Open Text announces major upgrade to Employee Information Management Solution, adds new guest access capabilities

Open Text Corporation, a global leader in enterprise content management (ECM), today announced the release of version 2.0 of its Open Text Employee Information Management (EIM) solution. Highlights of the new version include improved user navigation, tighter integration with the SAP ERP Human Capital Management (SAP ERP HCM) solution, as well as a new feature that allows guest users to temporarily access content in personnel folders, subject to security policies.

Human Resources (HR) departments are increasingly measured by their contribution to corporate strategic goals. However, as much as 70% of the HR department's budget is devoted to document-intensive administrative tasks. HR administrators and managers spend too much time looking for information in paper folders and in various systems such as e-mail or Microsoft Office just to get the answers to simple inquiries from employees or managers. In turn, strategic tasks, such as personnel development, often are postponed or never get done.

Open Text EIM 2.0 brings new ECM capabilities to automate document-intensive HR processes, so that HR departments can redirect their focus from administrative tasks to strategic tasks. The solution manages the entire lifecycle of employee information and helps meet legal data protection guidelines and provisions concerning document storage and deletion.

"With Open Text EIM, shuffling paper and making multiple photocopies of HR files are now things of the past," commented Patrick Barnert, Vice President, SAP Solutions Group at Open Text. "By using a document management solution that's integrated with SAP solutions, HR can perform standard processes more efficiently, freeing up time for more value-added activities, and thus becoming a strategic partner in the business."

With Open Text EIM 2.0, users can access SAP ERP HCM data directly from the Open Text solution and execute SAP transactions without having to switch between applications. In reverse, relevant employee folders in EIM can be directly called up from SAP ERP HCM. All documents in a personnel folder are made available via a transparent and flexible folder structure with categories and sub-categories. Using thumbnail images of documents, users can quickly find desired documents. Microsoft Office documents or e-mails can be inserted using convenient drag and drop. In addition to aggregating access to employee information that may be distributed across multiple SAP solutions and non-SAP systems, EIM 2.0 includes scanning software to support the conversion of paper to electronic files that can be uploaded to the system.

HR department employees can use EIM in the familiar SAP GUI, while other staff can access files they are authorised to view via the SAP Employee Self-Service and SAP Manager Self-Service applications. Using the new guest access feature in EIM 2.0, each employee can simply access his or her folder for a limited time period via the Web. The system ensures that only the contents of a particular employee's folder can be called up, and that the respective employee has a legal right to see the documents. EIM 2.0 is ideal for self-service scenarios, so that the employees in the HR department are relieved of time-wasting routine inquiries both from their colleagues as well as from management.

Open Text is a leader in developing new ECM applications that extend SAP solutions. Open Text's relationship with SAP leverages two decades of partnership and co-development, and expertise gained from delivering solutions to more than 2 700 SAP customer sites around the world. Open Text's well-established products offer a complete range of capabilities for managing and archiving business documents - incoming/outgoing invoices, orders, delivery notes, quality certificates and human resources documents that originate from customers' SAP applications. These solutions help customers improve efficiency in key processes, manage compliance, consolidate IT systems and reduce costs. Open Text is an SAP software solution partner with products that have achieved SAP Certified Integration status. Because of the strategic relationship between Open Text and SAP in the ECM market, SAP also resells Open Text solutions.

For further information, please contact Rob Shaw: tel 083 626-3811, fax 086 646-4178, e-mail rshaw@opentext.co.za