Moving to a paperless environment is a goal for many agencies, but a reality for very few. This goal will become more of a requirement in the future as more documentation is being captured electronically.

You will no longer have to worry about losing physical copies of papers or misplacing information in the wrong file. This will be a great benefit to both your agency and your clients. The ability to store a variety of information — from Word documents to scanned images or digital photographs — and gather them into one place in your agency management system is a great step toward achieving a paperless environment.

Several SIS agencies have been using Partner 6.0 to help them operate in a paperless environment. They are using the Object Imaging feature today to keep track of their critical client documentation and making it available at their fingertips versus going to their filing cabinet.

The next generation of Partner, Partner XE, will include an enhanced document management component called Doc Box. Partner XE’s improved design and technology will make the handling of documents — storage and retrieval — even quicker and easier.

Doc Box will include the following features:

• Acquisition and importation of documents

• Workflow management of document assignment to different types of profiles

• Storage of documents in a centralized location

• Permission-based security mechanism

• Image preview, print and email

• Supports most file formats (e.g. PDF, TIFF, JPEG and BMP files)

• Drag and drop file transfer

• Supports simultaneous multiple users’ access

Each user will have their own document working area or "In-Box," which represents a pending and temporary storage area, to add external images to the system. These documents may be acquired directly from a TWAIN compliant device such as a scanner or digital camera. Users will have the ability to import documents from a network folder or local hard drive. Within Doc Box, you will be able to preview, and in the future, edit these working images before attaching these images to specific clients, individuals, contacts, policies or claims (referred to as profile). You will also have a group feature that will allow the user to link multiple images to a single profile.

Images will reside in the In-Box until you assign them to the appropriate profile. This feature gives you the luxury of bringing in multiple images and then assigning them to the appropriate profiles at a later time.

In addition, each user will have the ability to promote documents to a separate folder or "Common Objects" folder that will allow the document to reside within Doc Box indefinitely. Users are able to assign a document to multiple profiles without removing the file from Doc Box.

From the client level, you will be able to view all of your saved documents in a centralized area — whether they were added externally via Doc Box or added internally within the management system such as the ACORD application.

To manage storage, Partner XE uses an internal transactional filing system to store all system files and activities. This storage was designed to be compliant with existing E&O standards, ensuring that all documents are secure and accessible in case you need to produce a complete client, individual, contact, policy or claim document history.

Ultimately, Doc Box will help you save money in time, paper and storage costs. It will be much easier to retrieve information quickly — which is important in achieving the paperless environment goal.