements of all ISO quality management systems, government and industry standards and regulations.

Why do we bother documenting processes, tasks, and events? What purpose does documentation serve? And, if we’re going to do it, shouldn’t we do it right?

For years, Bizmanualz has offered policy and procedure manuals covering most of the business essentials — accounting, human resources, IT, and so on. We’ve done all the research, writing and organizing and provided you with valuable content.

And we delivered this information in Microsoft Word format, used by more organizations than any other kind of document processing software. But what we cannot do is ensure that, once you reshape Bizmanualz policies and procedures into your own, your employees will utilize them or that the procedures will be updated as needed.

Once you’re done with your policies-and-procedures project, you’ve added to the number of documents you have to maintain. How do you maintain your existing documents? How do you ensure that they’re accurate and up-to-date? How do you make sure that the proper version is in use? For that matter, how do you ensure that they’re being used at all?

Why do we need documents, anyway? They just take up a lot of space, right? Actually, there are many good reasons why we have them. We have documents because we need to:

• Communicate ideas, concepts, requirements, etc., to our coworkers, managers, and subordinates;
• Be aware of and understand our responsibilities;
• Ensure consistency and repeatability in our processes;
• Give assurance that we’re accountable for our actions (i.e., we can show proof of what we’ve done);
• Have information on which we can base our plans for the near and long term; and
• Meet various requirements (customers, regulations, standards, etc.).

But, while we need to document policies for all these reasons, many things that should be documented aren’t simply because (a) the act of documenting is so time consuming and (b) the ongoing task of keeping documents and records organized takes even more time. When you think about it, couldn’t you really use a document and record librarian? Someone to maintain consistency, order, security, and availability of your company documents?

But who can afford to keep a documents/records librarian on staff? Well, that’s where a policies and procedures based document management system (DMS) — like the one in development at Bizmanualz — comes in. A policies and procedures DMS is a way of managing your policy deployment documents (internal and external), keeping them organized, letting you control access to them, enabling a better development and review process, logging activity, and allowing automatic record and document management.

In short, a policy management system makes your  policies and procedures documents more useful — it adds value.

Now, I have to ask…are you using a policy management system of some kind? Regardless of how long you’ve been using it, what do you think of it? We certainly didn’t cover everything here — what do you want to add?

Thanks for your insights.

Do you have a vision for your company that your employees never seem quite able to carry out?  I’m sure all of your managers and employees hear what you’re saying, but do they understand? Do they consistently translate your words into actions? Do they consistently get the results you and your customers desire?

What may be needed is a way to define your best practices that ensures your employees’ actions are in sync with your vision.  With the right tools in place, it’s a lot easier than you might think.

Whether your goal is to raise sales 10%, increase profits 50%, reduce your time to market by 25%, or obtain ISO certification within 12 months, you need a plan to increase the odds of realizing your goals.  I bet you’ve produced dozens of realization plans and not achieved the results you hoped for.  My question is, “What tools were you using?”

Were you using a tool that…

• Could organize your policies and procedures by department, process, and employee?
• Quickly and easily enabled the design of step-by-step processes you needed to reach your goals and objectives?
• Included best practice procedure templates for standardizing processes in every department (e.g., marketing, accounting, IT) and for every need (for example, ISO 9001 certification)?
• Linked documents, references, and forms referenced within your procedures?
• Enabled easy editing of your policies, procedures, and processes utilizing commonly-used software, such as MS-Visio®, Excel®, Word®, Adobe, and more?
• Defined access permissions (read-only, read/write, etc.) to allow individuals to work with policies, procedures, and processes that are material to their jobs?
• Automatically conformed to document management compliance requirements for document revisions, audit trails, retention, review, approval, and release?

Imagine how much more effective your team can be with robust policies and procedures for each and every business process, or how productive and happy your employees will be with clearly defined job descriptions, training materials, and a system for finding - and developing - business process policies and procedures.  And that’s not all!

Just imagine how much easier training new hires will be once you’ve captured and secured all critical process and content knowledge into policies and procedures from all of your employees!  And how, if someone should leave your company, your knowledge assets don’t have to go with them!

Sounds Like Every Executive’s Dream, Doesn’t It?

Bizmanualz new policies and procedures software tool can radically boost your company’s performance.  It delivers your policies and procedures completely online, using SaaS to move your organization into the 21^st century.  Instant reports, company announcements, and action item checklists detail the real-time status of your policies and procedures.  It’s more than a decision aid — it’s a decision arsenal, packed with features that will improve the performance of every part of your organization.

If you’re sincere about improving your company’s performance — if you want your employees to carry out your vision as intended — try Bizmanualz new policies and procedures software!

How do you organize all of your policies and procedures?  Perhaps your company needs to organize its policies and procedures according to:

• Accreditation standards;
• Government regulations;
• Client requirements;
• Review dates;
• Timeframe cycle dates;

or other categories or themes. If your policies and procedures are in Microsoft Word, Bizmanualz has the answer.

You can use custom metadata tags, or “meta tags”, in all Bizmanualz policies and procedures.  Metadata, simply put, are “data that describe your data”.  More precisely, metadata may be used to describe the definition and structure of files, and meta tags can be used to identify, categorize, and retrieve relevant information easily.

In the case of policies and procedures, metadata can be used to augment your searches for information, classify your procedures, and provide important data not necessarily found in the policy or procedure itself.

You can easily create searches and reports from metadata and meta tags to locate specific policies and procedures for review, investigate accreditations or regulations, or find outstanding action items. Bizmanualz new Policies and Procedures Management software can resolve your organization and reporting issues in one easy-to-use online product.

Call us at 800-466-9953 or write to us for details.

Bizmanualz will demonstrate its new Policies and Procedures Management and Control software at the ASQ World Conference on Quality and Improvement (WCQI), May 23-26, 2010, in St. Louis, Missouri.

The Bizmanualz exhibit will showcase the latest in SaaS policies and proceduresmanagement and control software. This software will enable compliance with ISO 9001,Sarbanes-Oxley, ITIL, the Joint Commission, or any standard, guideline, or legislation requiring document management and record control. Specialized policies and procedures software features have been designed to meet Policy Procedures Document Control Software Requirements.

Come to the ASQ’s WCQI show in St. Louis, MO, and look for our exhibit. See our newestpolicy procedure management Software as a Service – designed to meet or exceed your procedure writing, workflow, and compliance requirements – in action! We look forward to seeing you!

For large and small businesses, there’s much to like about cloud computing.  Cloud computing — basically, hosted services delivered across the Internet — is associated with “software as a service“, or SaaS. Cloud computing offers your organization a great deal of flexibility — you can readily adapt to momentary spikes in demand without investing enormous amounts of time, people power, and money. Here’s what else I like about cloud computing:

WHAT’S TO LIKE?

1. It reduces overhead. 500 Gb hard disks are common for a very good reason: applications are so feature-rich and graphics-intensive. For instance, Dreamweaver is taking 165 Mb of my local hard disk’s space. InstallShield uses 215 Mb, and Adobe Reader, another 146. And Silverlight? I didn’t even order it, yet there it is, all 43.2 Mb of it. The point being? That applications on your hard drive not only take up space but so many run involuntarily — and concurrently — that they significantly drag down your computer’s performance.
2. You’re not tied to one machine. I can do more work from home as we turn to the cloud for more of our computing. I not only check on my e-mail from anywhere (I head off a lot of junk that way) but I gather and exchange a lot of info and ideas in the cloud.
3. Your outlay is spread evenly throughout the year. With locally installed applications, you typically shell out thousands all at once for a licenses, support, etc.
4. There’s no need to purchase memory-hogging applications. When you have localized applications, you’re responsible for staying current with updates for as long as the license is in force. Sure, the vendor says updates are automatic, but that’s not 100% accurate. When it’s time to renew that license, there’s a lot to consider (see #5, for one). And if you get in trouble and have to reinstall the application, you’re at the mercy of customer service.
5. You always have the current version of the software. Look at the differences between Word 2003 and 2007. The newer version was a sudden and dramatic change: you got a lot of features you didn’t want, and some features you liked went away. Many companies stayed put because change is difficult; procrastination only makes the eventual more traumatic. Cloud applications, on the other hand, are usually changed so gradually that you don’t notice them.
6. File backup is easy and automatic. Cloud apps generally offer backup capability. Not enough companies take advantage of this, and they’re going to pay for their hubris sooner or later. Symantec’s 2009 SMB Disaster Preparedness Survey found that fewer than one in four respondents backed up their data every day. There’s no good reason for not backing up your stuff - not when cloud computing makes it so easy.
7. Cloud computing is the ideal environment for coordinating your company communications. Unified communications (UC) offers the potential for significant cost control without sacrificing the functionality of in-house management. In this recession, everyone wants to drive and keep costs down, but there’s a right way to do it. With cloud-based UC, overhead drops but functionality stays.

WHAT’S NOT TO LIKE?

There’s just a couple of things, though they’re not minor points:

1. Net traffic jams. Net capacity has had a hard time keeping up with demand. Two examples I can think of — CBSsports-dot-com during the NCAA basketball tournament, and Facebook’s “FarmVille”.
2. Security, or the lack of it. Every cloud app is a potential opening for the bad guys. A lot of skepticism — even a tiny bit of paranoia — is called for whether you’re considering the cloud or already using it.

ON THE WHOLE…

There’s a lot to like about cloud computing, especially for small businesses. Now, if your business, large or small, has experience with cloud computing, would you share that experience with us?

If you haven’t had any experience with cloud computing, are you thinking about it? What’s holding you back?

Thank you for your responses. Oh, by the way…

YOU SHOULD ALSO SEE:

• Explaining Cloud Computing - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hplXnFUlPmg.
• What Cloud Computing Really Means - http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/what-cloud-computing-really-means-031.