Government Bits

Tracking how technology is transforming interaction between governments and citizens.

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Adobe LiveCycle ES3 was recently released and contains several new features that will appeal to customers in both federal and state & local government.  Full resource documentation for ES3 is available here. This post will focus on the new features that will be most interesting to government customers.

CRX – Content Repository Extreme

Adobe LiveCycle ES3 foundation now comes with a full implementation of the CRX.  A Java Content Repository (JCR) based on Apache’s Jackrabbit. (http://jackrabbit.apache.org/)  It implements the JSR 170 and JSR 283 specifications.  This is a great solution for storage for customers who don’t want to purchase or don’t already have an enterprise content management (ECM) solution in place.

There are also operations in the LiveCycle Workbench for reading from, writing to, and managing the documents in the CRX.

Adobe LiveCycle Designer ES3

There were several updates to the Adobe LiveCycle Designer that will make the lives of form designers much easier.  The first is the ability to create and apply styles to objects in forms in much the same manner that CSS is able to style HTML elements.

The next new feature is added support for bulleted, numbered, and nested lists in text objects.  This is an update that was requested time and time again, and has now made it into the product.  The final added feature is support for the right to left languages, Arabic and Hebrew, which is very helpful to specific government agencies.

Adobe LiveCycle Rights Management ES3

Adobe LiveCycle Rights Management has been a great tool for governments to protect personally identifiable information (PII) of the citizenry as well as classified documents.

There are numerous new features in Rights Management with the release of ES3. The Microsoft Office plugins now support Windows 64 bit systems and also include added support for Office 2010.  The login dialog to authenticate to documents is now customizable, including the ability to implement wizards for multi-step authentication.  Authentication was updated to allow for additional authentication instruments including single sign on through SAML and header-based SSO.

Another frequently requested feature was the ability to use DRM in custom applications.  With ES3, a portable protection library has been introduced which allows developers to work with the management of rights, as well as rights managed documents, into their application. Also, the event tracking capabilities have been expanded upon.

Correspondence Management

Any government agency sending out a lot of correspondence to constituents should really take a look at Correspondence Management.  There were some significant changes that occurred to Correspondence Management in ES3.  The entire UI of the system was updated to make them more user friendly and efficient.  Features like spell checking and keyboard entry allowing for better navigation were added. Support for bulleted, nested, and numbered lists were also added, as well as the ability to use tables.

The system was built around the CRX which greatly improved performance and made the auditing of assets easier as well.  The ability to make more intuitive templates was made possible by support for complex and inline conditionals in text modules.  Template assets were also updated to allow for more control through specific public or retire dates and the ability to retrieve templates that were active in the system on a specific date.

Overall the Correspondence Management solution had big improvements made that makes it even more attractive for agencies seeking to streamline and save money on their correspondence. For more information on Correspondence Management, head to http://www.adobe.com/products/livecycle/correspondence_management/.

Odd and Ends

While the above features fit into nice little categories, there were some features that don't, but that certainly bear mentioning and will be of interest to government customers.  First, the ECM Connectors were updated to support IBM FileNet 5 and support for Microsoft Sharepoint deployed in farms.  For archival purposes, document conversion now supports the PDF/A-2b standard. Finally, the PDF Generation Windows based OCR service now supports multiple threads and conversion of Office 2010 documents is now supported through the addition of Acrobat 10 support.

Overall, the Adobe LiveCycle ES3 release added lots of new features that should interest government customers to help them streamline their processes dealing with documents and their interaction with the citizenry.

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Private sector
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Combining several of my favorite topics, including healthcare and technology, the 2012 HIMSS Conference and Exhibition continued its streak of record-breaking attendance with a final count of just over 37,000 like-minded attendees last month in Las Vegas.

Demonstrated even today, as the US Supreme Court begins to hear arguments on the Affordable Care Act, this past year has brought a relentless pace of change throughout the healthcare ecosystem. However, since most stakeholders agree that Health IT can save lives, improve the experience of care, and reduce costs, HIMSS provided a welcomed opportunity for stakeholders from all segments to come together, learn and share. But then they took it a step further by indulging specific interests within those broad topics.

For example, is Social your thing?  “There’s a pavilion for that.”

Interested in business trends and policy updates within the federal government? “Here’s your workshop.”

Responsible for improving clinical outcomes and cost-effectiveness?  “Check out the Intelligent Hospital Pavilion”

Driving efficiency through medical device connectivity? “The Interoperability Showcase is for you.”

I could go on, but let’s just say this was one of those weeks that I particularly loved my job. It was simply MU-tiful (sorry, -inside joke for my fellow health IT geeks).

And it was especially rewarding to highlight the significant role Adobe technologies played in many of the featured products and solutions at the world’s largest Health IT conference.

Public sector
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Healthcare agencies, payers, providers, and partners worldwide trust Adobe to securely drive customer engagement, optimize workflow efficiencies, and measure overall effectiveness.  And HIMSS is always a great place for us to demonstrate our commitment to them, and to just say thank you.

Drop us a line anytime on Twitter @AdobeGov and @AdobeCEM.

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“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening my axe.”
– Abraham Lincoln

A profound quote, but what does it have to do with Customer Experience Management (CEM)? More than you may think.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with government agencies and commercial enterprises around the world that have leveraged Adobe solutions to optimize their customers’ experiences and build “brand” loyalty. From helping their citizens foster online communities and validate program objectives with our Social Brand Engagement solutions, to simplifying complex eligibility determinations with our Selection & Enrollment solutions; these organizations all share a common goal – to provide consumers with engaging digital interactions that deliver measurable results.

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But how much more efficiently would an enterprise operate if it also deployed similar solutions internally to optimize experiences for their own employees? After all, don’t we all serve internal customers in our organizations, regardless of our roles? How much more effective will an agency become as it sharpens its tools by replacing cumbersome paper-based processes with streamlined electronic workflows?
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As Director of the Data Services Division at Oklahoma’s Department of Human Services (OKDHS), James Randell posed those questions to his agency, and then he set out to find the answers. He led the deployment of Adobe’s suite of digital enterprise solutions at OKDHS, his state’s largest agency with over 7,200 employees and 4,000 contractors that span 77 counties. As James put it, the agency was suffering from a “Form-demic,” with almost 1100 unique paper forms that offered low accountability, fragmented tracking, and minimal security throughout the routing process.
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At this year’s annual conference of IT Solutions Management for Human Services (ISM 2011 ) in Austin, Texas, James presented his experiences and shared best practices during a popular session “Advancements in Electronic Forms Technology,” which was moderated by Adobe’s Garrick Beil and packed with attendees, including executives from HHS agencies across the US.

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Afterward, I spoke briefly with James and asked him to expound on the project’s impact on OKDHS, and its resulting effects on operational efficiencies.
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Among the improvements that he noted were quicker response times to bottlenecks and greater transparency. These changes also empowered case managers to effortlessly identify the current status of pending cases.
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In the end, OKDHS effectively supports its mission and now, in turn, it also provides significantly improved experiences to the citizens who rely on the agency regularly for support services and other benefits.

Timberrr!

Let us know your thoughts on Twitter @AdobeGov or via our Facebook page. In the meantime, for your viewing pleasure, here is the full presentation on OKDHS at ISM 2011.
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In a recent conversation, Mark Whitmore, the Deputy District Attorney at the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, told us how the organization accelerates Juvenile Court proceedings using Adobe Acrobat Pro in a Microsoft SharePoint environment. The organization, together with its partners—San Diego Juvenile Justice Partners, the County Technology Office, the Probation Department, and the Office of the Public Defender—uses advanced PDF capabilities in Acrobat Pro and SharePoint document management. The digital case file environment, known as the Justice Electronic Library System or JELS, was developed by the County Technology Office and serves all county juvenile justice stakeholders in the DA’s office, Probation, and other areas.

By using Acrobat to convert case files to searchable PDF files integrated into its SharePoint environment, the division saves administrative staff from having to sort, collate, file, retrieve, and photocopy countless case files on paper. The improved case file management has already freed up time for 10 staff members to devote to other critical activities. Deputy DA’s and other participants with access to the JELS system can go over case documents electronically prior to each hearing, greatly accelerating case file review.

The JELS system has dramatically enhanced collaboration in the office and the courtroom. Based on its success, the California County Information Services Directors Association (CCISDA) awarded San Diego County a first place Innovation Award in the collaboration category.

To learn more, check out the full story on the San Diego County DA’s office here.

You can keep in touch with the Acrobat team on Twitter @Acrobat and, of course, keep up-to-date with all things Adobe in goverment on Twitter @AdobeGov.

Obviously the answer to that question will vary greatly depending on who asks, and his stake in delivering (or experiencing) an engaging interaction.

CEM for the enterprise is typically associated with substantial benefits, like brand loyalty and competitive differentiation, but those may initially seem like non-issues for so-called entitlement programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, and others. That’s because, unlike in the competitive private sector, consumers of these programs often don’t have the benefit of choice.

Many would argue, however, that CEM offers a matrix of far-reaching benefits to any enterprise, some of which aren’t always immediately obvious. Customer communications is a perfect example. Consider the Explanation of Benefits (EOB) form that is sent to millions of Medicaid members in any given month.

Recently, at the 2011 State Health IT Connect Summit, I presented an interactive electronic version of that familiar EOB statement as part of a Health Insurance Exchange demo. By leveraging components of the new Adobe Digital Enterprise Platform (ADEP), recipients of this interactive EOB would be able to intuitively communicate back with its sender from within the document, while maintaining privacy and security of health data.

Now, consider the added convenience for diverse populations where multi-lingual content and responses may be automatically translated by backend processes as the correspondence is exchanged. Customer experience is improved even further as members may effortlessly dispute the accuracy of a claim displayed in that EOB, again from directly within the document.

For the enterprise that sent the EOB, this presents an opportunity to realize significant savings. Overcharges and potentially fraudulent claims that may have otherwise slipped through the cracks may now be identified and investigated, simply by making it easier for members to participate in the process. There are countless other examples of ways that HHS agencies may optimize efficiencies and generate measurable ROI by deploying solutions that strive first to better serve their members.

More often than not, a win-win scenario emerges for everyone as innovative executives are learning that the byproducts of optimal customer experiences include measurable impacts to the bottom line for organizations of all types, in both private and public sectors.

What are your thoughts on this trending hot topic? Let us know in comments and on Twitter @AdobeGov and @AdobeCEM.

The 2011 Print and ePublishing Conference in Alexandria, VA brought together 400+ graphic artists, visual information specialists, design and creative production managers from around the world for 3 days of learning, networking and swapping valuable industry tricks and tips. This year, a large number of US Government agencies were in attendance, including personnel from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Veteran Affairs, Internal Revenue Service, Department of State, NASA, the Defense Media Activity, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Energy, the US Office of Personnel Management, and many others.

Adobe presented multiple sessions during this conference, including an introduction to What’s New in Creative Suite 5.5 as well as a focused, day-long seminar entitled Designing for the Multiscreen Revolution: HTML5, CSS3 and the Flash Platform (.pdf). Over 300 customers attended these sessions, proving the industry hunger for best practices and tools to move them forward into the new territory of multiscreen design.

One of the hottest topics at this conference included best practices in designing for the ePub format, which is rapidly emerging as the industry standard for distribution of electronic books. As we’ve seen recently in the press, Amazon.com announced that their digital book sales have now exceeded sales of all print titles, both hardcover and paperback combined. As of April 1st, for every 100 print books that Amazon has sold (of any kind) the company moved 105 Kindle books, not including downloads of free titles. As we’ve also seen this year from multiple publishing analysts, 60% of Americans are expected to purchase a tablet device for reading purposes within the next three years. That’s over 150 million Americans! Almost every session in the 3-day outline included some form of ePub or eBook production tutorial, as publishers across the spectrum expect an explosion of devices and reading options for consumers and constituents very soon.

We were also especially honored to have Victoria Richards from SSA co-present with Greg Pisocky of Adobe Accessibility on how the new features inside InDesign CS5.5 help simplify and streamline the creation of 508-compliant PDF documents. And if you’re thinking to yourself, “I wish I’d been in that Accessibility session!” — there’s some good news for you: coming very soon on Adobe TV, we’re posting a 2-part series on all the great new workflow enhancements and productivity features that will cut your PDF remediation time from days to minutes! Keep your eyes peeled here to Government Bits for updates on that.

Adobe’s Acrobat and Creative Suite products are ubiquitous across the DoD and Intelligence Community. Over the last few years, we have amassed a compelling number of case studies in which agencies like the US Army Corps of Engineers and many others use Adobe’s desktop tools to conceive, prototype, create, publish, distribute, track, optimize and secure documents and content ranging from simple inter-office communications to detailed technical schematics to high-level classified documentation. Whether it’s high-resolution digital imaging, HD video processing, enterprise-class RIAs, mobile app development, or redacting and encrypting sensitive PDF documentation — the DoD depends on Adobe Desktop.

Because of the broad familiarity that our DoD customers have with our desktop software, Adobe has “taken its show on the road” with a 17-date roadshow called the Create and Secure Military Tour 2011!

These half-day briefings are designed to help keep our customers ahead and abreast of the emerging trends in PDF and document security, publication design, web development and video post-production with practical introductions to the latest innovations in Adobe technology.

Included in these briefings are demonstrations of Acrobat X Professional, InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Flash, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Encore, and other Adobe desktop tools. Hot topics so far have included: document encryption and security, forms data collection workflows, PDF Portfolios, creating apps for Android and iOS devices, HTML5 best practices, smoothly editing multiple streams of HD video in real-time, and much more.

Check here to see if we’re coming to a city or military installation near you soon!