When you envision “automation,” what comes to mind? For many people, it’s images of large automotive assembly lines. Deploying robotic arms and other modern marvels, these manufacturing facilities are monuments to the power of automation.
However, the real automation revolution today happens outside the manufacturing floor. In offices around the world, automation software is transforming knowledge work—particularly solutions that incorporate artificial intelligence (AI).
The State of AI and Automation
AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT, are attracting attention, especially across social media. Chatbots use large language models (LLM), natural language processing (NLP), and machine learning (ML) to generate helpful answers to questions that are written in plain language.
In professional services fields, such as legal work, organizations must approach AI automation with caution. In one highly publicized blunder, a New York attorney faced penalties for submitting an AI chatbot-generated motion that cited non-existent case law.
Technologies such as document automation—enhanced by AI—will benefit professional services and knowledge workers in general the most.
Defining Document Automation
Document automation is the strategic use of software to assist in the creation and management of electronic documents.
The process begins with identifying common elements and functions in an organization’s documents. Then, organizations use document automation systems to create templates and modules that users can access to generate individual documents.
The Benefits of Document Automation
The most significant benefit of document automation is time saved for knowledge workers.
In the legal field and across other fields, knowledge workers commonly create, edit, review, sign, and approve documents as a regular part of their duties. Being able to quickly build new documents from pre-existing templates allows them to spend more time engaging their complex problem-solving and high-level decision-making skillsets.
Deploying document automation systems for the automation of knowledge also drives consistency and ensures internal and external documents contain up-to-date information.
Document Automation: How It Works
For knowledge users, accessing a document automation system is simple:
From the document automation system interface, users select a relevant template for the type of document they want to create. Document templates can be anything from RFPs to lease documents.
After the user answers a series of interview-style questions, the document automation system creates an editable first draft of the document. Some conditional fields may already be populated; others may require user completion. The structure and, in many cases, the bulk of the wording will be created for them.
From there, users can edit and review the created document as needed. They can also share information and export to common digital file formats such as Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel.
Document Automation in Law
Document automation in law is particularly important given the essential role documents play within legal proceedings.
Legal document digitalization has fallen behind—even today, massive stacks of paper documents remain a common sight at most law firms. Firms that embrace digital transformation are reaping significant time savings from digital document management.
Document automation systems are the logical next step in knowledge work automation. Knowledge management systems help lawyers and other legal staff draft agreements, forms, letters, and other legal documents quicker than word processors or PDF tools alone.
Document Automation vs. Document Control
Document control is a broad term that refers to the processes by which organizations manage the creation, review, modification, and sharing of documents.
Document automation slots in under the document creation and document management components of document control. But there’s a lot more to document control systems than just document automation. Some essential functions of document control include:
Both document automation and document control are important aspects of knowledge work management and knowledge sharing within an organization.
How to Choose a Document Automation System
Ease of use is one of the most important considerations when evaluating document automation products and services. A visual, no-code automation interface equips knowledge workers to set up document data with ease and makes automating documents simple for non-technical users.
The use of artificial intelligence is quickly becoming a differentiator among vendors. Many important document automation functions can benefit from AI, including:
Document automatic classification
Document automatic evaluation
Document autoencoder functionality
Document auto-tagging
To maximize knowledge management tools, organizations should ask vendors questions about how they use AI or machine learning models for knowledge management solutions.
FAQ
What is document automation?
Organizations use document automation software to save time generating new, compliant documents at all levels of complexity.
With document automation software, organizations can create a library of clauses or modules for use in templates. This allows organizations to easily create, save, and organize best practices and integrate their playbook with a collection of reusable clauses.
Document automation software can enable non-technical users, such as human resources professionals, to automate documents without the help of IT support teams. Modern document automation software offers an easy-to-use visual interface. Vendors may also offer other self-service tools. For instance, they may offer widgets that help release automated content anywhere or that help generate new documents directly from third-party input.
What do knowledge workers stand to gain from automation?
Effective knowledge work requires sustained, high-level thinking. Any work that interrupts the flow of knowledge workers is a drain on productivity and a waste of organizational resources. Document automation and other knowledge management software solutions save knowledge workers time wasted on mundane tasks so they can get back to solving problems and creating value.
As global disruptions continue to make headlines, it’s never a bad idea to learn how to maximize effectiveness across all your business processes, including document automation. What follows are a few tips on how to prepare for and make the most of document automation, and by extension the efficiencies that can be absorbed from it.
Make sure your templates are up to date
When people think of document automation, they probably think of the instant generated document that appears as a result of a few keystrokes and clicks through a questionnaire. What they probably don’t think about is how it gets to that point. There are unfortunately some less exciting things that must be done in preparation for it including the updating of templates.
This is likely to include wording changes based on market standards, regulatory changes, or legislative changes that have happened since the last update. It’s also likely to include proofreading, formatting changes, and creating consistency across your templates. Automation works on the principle “garbage in, garbage out.” So, whatever template is used needs to be correct as you’ll be reproducing from the same template many times. That rogue glaring typo is going to be reproduced many times over if automated.
Consolidate where possible
It’s likely over the course of time you have created a number of variations of a particular agreement template—one for all occasions. It’ll have very similar wording but will have that more focused wording for a particular type of client, sector or client type. When you review your templates you may want to consider whether any of those variations are no longer required, and whether you can consolidate any of the templates in preparation for automation. These refined templates will then be used later as the basis for your automated templates.
Consider who should draft post-implementation
In a legal firm, for example, the answer is probably an attorney. We’d say that this isn’t always the case. There are two ways that document automation can assist a particular business legal function or law firm. The first is that senior lawyers can pass down to junior lawyers the ability to create first draft agreements, freeing them from drafting and also reducing the amount of time required for approval. The second way is more relevant to businesses than law firms. In-house counsel can provide access to templates so business users can create documents for themselves. How much a legal department trusts their business users may depend on whether they get the document at the end of it or whether it needs to pass through Legal for approval.
The consideration here surrounds the process of drafting legal documents and whether efficiencies can be made or achieved here by allowing others to draft with the assistance of technology. From the management perspective it may allow greater capacity within the team.
Consider how people will need to change
Implementing document automation is a project that will require some change within your business or law firm. If you didn’t have it before then the change will be for employees to move from manual drafting to automated drafting. For those who already use document automation, the change is getting people to learn their way around a new application.
In any organization, there are different types of users—from those chomping at the bit to start using a new piece of software to those who are completely averse to change. It’s best to have a plan in place for how you will persuade people to move to a new document automation tool. How will you get those resistant to change to adopt the new tool? How will you make sure people adopt and use the tool?
Document automation platforms like M-Files Ment offer superior, client-facing functionality that allows easier data capture and the ability to offer templates on subscriptions. This type of functionality requires a shift in the established process or way of doing things, and therefore another example of a situation where a change plan is required to fully maximize the potential.
Consider your requirements
Now that you’ve ensured your templates are as ready as they can be for automation—and that you’ve considered some of the people and process aspects of implementation—the next step is to determine your requirements for document automation. How can document automation ultimately optimize the efficiencies you’ve made with people and processes?
You may also want to consider integration requirements. If during your review of processes, you saw that employees were taking information from one application and retyping it in another, then you may want to avoid that in the future with integrations. Examples include integrations with CRM, document management systems, SSO, and e-signing applications.
What’s next?
Once you’ve completed the preparatory work, you’ll be ready to go out into the market and see how document automation companies stand up against your requirements. Have these in mind when you’re going through demos. Make sure you compare each one against your requirements and by cost. Also, consider who will need to implement it and who will need to maintain it – and assess the costs for that too.
What’s the worst parts of your organization’s “manual document drafting” nightmares? Perhaps it’s those NDAs that you wish were automated or those Data Processing Agreements that you need to do before new regulatory deadlines take effect. The good news? There is a better way—an automated way. But, what are some of the considerations you’ll need to think about when looking at document automation for the first time?
How much does it cost (and on what basis)
Each document automation tool has a different pricing model, but most are based on user licenses—you buy access to the platform for X number of users. Those users may have different access rights—admin, read only, etc. It might be the case there are discount tiers after obtaining X number of licenses. The reality is that, although it is easy to sell on this model, it doesn’t really assist the buyer who is looking to be innovative.
For example, if the buyer has to buy on a user-license model, then sooner or later, there will be a conflict between experimenting with new users when rolling out vs having to pay for more licenses. This will slow things down if the person tasked with rolling out always needs to reflect that the licenses are being used.
For those people within an organization that take some convincing before using it, they’ll still need access to it even if they don’t use it immediately. On paper, it’ll look like money not well spent, or they’d not be a good candidate for buying more licenses.
However, if obstacles are in their way, they won’t even be able to log into it, let alone champion its use within their own teams. Not having access is an easy excuse for those who are not keen to change the way they currently do things!
The way M-Files Ment offers their services is different. With the majority of plans, we offers unlimited standard users so it can be scaled as quickly as possible by providing access to document generation to as many people as possible. This creates space and time to innovate with different groups of users, safe in the knowledge that you don’t need to present a business case for each new license!
Does it do everything I need it to do?
Each document automation tool is different, but the premise of all of them is the same—they can take a document, add data points and conditionality to it, and allow a user to generate it quicker than they would be able to manually.
Everything beyond that is what separates the crowd. Some might be more user friendly; some may have unique integrations; others might have more unique ways of harnessing data. It’s important to determine what your requirements are before you start looking at the tech.
Getting drawn in by the tool with the greatest functionality may sound wonderful—but, if you barely utilize it, then you’re paying over the odds for something you don’t really need. To give a graphic design analogy—it’s like buying Photoshop and having to get someone trained on it when all you needed was Canva.
Requirements are going to be subjective and specific to your own organization’s needs. However, when it comes to functionality, the more complex the solution is, the more training will be required to use it. More training also probably means more cost. More complexity probably will mean a slower rollout as it’ll take longer to fully utilize it and may require niche (and expensive) resources.
M-Files Ment has been designed so that ease of use is paramount—making it easy to scale for both template authors and standard users alike. It also offers a four-week pilot in which some of the templates can be automated and authors trained, allowing a realization of return on investment in a very short space of time. By the time the pilot ends, it’s possible for lawyers or other users to scale up themselves without support.
How do I implement it?
At one end, there are companies that do the automation for you and just provide you access to the template questionnaires through a portal. It outsources the template automation to the vendor, but it comes at the cost of a fairly expensive subscription (which you’re likely to be reliant on as you don’t own the templates).
The other end of that spectrum could be describes as “full control”—you have access to the platform and can create templates from it, but you’re left to create them yourself. Within this spectrum, you’re going to have platforms that are easy to implement and those that are difficult to implement. An easy tool will be a no-code or low-code platform. A more difficult option is likely to include tools that require more extensive and less intuitive tagging more akin to coding.
For the easier end of the scale, the ideal solution can be picked up quickly and easily, and therefore will scale easier and see people get value out of it more quickly. Clunkier solutions are likely to require a decision on getting appropriate resources or further training to get people up to speed. If you have to devote a lot of time to training and mastery of the platform, the chances are that rollouts will be slower.
How do I maintain it after it has been implemented?
Another question that should be asked every time. Ideally, you would have full control over your templates so you can maintain them as and when new market-standard wording or legislative/regulatory changes need to be made. You should consider who will maintain templates after they go live—whether it’s a legal ops resource or the lawyers themselves.
This consideration is likely to be answered by how easy it is for the relevant maintenance person to pick up the document automation tool. For example, a lawyer isn’t going to maintain their own templates if they have to spend days or weeks coming to grips with the tool at the expense of their chargeable time. So again, this may be a question of whether you need to bring in a resource to be able to carry out the maintenance or whether you must procure consultancy services to carry out the maintenance.
Fortunately, M-Files Ment has been designed to enable clients to quickly pick up the tool and run with it. Lawyers therefore are able to maintain their own templates without the need for additional resource, which is a big cost and time saving.
Artificial intelligence (AI) digital transformation refers to using machine intelligence to help solve problems and work more efficiently. According to Xerox, 46% of employees of small- and medium-sized businesses still waste time on inefficient, paper-related workflows, daily. That means that smart document management systems can do plenty to improve these processes.
Companies that already employ sophisticated document management systems gain a competitive edge. The good news is that these smart tools may help most when organizations haven’t relied much upon tech in the past and need to catch up. Even better, smart document management systems have grown accessible and useful for all sizes and types of businesses.
5 Vital Efficiency Boosts from AI in Document Management
Many organizations and industries still struggle with paper documents. Even if the company doesn’t generate them, they may need to use paper forms from the government or business partners. Also, some businesses have moved away from physical paper. At the same time, they may have only made a small step towards digitization by attaching spreadsheets or scanned forms to emails and storing them on various disk drives in random, disorganized ways. All these practices waste time because they can result in the sort of poor data management that causes redundant, incorrect, lost, and insecure documents.
In contrast, consider just a few revolutionary ways that using AI in document management systems like M-Files can speed up and improve the integrity of common business practices:
Automate manual processes. After scanning or entering the document, the AI system can automate a lot of the drudgery while enforcing good standards. Examples include using smart systems to help categorize and tag entries, so they’re easy to find next time. This ability can speed up the initial digitalization efforts and help with future tasks. As employees use the system, efficient searches often rely on correct tagging and categorizing documents, but this is one area that’s often neglected at the time the information gets entered. Even if the system doesn’t automatically tag and categorize, it can enforce preset rules to ensure employees do this extra bit of work when submitting new ones.
Speed up business intelligence: Smart systems can speed up business intelligence. For instance, AI can spot patterns in very large sets of data much faster than people can. As one example, a hiring manager might search through resumes with an intelligent system that will find keywords associated with successful people hired in the past or based on preset rules. Another example could include looking for seasonal sales trends from past invoices or orders.
Applying structure to unstructured data. IT people are used to seeing data organized into formatted databases or reports. Nobody can expect that kind of organization in most documents. Instead, communication often arrives in the form of emails, text messages, letters, or another organization’s forms. In the past, people needed to comb through these kinds of communication to pull out and organize information. Today, intelligent data management can do a lot of heavy lifting. As an example, the Adobe blog mentions a superb use case:
“In a more dramatic example, some companies are using AI and machine learning to scour emails, texts, and other customer communications to understand words, semantics, and sentiments, and connect that data with billing and service history to predict who will buy what products and services. Most remarkably, these models regularly outperform models that use structured data only.”
Streamline document preparation. Instead of having to teach employees how to correctly format various documents, the AI can simply request the information for unique, new documents. For instance, the system can automatically generate an employment contract for new hires, based on the employee’s name and other information it already has from the recruiting process.
Enhance document security. AI’s ability to secure information may prove one of its biggest benefits. The document management system can automatically scan for sensitive information and flag any documents that contain it. Even better, the software can detect unusual requests for private data and prevent access or alert security teams. According to Market Watch many of today’s cyber threats come from inside jobs, either intentionally or unintentionally. AI can offer a powerful weapon against all sorts of threats to datasecurity.
Improve data quality. The smart document management system can help reduce data redundancy, catch input errors, and keep files from getting misplaced. Businesses need good data for efficient decision-making and business processing, and that’s another feature that AI can supply.
Document-Based Digital Transformation Can Streamline Most Businesses
From legal teams needing to parse discovery documents to retail stores that must predict sales trends, AI in document management can improve efficiency in revolutionary ways. It can bring order to chaos, deliver useful insights, and even help prevent such common occurrences as data entry errors. To make the most of your valuable data, you should consider getting some assistance from a smart document management system.
Recent Comments