We asked you, the Lotus community, to tell us about projects where you're using IBM Lotus Software to improve business processes, control costs, improve customer service, expand business opportunities, or otherwise benefit the users and organizations with which you work.

Our judges evaluated the entries based on the following criteria:

• Appropriateness of the solution to the problem
• Innovative use of Lotus software
• Quantifiable business benefit
• Development creativity and ingenuity

• Cobra Technologies
• Eagle Technology Consultants, LLC
• Eden
• Extracomm
• Gallatin Technologies
• Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services
• Percussion Software

Fighting Crime on Demand
Cobra Technologies
http://www.cobratech.com

The Chandler, Arizona Police Department required a central repository to store police data, documentation, images, and files, and a way to efficiently search and retrieve that information. The solution had to interact with external police systems such as remote/wireless police car data systems, high-speed Kofax scanning, and digital photography. Working with Cobra Technologies, the Chandler Police Department implemented IBM Lotus Domino.Doc, Cobra's DocSearch, DocImport, and DocRender. By seamlessly incorporating their existing core systems with Cobra's products and Lotus Domino.Doc, the Chandler Police Department can now process approximately 1,100 documents per day into its library. Using DocSearch, users perform thousands of searches to the Domino.Doc library and corresponding data daily, making the system vital to document and data management within the department.

Cobra DocImport monitors scanned documents from a digital photography Kofax system and automatically routes them into the Domino.Doc repository, including metadata entered at the time of scanning. DocImport ties into the Kofax system and imports high-quality digital images from crime scenes into the Domino.Doc library with the relevant metadata. Finally, DocImport works with the wireless squad car systems to accept PDF files and metadata, and imports them into the library.

Cobra DocRender converts all non-high-quality picture and non-PDF files into PDF format, and stores the rendered results into the library for easier storage and viewing by the police department and citywide staff.

Cobra DocSearch searches the Domino.Doc library and presents users with filtered results. DocSearch is the primary access point for most of the citywide staff, and it enables a customized search screen with metadata to find data and documents.

The Chandler Police Department chose Lotus technology for its security, the flexibility of its open architecture, and its range of available tools, enabling a seamless and custom workflow application.

VetTRACS (Veterinary Tracking, Reporting, Awareness, and Collaboration Suite)
Eagle Technology Consultants, LLC
http://www.eagletc.com

VetTRACS, a web-based suite of applications allows animal disease and incident tracking.

To aid in the prevention of animal disease outbreaks, the State of New York wanted to establish an automated collection and notification system to track animal health events to detect potential disease problems earlier. The USDA had implemented the Federal Emergency Management Response System (EMRS) to track foreign or emerging disease outbreaks to protect the United States' food supply. Because the state required more than just the routine incident observation and tracking found in EMRS, it turned to Eagle Technology Consultants for a more comprehensive solution.

Eagle Technology Consultants developed the Private Practitioners Portal (PPP). Based on IBM Lotus Domino technology, state employees and private practitioners can use this Web-based application to report incidents, foreign animal diseases, and events. Eagle developed the system to be open and customizable enough to integrate with existing state systems, leverage the Federal Identification System for Premises (a federal database that assigns specific IDs to each location), and allow escalation to the USDA's EMRS system.

With the PPP, states can leverage the data and knowledge of private practitioners to investigate potential incidents and disease outbreaks. It's a Web-based tracking system that acts as an entry point for registered private practitioners and state employees in the field to report routine reportable diseases tracked by the state, foreign animal diseases designated by the USDA as foreign to the U.S., and new incidents identified by private practitioners to be investigated by the state.

In addition to this reporting, the system also provides a review of incidents submitted by the incident status, and an aggregate/summary report of all other investigations (by species, regions, diseases, etc.). The PPP system also profiles private practitioners to capture key certifications and skills, and let users search on this information.

The solution includes a VetTRACS Geographic Information System (GIS) module that lets field and centrally located personnel spatially and visually manage incidents through maps. By combining geographic and collected disease data and projecting them on maps, the GIS tool helps epidemiologists, veterinarians, and management better prevent or eradicate animal diseases.

The State of New York and Eagle Technology Consultants chose IBM Lotus technology for its ease of use, deployment, and workflow capabilities, as well as its robust security model, messaging integration, and the ability to access applications via Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. The Lotus Domino rapid application development capabilities also let its users quickly create and modify incident forms and reports (views), and the use-as-you-go capabilities provide iterative development and testing. Lotus Domino also easily integrates with other systems, letting PPP link to EMRS and any non-Domino-based systems.

Help Desk for FAA NexGen Initiative
Eden
http://www.eden.com

Collaborative applications for integrated IT support. Eden - Software that Simplifies Business

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the United States government body responsible for overseeing air transportation in the United States. The FAA focuses on safety regulation, air traffic and airspace management, the construction and installation of air navigation facilities, and research and development. It's also responsible for the around-the-clock operation of the US air traffic control system through a network of control facilities at more than 19,000 airports. With more than 70,000 employees and 12 major centers nationwide, maintaining superior IT Help Desk support is critical. Handling issues across business systems quickly, reliably, and the first time is crucial.

By June of 2003, the FAA's 1,200 technicians were managing calls through a patchwork of Help Desk applications. These applications were inefficient, expensive to maintain, and didn't provide required collaborative and networking capabilities. In addition, they didn't fit within the FAA's plan for complete IT system reorganization, code-named NexGen. Whenever NexGen finished implementing new software, there was an increase in Help Desk tickets. It wasn't possible to track the number and type of tickets being generated, and the FAA was unable to conduct trend analysis to help it recognize and resolve problems that would benefit the most customers. It was also difficult to share knowledge. One group would resolve a problem, but because there wasn't a common knowledge base, another group would spend time troubleshooting the same problem. Establishing a single and central Help Desk solution was the answer.

The FAA needed a robust collaborative tool that could handle the volume of calls and the internal IT requirements. Multiple profiles had to be maintained for various levels of access. Certain groups within the FAA had to be able to choose from categories specific to their region. The FAA also had to track Service Level Agreement (SLA) information based on the user and priority of the Help ticket.

Eden Help Desk helped the FAA meet its requirements. The FAA customized Eden Help Desk to meet its needs, and the licensing agreement made the FAA the owners of their customizations. Critical to the NexGen initiative was that the FAA could also purchase the source code, giving it more control and options for the future.

The accuracy of the reports was crucial, and the FAA anticipates its reports are now 99 percent accurate. It used to require two full-time staff and one week of work to dissect the database to create monthly reports. Users can now generate reports within minutes on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

The FAA chose Lotus technology because it wanted a collaborative system to replace its disparate IT processes. The goal of the NexGen initiative, which has several stages, was primarily to move away from cc:Mail and into Lotus Notes and Domino, implement collaboration and Lotus Sametime, and provide video conferencing. 

The FAA had very specific requirements regarding user and technician requirements, including leveraging Lotus to meet its mandate of getting all information to all users who require it. A particular innovation was the deployment of Eden Help Desk on four servers across the country, replicating and assigning the Help ticket in minutes. Additionally, by using Lotus's document-level security, Help Desk lets only "need to know" technicians and managers access Help tickets, while simultaneously letting callers view the status of their tickets and report issues via the Web or Lotus Notes interface. Using existing e-mail infrastructures, all notifications or pagers are immediately sent and Service License Agreements are met with correct and immediate response times and priorities.

Eden Help Desk has been customized to map 90 percent of the FAA IT Help desk personnel processes. The FAA has reduced costs, increased productivity and, most importantly, improved customer satisfaction.

ExtraFax
Extracomm
http://www.extracomm.com

ExtraFax provides seamless Domino/Notes integration -- your best value in faxing.

Nabholz has a significant investment in IBM Lotus Notes and wanted a single, integrated faxing solution that would satisfy all its faxing needs, such as bulk faxing with mail-merge functionality, direct inward dial support, print to fax, and an archive for all faxes to eliminate lost faxes. Nabholz turned to Extracomm and its ExtraFax solution to meet these needs, as well as give it a unified messaging solution that brings together voice, fax, and e-mail functionality.

Nabholz has four offices, and it customized ExtraFax to meet the unique needs of each location. The three larger locations can handle faxing using configured ExtraFax servers, while the fourth location uses ExtraFax running via modem. The flexibility of version and software support let Nabholz scale the functionality and cost to get exactly what it wanted for all locations at a competitive cost. Nabholz now has a complete archive of all documents with the ExtraFax post office, permitting easy retrieval.

Business benefits include Direct Inward Dial (DID) and Least Cost Routing. DID improves the efficiency of receiving new faxes and user productivity because messages are delivered directly to the recipient's e-mail inbox. Users can also forward faxes to other e-mail recipients without compromising quality.

Using ExtraFax logging, the company completed a server consolidation study and determined that the Least Cost Routing savings of a local fax server outweighed the savings it would gain from a server consolidation.

Nabholz chose IBM Lotus Notes and Domino technology as its single platform for all application development, e-mail, and collaboration services in the early 1990s. Therefore, any solution had to integrate with Lotus Notes.

Nabholz extended ExtraFax with a custom Domino application to help users quickly respond to bids and distribute changes. Users must distribute these changes quickly to meet stringent submission guidelines. For example, an addendum to a bid must be sent to 100 people. The correspondence application handles the task and gets the information out in an easily manageable fashion with minimum user intervention.

Although e-mail proliferates business, the need to fax is still important to many sectors. Full integration with Lotus Notes provides flexibility and cost savings.

kNEWS Professional
Gallatin Technologies
http://www.gallatin.com/knews.html

Improve communications w/ employees, customers, & partners. Download FREE eval.

Computational Systems, Inc., (CSI), an Emerson Process Management Company, is the world's leading designer, producer, and marketer of condition-monitoring products and services. It wanted to establish itself as an educator for the machinery health industry, create stronger relationships with prospects and customers, and market and sell its products and services more effectively. For several years, CSI sent printed newsletters to its customer base of 30,000. The newsletters covered technical issues related to its products, services, and the reliability maintenance industry. The newsletters were in high demand by customers, but were expensive to produce, consuming a significant portion of the marketing budget. Not only was it costly to print and mail these publications, but they required considerable time and effort to produce.

CSI continued to publish the newsletters because of customer requests, but it was a burdensome process. It wanted to use technology to communicate more effectively with customers, and reduce marketing costs, but didn't have the IT resources to develop a custom application.

Because training classes were expensive for customers and required travel, and sales calls were expensive for the company, CSI project manager Ray Garvey decided to start a simple text e-mail newsletter, which offered ideas for implementing oil analysis programs, managing existing programs, and other helpful tips and insights. He delivered the e-mail to a handful of customers every month. Interest grew rapidly because the quality of the content was high and clients appreciated his educational approach.

As more people subscribed, managing the e-mail list became unwieldy. There wasn't a way to display the content of the e-newsletters on CSI's Web site, nor was there a way to let interested readers subscribe via the Web. Because the e-mail newsletter was plain text, he couldn't use color, fonts, images, or include other objects (e.g., diagrams, presentations, etc.) that would have made the articles more readable and educational.

CSI began to look for a corporate e-newsletter solution. It wanted a native IBM Lotus Notes and Domino solution that would let it easily create and manage multiple corporate e-mail lists. It looked at some hosted solutions, but keeping sensitive customer data outside the company wasn't an option. It wanted a solution that would let users create and format content easily, because training time would have to be minimal. It wanted to be able to deliver plain-text e-mail messages linked to rich content Web pages and track results.

kNEWS Professional is an electronic newsletter publishing system for Lotus Notes/Domino 6/5. kNEWS helps companies use e-mail and the Internet to distribute valuable information and communicate more effectively. Using kNEWS, CSI has established itself as an industry educator.

One of the key development challenges CSI faced was creating the MIME e-mail forms for the HTML e-mail from a Notes rich text document. The URL links to the e-newsletter articles in the HTML e-mail didn't work properly when sent to different e-mail clients and browser-based e-mail applications. Through trial and error, CSI created a process for generating hot spots for the URL links directly from application code.

CSI also developed some unique code to sidestep the 32KB limit of the To:, cc:, and bcc: fields. Users may define a field setting for the maximum size a kNEWS mailing group can be -- e.g., 20,000 bytes. When an e-mail list group reaches that limit, kNEWS automatically creates a linked (cascaded) subgroup. These groups continue cascading automatically, letting a customer build e-mail list groups that are virtually unlimited in size.

Overall, the kNEWS solution helped CSI to:

• Cut US$50,000 from the annual marketing budget for printing and mailing the customer newsletter.
• Eliminate more that 200 hours a year from newsletter production.
• Eliminate the delay between the time an article is written and the time it gets into customers' hands.
• Build a searchable repository of information users could reference to answer questions from employees and customers.
• Increase the number of requests for quotes (RFQs).
• Develop closer, more direct relationships with customers.

Centralized Application Timesheet Program
Appeals & State Hearings
Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services (DPSS) provides services and benefits to more than 300,000 participants in Los Angeles County, and employs close to 14,000 employees. Using federal, state, and local government grants, Los Angeles County DPSS operates programs to improve the lives of children and families by assisting adults and caretakers to become economically self-sufficient.

Centralized Application Timesheet Program
Prior to the implementation of the Centralized Application Timesheet Team (CATT) system, the clerical team received phone calls from the public requesting in-home supportive services (IHSS). The clerical team would handwrite the application, then manually check the ZIP code against a table that identified the assigned district office. After the team identified the district office, the clerical team faxed the application to the district office. The team kept a manual log of calls, categorized by language, district office, as well as other categories. The manual process was time-consuming, inefficient, and required more staff to handle the paperwork.

The IHSS Division of DPSS and the Office of Information Technology (OIT) staff collaborated to automate the process. OIT decided to use IBM Lotus Notes and the ANITA Lotus Notes Framework to develop the application. The project team designed and developed the total solution in less than three months. Lotus technology was the natural choice for the department, because DPSS had the infrastructure already in place for the remote sites. The department had consultants and business analysts with experience developing Lotus workflow applications. Besides developing the new application, it had to roll out workstations and Lotus Notes to the centralized team as well as the supervisors in the district offices. After the workstations and Lotus Notes were rolled out, it had already developed the deployment process using Domino, Lotus Notes, and the ANITA Framework.

The new CATT system has automated and accelerated the IHSS process. After a clerical team member enters the requested information, CATT now automatically determines the appropriate district office based on ZIP code. It then forwards the application to a clerical team member for a case number, then CATT routes the application to the appropriate IHSS district office for action.

CATT also automatically generates a daily log for IHSS social workers, which determines the schedules for each worker. The application also automatically produces client letters and CMIPS forms for the State of California.

To date, the department has developed more than 50 applications using Lotus Notes and Domino. All of the developed applications have been a success to the department. The Board of Supervisors mandates numerous projects the department must complete in a short timeframe. Because Lotus technology is ideal for applications requiring a short development cycle, the department has been able to successfully meet the project demands.

Appeals & State Hearings
The Appeals and State Hearings (ASH) Section performs three major functions: an appeals staff responsible for handling appeals and hearing requests, a central compliance unit monitoring district and regional offices' compliance with state hearing decisions, and a central compliance unit processing appeal filings and coordinating with the state in scheduling hearings. Prior to 2000, the state hearing decision compliance memos, notices, and other correspondence were sent via manual hardcopies. All tracking and processing of state hearing compliances were done using a limited Q&A system that required hardcopies, faxing, photocopying, etc., and the system wasn't Y2K-compatible.

ASH and the Office of Information Technology in the Department of Public Social Services (DPSS) developed an IBM Lotus Notes application that provides an enhanced electronic system to manage the workload of processing compliances with granted state hearing decisions. The system offers an improved and comprehensive database, direct e-mail of all compliance correspondence, and direct e-mail of compliance reports. The application is capable of generating electronic customized reports and archives historical data.

The new system has not only improved ASH's internal operations, but also enhanced functionality for external users. It provides better customer service, improved communication with users, and facilitates timely compliance of County State hearing decisions. The byproduct of this system is savings in time, resources, and energy, as well as reduced manual labor. Mailed material delayed the process by at least three days. Users can send compliance notifications in real time, speeding the notification process and virtually eliminating faxes and mailed materials. Faxing and mailing have been virtually eliminated. Electronic correspondence eliminates the 1,271 hardcopy documents sent out each month, reducing manual labor and electricity use involved in the time spent typing, printing, faxing, photocopying, mailing, merging, etc.

The system also provides a more comprehensive and complete communication exchange and feedback. Previously, only the first and last page of the decision was faxed to the office, with a full hardcopy sent in the mail. With the new Lotus-based system, the complete decision is scanned and sent to the appropriate staff. The new system lets users respond immediately and forward e-mails to those involved in the process. User-friendly data collection allows flexibility in updating established reports, as well as performing ad hoc reports. User-friendly data collection design captures more information and allows a wider range of monitoring. It also lets the user search more efficiently, update the database, and communicate with staff in real time.

Change Control Application for Hella
Percussion Software
http://www.percussion.com

Hella HG Hueck & Co is a top 100 German industrial company and a leading provider of automotive lighting, electronics, and after-market components to automobile manufacturers worldwide. Hella employs more than 1,700 engineers and technicians working in 52 research and development facilities globally.

As part of Hella's manufacturing process, Hella uses an approval process to execute appropriate changes to products to meet the varying market and quality requirements. Prior to implementing the Percussion solution, Hella's approval process was manual. The Change Request form was physically carried from one person to the next until the last signature was gathered. In addition, the information required to make the appropriate decisions was stored in various repositories throughout the enterprise, making it difficult to access the right information at the right time.

Beyond reducing costs with an automated process, Hella wanted to extend a unified view of all its product data outside the organization, while still providing a tight security model.

Not unlike most technology projects today, Hella's project was short on resources. It had to automate a substantial internal process in a short timeframe. It turned to Percussion and its tools for easy-to-use graphical interfaces that proved to be a great alternative to coding. Maintenance could be done in a short time frame, because the changes were done graphically instead of the normal code-debug-test-recode cycle.

Percussion started by automating the Change Request process using PowerFlow. PowerFlow let Hella graphically model its approval process, which sped implementation. In addition, PowerFlow captures a complete history of the process in an audit trail to easily answer after-the-fact questions and provide a starting point for new products.

The second part of the Percussion solution, Notrix, integrated data from Hella's disparate sources -- IBM DB2 and Microsoft SQL Server -- to provide quick access to pertinent product information. Together, PowerFlow and Notrix let Hella employees make decisions in a timely manner, realizing cost savings in the manufacturing process.

Finding Percussion's tools easy to use, Hella has introduced seven additional applications, including one to manage new product ideas. Hella's automated Change Request workflow has reduced the time to process an engineering change by 70 percent, enabling new products to be produced more quickly because changes can be made faster.

Hella chose the Lotus Domino platform for its superior security, messaging, and collaboration capabilities.