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Livelink ECM Preps CVPS for e-Frisking

In more positive news for ECM vendor Open Text, Central Vermont Public Service (CVPS), the largest of Vermont’s 21 utility companies, just implemented the company’s Livelink ECM. Livelink will assist in managing CVPS’s e-documentation and records for compliance purposes and e-discovery.

Open Text is the belle of the ball in the Enterprise CMS world at present, and for good reason. The records management system inherent to Livelink ECM provides an automated process that resolves a number of the snags inherent to electronic records management. It also makes the user process clear and uncomplicated, which is critical for an operation of CVPS’s size. And as we’ve previously noted, Open Text is continuing on its path towards strategic integration — see Open Text Flips the ECM Metaphor. This pursuit is something we’ve always considered key to the company’s future success in the fierce ECM bazaar.

CVPS provides energy and other energy-oriented services to over 155,000 Vermont customers. Livelink ECM was chosen to put a rein on the company’s ever-growing volume of fast-moving information, particularly in an electronic documents climate characterized by new rules and regulations.

Chuck Piotrowski, corporate records manager at CVPS, elaborates. “Livelink ECM offers one-stop-shopping, so to speak, when employees need to find, organize and administer information,” he explains. “With Open Text, we feel we have much better control over information across the enterprise. For example, in litigation, we can provide requested information in a timely manner, or say with authority that we don’t have the information.”

Through the Livelink ECM interface, documents and emails can be stored and arranged in a central repository. Users from multiple departments, including HR, engineering and finance among others, can access any relevant records or documents from a simple browser-based user interface, no matter what application software they use.

This streamlined process means department administrators can collaborate, share information and manage records more efficiently enterprise-wide. Indeed, users note information that once took hours or days to find now takes mere seconds. The system also improves business processes via scanning, e-forms and workflows.

Confident about Livelink ECM’s scalability and security, CVPS has already begun storing critical documents in the system, including foundational company records. Non-destruct notices are applied to these documents to ensure their availability if regulators request them (if only such a seemingly Post-It solution were enough to sway the occasional hot-eared record-shredding exec). Additionally, Livelink ECM acts as the dedicated CVPS library for maintaining information that has already been submitted to state regulators, as well as information on Federal Energy Regulatory Commission events. Heavy stuff. Is Open Text conquering the world?

To soothe those who fear change, particularly among grand-scale public services like utilities, CVPS isn’t breaking new ground in its decision to implement the Open Text solution. London’s Defense Science and Technology Lab also plugged into Livelink recently. In related news on the sexier side of Open Text’s operations, their RedDot Web CMS management and content delivery platforms received a recent facelift.