Compliance News & Articles

The Governance Portal, a software platform by Protiviti, has received an update. Version 3 offers enhancements to a GRC tool aimed at integrating proprietary information and expertise with a trusted framework for managing and mitigating the risks associated with compliance and regulatory issues.

From surveys and self-assessments to data collection and audit management, users can implement new features in the Governance Portal to help them manage enterprise and operational risks, optimize internal audit processes while monitoring compliance risks.

Anacomp (site) updated its CaseProduction module, which is part of CaseLogistix, to improve and refine eDiscovery and document production.

In the Terminator series, the evil computer network Skynet leads the rise of machines in an effort to destroy humanity. Hopefully things won't go that far in a new report called The Rise of Information Governance, which tackles the often complex, confusing and confounding issues of information management and all that it encompasses.

The report, written by the 451 Group, attempts to define information governance, as well as examine the market dynamics and drivers, adoption trends and profiles of 15 vendors working towards information governance zen.

In theory, these things strike many as a good idea. And, most notably, they might actually be. But they also strike fear in the hearts of CIOs world-wide. Is the cloud secure? Is the cloud compliant? Is the cloud performant enough not to frustrate the entire company?

And then beyond these questions, there are the economic realities.

SaaS vendors argue that their approach saves you money. Start-up costs are certainly lower, but long term TCO may be another story. The scenario needs to be modeled for your specific organization, if you want to decide with confidence.

SpringCM -- yes, a provider of SaaS enterprise content management solutions -- thinks they've got some valuable information to share. They're running a webinar tomorrow, called The Economics of SaaS vs. On Premises.

Topics include:

• How to measure the costs and benefits of a solution over time
• The case for SaaS payback
• Why a platform (vs a point solution) can save a great deal of time and money

One additional angle that we found interesting is their approach to dealing with on-premise SharePoint when the core Enterprise CMS infrastructure lives in the cloud. You might ask about this.

You can sign-up now. The event runs tomorrow, Thurs. August 6th at 1pm Eastern (10am Pacific time).

This week in governance, risk and compliance brings us partnerships, advice and lessons learned from the recession.

With corporate desktops (hopefully) complying with regulatory eDiscovery requirements, the focus is now moving to mobile devices and TextGuard (site) offers a way to record gadget-based messages and data.

In the cloud, a rainy day would consist of massive amounts of lost information without explanation or recovery options.

It could happen.

In case of such a hosted apocalypse (or, in the event of a much less serious instance, like when documents need to be accessed offline), a company called LTech has released Google Docs Backup, a downloadable tool for improved backup, archiving, and management of Google Docs. As the reported first enterprise partner of Google to offer such a solution, their credibility is already turning heads.

We all know that all companies risk losing or leaking information. But do we really know what to do about enterprise risk management? Best practices aren't always relevant to enterprise environments, nor do companies always have the proper benchmarks in place to implement them.

Taken together, GRC is an oft-used acronym that refers to the way in which organizations manage, store and share information. Taken individually, there are integral pieces of the process.

If you've been following Vamosa (news, site), a company that specializes in the analysis and migration of enterprise content, then you know all about their special feelings for governance and compliance. 

Everyday the importance of regulatory standards grows more and more apparent. In accordance with that, Vamosa has been on a beeline path to help companies find their own personal Enterprise Content Governance (ECoG) utopia. This path has recently included Vamosa's Check & Fix feature, a website content monitoring service that automatically fixes errors.

No longer alone in their endeavors, Vamosa recently announced their new partnership with SchemaLogic, an Information Managment software vendor that's certainly no stranger in these parts. Virtual hand in virtual hand, the two companies have founded the ECoG Alliance, and through it will offer a one-stop shop for tools that analyze, cleanse, migrate, monitor and maintain unstructured content types.

As for the motive: “The ability to store, access and share content is integral to the running of an organization but even the best designed content management system can be ruined by poor content quality," said Lowell Anderson, vice president, Marketing, SchemaLogic. "We’ve teamed up with Vamosa to ensure enterprises can obtain a standard of content quality that is built in at the point of creation." And from Nic Archer, senior vice president, Vamosa: "“Partnering with SchemaLogic will allow Vamosa to offer customers improved content governance, thereby improving findability and reducing costs for the enterprise.”

The enterprise content management provider KnowledgeTree (news, site ) released v3.6.1 on June 19, and already it has announced that it has upgraded its SaaS solution to include all the functionality of the on-site version.

Focusing on businesses that have a large dependency on documents, and consequently document management solutions, the company says the SaaS upgrade will eliminate the need for new hardware, or in-house training for the IT department.

The principal feature that is now available on KnowledgeTree Live is the Microsoft Office Add-In. In addition, the ability to integrate with Zoho Writer makes it possible for users to access and edit documents remotely without high-cost desktop software.

KnowledgeTree (news, site) is officially spreading its wings (limbs?). The open source document management software company today announced the grand opening of its North American headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The company has made other recent moves to ensure its future, including their edition of electronic signatures in the KnowledgeTree 3.6.1 release. The company, which is funded by Hasso Plattner Ventures, has already gained s worldwide traction, and is now reportedly focusing on building its US operations.

North American operations will be led by Tim Spink, who joins the organization as vice president of sales. His experience includes former senior director at rPath Inc., former vice president of sales at Solarwinds Inc., and various sales management and director positions at Red Hat Inc.

“We have been experiencing incredible momentum at KnowledgeTree,” said Daniel Chalef, CEO. “Establishing a North American headquarters was the next logical step and we are pleased to have an industry veteran like Tim join our team.”

It's a non-stop flow of news from Autonomy (news, site) these days. Most recently, the company announced the integration of its document management product, iManage WorkSite, with Autonomy's workflow.

It doesn't come as a surprise that the new module -- iManage Workflow Manager -- is built on Autonomy's meaning-based technology.

The notions of web and enterprise content governance are gaining more and more attention -- partially, due to growing concerns around eDiscovery and other compliance challenges. Everyone has some sort of content (and its volumes are growing at the speed of light), but do you have standards, policies and procedures around it? How do you enforce them?

The challenge many organizations face is compliance (or lack of it) with internal and external policies and regulatory standards. This is exactly the challenge Vamosa (news, site) is trying to address with its new product called Check & Fix.

Information governance -- historically a bottom-up practice and now the responsibility of Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) managers -- has been pushing its way into boardrooms around the world. Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, The Basel II accords and similar regulations have triggered this trend.

The problem is that the concerned parties rarely speak the same technical language. Modern enterprise information management systems are helping to address the problem but there are still a few secrets to success. Here are some things to keep in mind during your initiatives.

KnowledgeTree (news, site) recently called upon the powers of Labtronics Inc., a developer of software solutions for interfacing and automation, for assistance. The provider of commercial open source document management software wanted to make sure they were meeting the needs of customers working with a 21 CFR Part 11 compliant environment.

Tom Curtis, Labtronics’ Vice President of Product Innovation, conducted a technical review of the KnowledgeTree Commercial Edition. The results were good, but not 100%:

“We were extremely pleased and impressed with the security and audit trail capabilities that were already in place in KnowledgeTree,” he said. “The only area where our team found room for enhancement was in the ability to provide electronic signature challenges at key points in the application.”

Soon after, KnowledgeTree acted on the recommendation to incorporate configurable electronic signatures as a new feature in the recently released KnowledgeTree 3.6.1. “Labtronics’ expertise…was instrumental in providing this latest upgrade to KnowledgeTree,“ said Daniel Chalef, CEO of KnowledgeTree. “With the addition of electronic signatures to our existing security and audit trail capabilities, KnowledgeTree provides organizations with a cost effective document management solution that meets their regulatory compliance requirements.”

In any case, it’s good to hear that they’re up to speed. For other intimate details about the system, check out KnowledgeTree's blog.