Item: Square 9 Softworks
Rating: 10
Author: Terrence Abrams

Overall Satisfaction with GlobalSearch

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It is being used as our central document management and control system. It address remote access to our daily operations information, business archives and remote transactional needs.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Fast Manual indexing with what we consider the best in point-n-click OCR indexing.
Webserver that incorporates Full-Text Content Searching, Workflow Queues, Full Document Management and Live document Signing on any mobile device or location.
Fast workflow designers for rapid implementation
Broad range of capture and information processing tools, easy to configure
Loaded with essential security options
Low price, and about 10X more powerful than MS SharePoint right out of the box.
Multi-database support for a very low price with disaster recovery licensing, this is very rare in the industry.

Cons

Integrated Viewer panes are the only real improvement needed.
Maybe an increased range of annotation options. Theirs are quite good, but could be better.

Return on Investment

Faster sales track and revenue
Easier to set up low initial point of entry in cost on financing
More capture business opportunities because of it.
Much more employee efficiency.
Great auto-update processing at client stations

SmartSearch is getting so strong, that even at it's lower price, it is closing the gap with the higher dollar enterprise players. It was a ways to go on advanced workflow and capture processing, but it is closing. You can stack it up to most anything, its a threat to lot of players. Could wipe out DocuWare, MS SharePoint and Digitech for the best of the lower tiered price products, can probably wipe out Alchemy, SMEAD and Docubase too.

Likelihood to Recommend

Not really. This is a smart product built by a bunch of former Xerox Docushare and Westbrook Fortis developers and sales directors who got tired of doing it wrong at their old employment.

Using GlobalSearch

Users and Roles

8 - Legal, AR/AP, Tax, Operations

Support Headcount Required

2 - Basic PC Literacy + some valid SQL and Windows Server Experience. It is very easy to support.

Business Processes Supported

Legal Content Searching
Fast Archival of AP and AR documents
No limit on archival input sources or processing
Fantastic Web Server for remote/mobile access

Innovative Uses

Contract Signing and Agreement Workflow over the Web
Document Distribution, better than MS SharePoint and with a lot more horsepower
Basic workflow tasking.

Future Planned Uses

Higher Volume Remote Capture
Data Migrations

Likelihood to Renew

Too easy to use, low enough TCO to continue on with for a long, long time.

Evaluating GlobalSearch and Competitors

Products Replaced

Yes - Hyland OnBase, became too costly, arrogant attitude and increasing support costs too. Also replaced Alchemy, too unreliable, lack of support.

Key Differentiators

Price
Product Features
Product Usability
Positive Sales Experience with the Vendor

After testing the product hard, trying to break it or even slow it, it held up well,

Evaluation Lessons Learned

We evaluate products very thoroughly and honestly, our business depends upon it. So I do not think we'd change much in the process itself.

GlobalSearch Implementation

Implementation Rating

Just let it happen. It's very quick and smooth.

Implementation Details / Implementation Partner

Professional services company

Dynamic Excellence in Information, Inc

Implementation Phases

Change Management Lessons

Change management was a small part of the implementation and was well-handled - With good, pre-implementation discovery work, comes very easy implementation with this product.

Implementation Issues

Some minor disagreements amongst customer staff about some workflow designs, easily remedied
Getting the right IIS configuration. Some previous server settings made the easy install a little more difficult.
Making sure the document scanners were properly installed and tuned/configured for best scanned image quality. You'd be surprised how many times an ECM vendor has no idea how to do this well and without excessive charges for the simple work.

GlobalSearch Training

Training Types Used

In-person training
Self-taught

In-Person Training

It would have been higher, but the training is a bit muted for the lesser qualified office equipment vendors who signed up as partners to sell and support it. The more experienced ECM vendors and customer end-users will find the training very good, but a bit slow.

Ease of Square 9 Softworks Training

You can almost do it by just using their manuals, which are pretty good.

GlobalSearch Support

Support Rating

I'd give them a 10, but sometimes the initial contact or call-back is a little slow. They are a rapidly growing company and new client base, so this is to be somewhat expected.

Square 9 Softworks Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response	None

Premium Support

Basic support is handled very well, not much we can't support ourselves, we don't need to pay for advanced 24/7 coverage or priorities.

Bug Resolution

Yes - Yes, most SS bugs are very minor with fast resolutions.

Exceptional Examples of Square 9 Softworks Support

Sure. One client of ours had SmartSearch operating over 3 network servers based upon their normal deployment style. One of their servers did not allow the best access by the main application server. So Square-9 support helped us track down the processing problem. It was not software related as we may have thought, it was a network connectivity and security issue hampering our process. This was above and beyond their responsibility, but they helped us show the client that one of their "perfect server" configurations was not so perfect, and we got the issue resolved. That was a lot of very patient phone work with us at the client site.

Using GlobalSearch

Usability

It really is that intuitive and easy to learn.

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using	Lots to learn

Easy Tasks

Point-N-Click Indexing
Advanced Search Builders
Document Revision and Version Control
Web-based Workflow Queues

Difficult Tasks

The Advanced Forms Workflow designer is a bit more difficult, and takes some redundant design steps.
Multi-document viewing sessions take a bit of mouse-work, but not too bad.

Mobile Interface Availability and Impressions

Yes - Right off of their webserver. If you have a very difficult phone or tablet interface, you can use their free plug-in for Google Chrome Mobile.

GlobalSearch Reliability

Scalability

The scale-ability is quite good actually, but you need competent sales/support folks providing it to you, so the scale is set right for the demands of your system use. Some resellers are not good at doing this, some are fantastic. If you are scaled correctly at first implementation, you'll be very happy with this system.

Reliability and Availability

Square-9 can get this product out to you in almost the same hour your order it. We got ours very fast.

Performance

With the PDF projected viewer, the document retrieval-to-display can drag for a second more than some systems, and the capture workflow if you overload a server array can also drag, but those are the only two issues we've ever seen with this product, and they are not serious issues at all.

Integrating GlobalSearch

Ease of Integration

I'd give it a 9 or 10, but there's always some product you're asked to integrate with that can be problematic.

Systems Integrated With

SQL Back-Office Systems
QuickBooks Pro
Great Plains Software

It was a pretty quick set of SQL-SQL database update and polling integrations. SmartSearch's OLE-DB and ODBC tools make it pretty easy, and their PFS group can do it for you if you need integrations done.

Future Integration Plans

ESRI (easy)

Yes

Types of Integration

File import/export
Single Signon
API (e.g. SOAP or REST)
Javascript widgets

Most of these are included with the product. ETL tools and marketplace apps can be found elsewhere. (usually free of charge)

Integration Lessons Learned

Just do your due-diligence. Know what kind of data stream or database you need to connect to with a 3rd-party application, what OS and platform it is on, and if you need the 3rd party application to issue more commands to the SmartSearch system than just basic retrievals. Armed with the correct prep-knowledge, these application integrations become easier each time you do them.

Relationship with Square 9 Softworks

Pre-Sale Experience

Their sales staff is excellent and show an enthusiasm to assist you.

Post-Sale Experience

They did not let up on great service after the sale.

Key Negotiation Points

Implementation assistance that was not needed, speed of delivery, also turned out to be not necessary, and a performance guarantee they offered up front.

Dealing with Square 9 Softworks

Use one of their better resellers who know their stuff. Having more support choices for no extra cost is really nice to have, plus the extra attention to support and design is better that way.

Upgrading GlobalSearch

Upgrade Process

Yes - Oh yes indeed. All you do is let the server -executable run and upgrade the server. When client PCs or mobile devices log in, the upgrade performs automatically with no desk-to-desk IT support required. Great update abilities that are transparent and behind the scenes. Users might not even notice when they've been upgraded, except to see some new features show up on their screens.

Pros

Cons

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