Insurer Pacific Life has expanded its use of EzeScan capture technology to establish a Digital Mailroom (DMRs) in response to COVID-19 and digitise and automate many business workflows.

Pacific Life has been offering insurance products for over 145 years. They provide a wide range of life insurance products, annuities, and mutual funds, pension plans and offer a variety of investment products and services to individuals and businesses.

Pacific Life counts more than half of the 100 largest U.S. companies as its clients. The Corporate Secretary’s office at Pacific Life deals with all of the paperwork associated with any company acquisitions and equities. The department handles all information and directions from the board, as well as all official company records. The files it handles are often very large and complex legal PDF documents.

Adoption of EzeScan Capture Solution

Pacific Life changed its content management system over to OpenText in 2016 and was facing an issue with user adoption. Staff in the Corporate Secretary’s office were comfortable with the old system and were frustrated at having to input the information manually, which they were finding far too convoluted and time-consuming. The company implemented an EzeScan Capture Solution in which takes a file from a shared location and registers it directly into OpenText, attach all the metadata and remain in keeping with the naming convention, all with minimal user intervention.

Pacific Life implemented an EzeScan WebApps Remote Indexing solution which enabled users to simply click on a link, upload a document, select metadata with cascading categories and attributes and then send it on for approval, all via a URL link. Once approved and filed accordingly, EzeScan automatically takes the index file and sends it into the correct OpenText department folder. The implementation of EzeScan WebApps solution saw significant improvements in user adoption of the new OpenText system.

Insuring against COVID-19 at Pacific Life!

In the wake of stay-at-home orders meant to slow the spread of COVID-19 in the US, physical mail delivery remained an obstacle to remote work. Pacific Life still needed to periodically send employees to the office in order to collect business-critical mail. This process was proving to be inefficient, mail collection was delayed, and employees were being exposed to unnecessary risk.

A backlog of mail had been building up at offices, so a Digital Mailroom solution was needed. One that could be implemented very quickly, but also upheld strict security standards. Pacific Life Facilities was looking for a solution that could implement a better mail system within days, while also providing chain of custody tracking and full information security.

Implementing Digital Mailroom Solution

Pacific Life began deploying an EzeScan Digital Mailroom solution to provide web-based, end-to-end workflow that enables them to streamline the intake and distribution of inbound mail. 52 mail stops (physical) were converted to digital with return to office mail also able to be routed digitally. The volume of documents able to be processed by the new Digital Mailrooms can range from 300-1200 pieces daily in 2 different locations.

The DMR solution is built on EzeScan’s WebApps, powerful business process automation applications designed to be used in conjunction with EzeScan SERVER to deliver hard copy document and electronic file capture, conversion, validation, processing and routing directly to the desired network location or supported line of business applications. EzeScan WebApps include the EzeScan WebApps Server (EWA), a HTML5 web application deployed onto a Microsoft IIS Server.

WebApps offers an easy-to-use platform that requires minimal training and improves engagement, automates processes while improving insights and reducing risks.”

– Jessica Nilsen, Senior Business Analyst, ECM at Pacific Life

Records and Information Managers can configure each WebApp to deliver the required business digitisation workflow to their whole organisation. Users can access the EzeScan WebApps from their favourite web browser enabling them to be run from PCs, Apple Macs and mobile devices like tablets and smartphones.

Supervisors can also view various workgroups/workflows to get an overview of users, groups or tasks outstanding and where they are in a particular workflow. EzeScan WebApps allows workflows to be configured based on established business rules to designate proper delivery routes, user and group-specific delivery methods, and replace physical mail handling procedures.

Automation technology included in EzeScan WebApps enables rapid pickup and processing once scanning has occurred, with data extraction and routing also provided. Faster information processing and simplified information sharing improves decision making.

Results

Physical mail is difficult to keep secure. Now, digital mail is routed and available using 256-bit encryption and access is restricted according to defined roles and permissions of Pacific Life’s Active Directory/Azure (users & groups).

“Most DMR workflows were deployable within 10 days after initial questionnaire and design. EzeScan WebApps provides the ability to build on the foundational solution to launch downstream processing using ECM workflow solutions or handoffs to our ERP systems (PeopleSoft, Workday). It links automatically to many of our existing line of business solutions without the need to separate coding or support. Establishing the DMRs has strengthened information security, provided cost savings through the elimination of remailing and means that all our mail is accessible anywhere, anytime via the Web.”

– Jessica Nilsen, Senior Business Analyst, ECM at Pacific Life

For more information visit https://www.ezescan.com.au/what-we-do/case-studies/pacific-life-case-study-2021