Interview with the CEO Letograf Gleb Lukin

TAdviser: The Letograf company works at the market of the systems of the organization of electronic document management and business process management it is more than ten years. On your observations how the situation in the market for this period changed? What factors became critical in technology aspect?

Gleb Lukin: Now situation in the market of electronic document management systems rather stable. At most of customers are already set some to EDMS, most often their choice was made many years ago. Now we see the growing requirement these systems to replace. It is possible to define a variety of reasons, causing this trend:

• the platforms implemented many years ago are not in time behind changes of market demands, the legislation and the most growing and changing organization. Them it is difficult and expensive, and sometimes it is impossible to change and develop. A good example is work with archive here: initially the paper archive arranged the organization, and its automation did not appear as the requirement to EDMS. After several years the problem of automation of archive appeared, and existing systems in principle cannot solve it as just has no necessary functionality;

• many organizations seriously think of import substitution and use of the Open source software (open source). Though if to speak about the open code, it is necessary to understand that it is more fair for basic software, such as databases and operating systems while application commercial solutions have undoubted advantage – they incorporate the experience, competences and unique practices which are saved up by the developer in the project progress while the separate applied systems developed on the Open source software do not become available to community and, thus, do not contribute to the gradual development of the solution. Actually, in the choice open source or the commercial software everything comes down to a question of initial costs and existence of obligatory paid technical support at operation of a system. As a competitive alternative of the Open source software commercial suppliers, and we including, offer service model of service when the customer is connected to service or leases software, avoiding serious investments on start of the project, but nevertheless pays setup of the solution and support of a system at all stages of project lifecycle thanks to what gets high-quality technical support and access to all updates of the platform from developer company;

• customers look for modern technological solutions which will allow to replace a separate pool of the systems implemented in different divisions with the single solution implemented on a centralized basis. The companies understand that it is necessary to implement a system which will provide most flexibly all modern requirements and can be developed further or by own efforts or within the adequate budget. Backward compatibility, i.e. support of all practices of the project is important upon transition of a reference platform to new versions.

• frequency of use of mobile devices, especially among the heads working out of office grows. Both the modern system interface, and information security tools, work with which is conducted out of the protected network of the enterprise, is in this way important;

• demand on solution SaaS grows. The future behind applications which fully ensure functioning with documents in a cloud. And the suppliers providing the configured cloud will have a bigger advantage (actually, the virtual machine on which EDMS of the organization in full accordance with requirements of business processes is under construction).

TAdviser: What portrait of the most active customer today - who is he and what demands from EDMS?

Gleb Lukin: Today EDMS becomes the rule for the head. There is it thanks to development of mobile technologies and also formation of a common understanding that the electronic systems really simplify the head's life (in relation to EDMS is the developed tools automating work with the assistant administrator, simplification of issue of instructions on documents, transparency of control). We see many requests from management, we see exchange of experience between the heads who estimated advantages of electronic document management. And it is fair both for commercial, and for the state organizations.

From EDMS most often require the most user-friendly interface allowing on computers and notebooks to display information maximum, and on mobile devices to show the most important information, thereby in both cases minimizing number of clicks for access to required functions of a system, and at the same time mobile version should provide all EDMS functions, without limiting a possibility of the user. Integration systems capabilities which should be interwoven most fully and without serious consequences into information flows of the organization are also important. We face such tasks recently and successfully we solve when developing the platform Letograf.

TAdviser: Can you call the companies or state structures where Letograf works and document flow is calculated by thousands of documents a day?

Gleb Lukin: In a portfolio of Letograf company there is a number of projects where document flow is calculated by tens of thousands of documents a day covering entirely the countries. Unfortunately, we cannot publish the name of the organizations customers.

TAdviser: Whether there are questions with a performance of EDMS and how they are solved in practice? What performance measures of the solution Letograf?

Gleb Lukin: All issues with an EDMS performance us are successfully resolved as in the course of growth of scale of the implemented projects we actively use the technology of distributed caching providing us an opportunity in process of emergence of loading to increase the number of the application servers working with data. Effective basic technologies of InterSystems on which a system Letograf is, actually, constructed are for this purpose applied. The maximum indicators of some created systems (according to 2014): more than 78 million addresses, more than 18 million documents, more than 7 million instructions, more than 21 thousand users.

TAdviser: Call three most problem points when implementing an EDMS implementation project?

Gleb Lukin: First, unwillingness of personnel to implement EDMS. It is a standard problem of implementation of any IT system. People are always dissatisfied with innovations, always something is not pleasant to them. This problem is solved rather simply – from the very beginning of the project heads who begin to use actively a system are involved in work, to consider incoming documents (respectively, the employees involved in work with incoming documents are forced to work in EDMS), and in process of consideration to issue instructions according to documents (the employees who are responsible for accomplishment of instructions receive documents in electronic form and work with them in EDMS). This technique is successfully fulfilled.

Secondly, this providing common information space of the geographically distributed organization. Having implemented the centralized EDMS, having provided support at the level of each of the enterprises or divisions, it is necessary to provide also interaction between them. It should be done in process of implementation at once. At Letograf there is such solution allowing to start correspondence between divisions as soon as a system is started at least in two of them (further each connected division becomes the participant of a single system of exchange of documents).

Thirdly, a problem zone is ensuring interaction of EDMS with different external systems which are implemented in the organization for the solution of different tasks (accounting programs, personnel programs, etc.).

The standard technical issue is that many long ago the implemented systems "are not ready" to receiving and transmitting data, or the IT command of the enterprise customer has no tools for simple setup of integration between corporate systems. We is able to solve this problem too, relying on integration opportunities Letograf.

TAdviser: Let's talk about a technical part of the solution. What solution architecture Letograf in general? Why a choice was made for benefit of Intersystems Cache DBMS?

Gleb Lukin: If attentively to consider the tasks solved by EDMS, then they break up to several components:

• it is necessary to provide a possibility of fixing in the system of information coming to the organization in a different type (on paper, in the form of e-mails, messages from the electronic systems);

• it is necessary to provide routing of this information in the organization according to the accepted business processes;

• it is necessary to provide mechanisms of control of the events (control accomplishment of instructions and business processes, the analytical reporting for heads or profile employees).

During creation of a system Letograf we understood that for customers also important that "flexibility" of the solution was provided: a possibility of making changes in the operating configuration, for example, taking into account changes of the legislation or the growing business needs. These reasons suggested to us an idea of need of creation not of a product which would be strictly configured on the solution of a narrow range of tasks and would require serious investments on development at each specific implementation, and the complex platform - "designer" which can provide the solution of the wide list of the tasks unique for clients, due to simple configuring without programming.

When choosing a technology platform for implementation of "designer" we knew that it is very important not to lose in the speed of work with data. As "designer" demands the much bigger number of data translations and accomplishment of different requests in comparison with systems intended for the solution of specific objectives. Also we understood that the customer requires accomplishment of a number of additional conditions, namely: a possibility of creation of the failsafe, high-loaded solutions, simplicity in scaling of a system, simplicity of service and low cost of technical support. Recently to these requirements the opportunity for work with mobile devices was added.

Analyzing advantages and shortcomings of different technology platforms, we paid attention to InterSystems technologies which at that time was almost only company providing to the developer instruments of work with data directly without the need for conversions to a tabular form, and scalability of systems could happen to use of their unique algorithms of caching of the data providing the minimum requirements to processor loading and reading disks. Actually in one solution functionality of in-memory and classical databases were combined.

Relying on InterSystems technologies we tried to develop the platform Letograf which architecture will allow to solve most effectively the problems of EDMS designated above and to adapt quickly to features of the organization.

In Letograf are implemented:

• Instruments of flexible configuration of an information model at the expense of an opportunity without programming to describe system object "card" (the document, the correspondent, the register of sending, etc.) and to describe what attributes this object should have. It is reached due to determination in the system of the templates filled by different types. All used types are configured. Due to settings it is possible to change their behavior and to try to obtain from the final solution of that logic of work with information which is necessary. In process of the description of a template of an object we provide a complex of opportunities of its processing (display when viewing and editing, different types of display, an object in an object, possibilities of indexation for quick search and report generation). The possibility of flexible configuration of interfaces is also implemented – the user sees what should see according to job responsibilities and access rights. Now development of the interface in the direction of virtualization of a working space and its setup under the user's tasks continues (the interface of information representation is configured without programming).

• The flexible mechanism of the organization of any route of the movement of the document, setup of different logic of transition from one status to another, logicians of data translation, making changes in the interconnected objects and creations of new objects. Also we try to reduce all business processes to there is nobody a set of tasks which are set automatically to the user according to business processes of the organization. Thanks to such approach, the user just receives the task list which should be solved to execute the service duties assigned to it.

• Powerful engine of report generation. At determination of templates of objects also the order of their indexation is defined. We use bit strings, bit indexes on the basis of which we can build practically any reports in a synchronous and asynchronous mode, receive them on different timepoints and also on the continuous operational data without waiting of recalculation of indicators.

Thus the platform which with a stock is enough for solving of tasks of electronic document management is created. Key indicators of this platform are the flexibility of an information model, convenience of the interface, convenience of data processing, ample opportunities of control of the events. It is important that the platform is easily built in a common information space of the organization at the expense of the developed integration opportunities. In case of integration Letograf can be as a source or so the receiver of information from other information systems of the organization and also can serve as archive of documents from the different systems.

The history of successful projects validates the choice for benefit of InterSystems Cache. Exactly thanks to this DBMS we solve key technology problems – ensuring permanent availability of EDMS on the platform Letograf, the equipment excluding data loss at failure. Applying InterSystems technologies we can create the protected server configurations providing scaling of a system and simultaneous works of thousands of users with a possibility of different types of reservation and balancing of loading. Our platform fully uses all technology advantages of InterSystems Cache providing flexibility during creation, operation and upgrade of EDMS.

TAdviser: Whether there are technical differences between the configurations Letograf working in three main segments – a state segment, large corporation and SMB? In what do they consist?

Gleb Lukin: Since the first implementation project, we developed the standard solution on the platform Letograf. Today this solution incorporated experience of implementation of large and small projects, representing the best practice of workflow automation. Thanks to such approach to any commercial or state customer, irrespective of the size or industry accessory of the organization, the most complete version of a system Letograf is delivered. At the same time the user himself decides what functions of a system are required on start of the project what will need to be connected later and what will remain 'for emergency', on a case of emergence of essentially new tasks. If necessary we can enter completions, set up the standard solution according to unique features of the organization.

If to tell Letograf about the platform, then there are no differences in the used versions. Letograf is the ready-made centralized expanded solution for workflow automation and archive geographically distributed state and commercial the organization of any scale. The platform Letograf is uniform - our Standard solution which constantly develops is taken as a basis of any implementation, absorbing in itself experience of all implemented projects, new customers needs, tasks and methods of their solution. During implementation of the specific project a system is configured according to requirements of the organization and features of its processes.

TAdviser: Information security – whether customers at a stage of studying of the project are interested in this question? What guarantees of cybersecurity in case of use of the solution Letograf?

Gleb Lukin: First of all it should be noted that a system Letograf was repeatedly tested by the specialized systems intended for the analysis of date leaks. These tests we go without problems.

Important confirmation of level of data protection is passing by the platform Letograf of certification tests of FSTEC of Russia on compliance to requirements of regulating documents: "Protection against unauthorized access to information. Part 1. Information security software. Classification by the level of absence control of not declared opportunities" – on the 4th level of control and "Computer aids. Protection against unauthorized access to information. Security indicators from unauthorized access to information" – on the 5th class of security. It means that based on Letograf systems corresponding to a class of security "1G" which can be used in personal data information systems can be constructed.

At the level of internal tools Letograf instruments of information security support are developed:

• In a system fixing tools in the system of all actions of users (executed independently and at authority delegation) and reflections of these actions in the magazine without an opportunity to delete this information with means of a system are implemented.

• In Letograf the developed access model – possibly differentiation of access rights to the level of attribute of each object is applied. On the other hand – depending on a signature stamp of access to the user it is provided or information on existence of this or that document in a system in general is not provided.

• Basic technologies of InterSystems Cache also have rich tools for information security support.

TAdviser: A cloud service – what it includes? Whom and in what degree it is demanded? How security issues in case of use of a cloud solution are resolved?

Gleb Lukin: And we advance a cloud service which we constructed – is also option of setup of the basic standard solution. And, the solution rather interestingly is set up – we assume that in this service several holdings can work jointly. We understand group of the interconnected enterprises as holding, within each of which there is a quantity of divisions with users. Our service is a unique solution which allows employees of each of the enterprises to implement and configure cloud EDMS according to an organization structure, processes and access rights of users. Advantage of the solution is that it as much as possible considers the most different features and requirements and therefore approaches also small, and to average, and large business. The cloud service allows to receive ready document flow of group of companies and also group of holdings – if they set among themselves information exchange (and will be able to exchange documents).

Cloud computing allows to distribute loading and to provide independent data storage of holdings. Thanks to it use of technology of hybrid clouds when a part of the organizations or holdings stores data in a private cloud on the servers, and a part – in a public cloud Letograf is possible.

Also the organizations users of a cloud service can consider it as a pilot project of implementation Letograf. After passing of a stage of test operation it is rather just possible to transfer the EDMS configured and rolled "in a cloud" to own server capacities.

For the market of workflow systems the service 'A cloud to order' is unique. In its framework we perform thin tuning of service of document flow, as much as possible using all functionality Letograf then we develop it on own cloud server of the customer. As a result the customer receives the system which is completely adapted and configured according to his tasks, but in the form of a cloud service.

TAdviser: What will be principal direction of development of the Russian market of EDMS? What target indicators are put before itself by Letograf company next year?

Gleb Lukin: The market will develop towards modern and effective Russian products. Letograf fully understands this trend and proposes to customers such solution. Our main objective is advancing of the market and creation of a system which is ready to the solution of again arising requirements of the state and commercial organizations.

We are concentrated on release of the new version with the upgraded design in which experience on mobile devices will be considered. In the new version even more cloud services, such as google.docs for editing documents in a cloud will be used. Upgrade of the interface will be shown also in virtualization of a working space due to setup of appearance of the screen of a system under the specific user, with an opportunity to flexibly regroup information and to place it as it is necessary for it.

Also we develop in the direction connected with simplification of setting and accomplishment of tasks in EDMS. All processes which a system automates turn into sets of tasks which should be executed (working off of instructions, comments according to documents). It simplifies work of contractors, does it more convenient and effective. Letograf moves towards ensuring effective online interaction, correspondence within a system. Thanks to this mechanism at users need to switch in other systems for discussion of tasks and documents EDMS, electronic correspondence, online messages will be gone.

In parallel with completion of the user part of a system there is an upgrade of low-level technology processes – search, creation of reports, information storages are optimized.