Welcome to this month’s issue of the Consultant’s Corner, focused on using Laserfiche as a reporting tool. Cities Digital’s Consultant, Kyle Knebel, System Architect and Trainer addresses a variety of questions surrounding how Laserfiche can be an effective tool for generating reports.
In today’s fast-paced digital environment, operational efficiency is key to business success. Laserfiche Reporting gives organizations the ability to be proactive, identifying inefficiencies and planning for the future. Laserfiche’s extensive reporting capabilities are helping organizations drive business innovation through the use of reporting tools, performance analytics, and customizable dashboards. Understanding Laserfiche’s reporting tools and how organizations can benefit is a great place to begin our conversation with Kyle.
Can you explain the most beneficial reporting features available with Laserfiche?
Laserfiche is full of reporting features and capabilities. Kyle lists some of the most beneficial features available to Laserfiche users.
Repository Searches
Permissions Reports
*Example of a “User Effective Access Rights Report”, which was run against documents in a folder:
Metadata reports
Workflow/Business Process Reporting
Forms reporting
Records Management / File Plans
Audit Trail reporting
What advantages does reporting in Laserfiche provide to organizations?
There are many ways that leveraging Laserfiche Reporting can improve the operations of an organization. Kyle explains that “Reporting can provide Laserfiche System Administrators, users, management staff, as well as executives, with information about the repository, its history, system health, and overall business process metrics happening in the Laserfiche system.”
What modules are needed to use reporting in Laserfiche?
Laserfiche offers reporting capabilities in nearly all of its modules, equipping organizations for success at many levels. Kyle briefly details Laserfiche modules and some of the reporting options available within each of them.
Laserfiche Web Client 10.2 and Laserfiche Windows Client 10.3 can provide metadata and permissions reporting.
Laserfiche Forms Essentials or Professional allows for the creation of custom reports regarding Forms Business Processes.
Laserfiche Audit Trail allows managers to generate reports about document history, user activity, and system configuration changes.
Laserfiche Records Management Edition allows records managers to generate File Plan reports, records ready for cutoff or disposition, and vital records review.
Laserfiche Workflow and Workflow Web allow for reporting on individual or aggregate workflow performance, as well as instance history.
How granular are the reporting features within Laserfiche?
Laserfiche reporting appeals to users at all levels because of the extensive versatility offered with its components. Kyle shares that, “Laserfiche reporting, no matter the product, allows for a wide range of selectable metrics. Almost all reporting tools provide a means for filtering the results by various criteria like date, user, application, metadata, and more.”
Is it possible to generate reports automatically in Laserfiche? Please provide some examples.
The simple answer is, yes. In general, automation is a priority for many Laserfiche users and finding ways to use the reporting tools Laserfiche offers more effectively increases efficiency. Kyle outlines a few examples of how Laserfiche automates reports. 1.
Laserfiche Forms - According to Kyle, “Laserfiche Forms is one product where it is possible to configure a report that runs automatically. It’s a new feature called ‘Schedule a Report' that is now available in Forms 10.3. Snapshots are generated from a custom report, which can be set to run on a schedule and can even be automatically emailed.”
Laserfiche Web Client - He says, “The Laserfiche Web Client quick access list allows records managers to ‘automatically’ generate reports of records eligible for cutoff or for disposition, and vital records that are ready for review. The reports are pre-configured, the records manager just has to click a button.”
