FOSE 2013: ‘Above the RIM: SharePoint in the Cloud’ with Kodak’s Info Activate Solution. This morning at FOSE, I attended the Kodak-sponsored Solutions session on “SharePoint in the Cloud” presented by Chris Beasley, COO of Edge Digital Group, a Kodak customer that operates in the federal space.

Before I dive into my coverage of the session, however, I have to share a brief story.  Prior to the session, Bill Holley of Kodak noticed the Bamboo polo shirt I was wearing and came over to tell me that Bamboo creates his favorite tees, saying, “You guys always have the best ones” at conferences.  Cheers, Bill!

Bill provided the introduction to the session a few minutes later, explaining that the session would focus on “records and information management using SharePoint and the cloud.”  Bill then introduced Chris Beasley, who would be presenting the session properly.

Chris began by defining the cloud as being when “you don’t know where your server is,” and went on to explain that the “hardware and servers are managed for you.”  In this regard, Chis said that the benefit “is really for IT … since they’re no longer responsible for [managing] it.”  He went on to explain additional benefits of the cloud as being related to telecommuting, continuity of operations, and that “you can reduce resources in the cloud.”

“SharePoint is a cloud-ready RIM (records information management) tool [that] can be 5015.2 compliant,” said Chris, noting, however, that third-party apps are necessary for robust records management in SharePoint.  When selecting worthy third-party apps, Chris (quite rightly) stated his belief that such apps “need to provide new functionality, serve a mission-critical purpose, and work within SharePoint.”

Regarding RIM in SharePoint, Chris referred to Kodak as being the “tip of the spear” with their native SharePoint solution, Kodak Info Activate Solution (KIAS).  For RIM in the cloud, Chris explained that all of the following are needed: an auditable document trail, chain of custody, the ability to work with electronic or scanned documents, archive readiness, and accession to disposition.  Needless to say, KIAS provides all of this functionality, as Chris then went on to demonstrate handily in a live demo, from scanning a document to kicking off a workflow based on the included information (and touching on general features such as file import, image processing, bar code, file format, file naming, and more).

During his demo, Chris also noted the solution that “it’s in the browser, and requires no software to be installed,” and that “this is all part of the NTIS cloud solution.”

In conclusion, Chris said of using Kodak’s solution, it’s as easy as “click a button and you’re done,” and quipped that “you’ve all just been trained” on how to use it.