Exploring Document Management Needs For Insurance Companies

Document management in the insurance industry is important. Clients submit documents in a number of different methods and formats. As such, insurance companies need to be prepared to handle any type at any time, whether paper-based or electronic.

However, with PDF files being the de facto standard for document submission, insurance companies can expect to deal with high volumes of digitized data. This means being able to handle, process, and store those files.

Document Management Folders

Despite this obvious fact, some insurance companies are still hesitant to invest in document management software or individual tools. But for some companies, the onslaught of data and documents that need analysis is pushing them forwards, forcing them to explore their options.

Insurancenewsnet.com, in fact, provides a timeless guide for companies who need to start thinking about it and make sound decisions in choosing a document management software tool.

How To Start Your Search For Document Management Tools

To start, there are a few main questions you should keep in mind: How easy is scanning? How are documents organized? Are documents editable?

These are essential questions to think about. For instance, as you get into analyzing those documents, editability will determine the tools you use and the work you perform.  Not only that, but it will determine the time spent on working to convert the data from one format to another.

Document organization determines how efficient you’ll be–how do you store, name and retrieve files later on? 

With paper-based workflows still largely in existence among clients and third parties, you can expect many setbacks before that data is even ready to be digitally processed and analyzed. How can you get them quickly into an electronic format?

Struggling With Extracting Data From PDF Documents

As a case in point, one insurance company, AgencyOne, struggled especially with making the data they received in PDF files editable. But dealing with PDF files without a specific tool in place affected their efficiency as an insurance company, an issue not uncommon in the industry.

“It was frustrating that I could find no way to speed up the process of data extraction or take real advantage of the import capabilities,” says Alexandra Smolen, Commission Specialist at AgencyOne. “It used to take me all week to get my work done auditing commission statements.”

AgencyOne Commission Specialist

Finding The Key To Improving Document Workflows

They struggled with PDF files and, later on, found success with data extraction using Able2Extract Professional. The benefits the company experienced include:

  • 3x increase in efficiency
  • Time previously wasted was converted into time spent on strategic activities
  • Affordable for company budget
  • Week-long data extraction tasks turned into a few days’ work
  • Increase in productivity led to an employee’s raise in wage

Without doubt, insurance companies need to start looking at document management solutions. As technology becomes more and more advanced, things such as electronic submissions will quickly become the basic standard. The key to tackling the new digital document age is to make sure your insurace company stays one step ahead of the game.  

Read the full AgencyOne case study here for inspiration on how you can get your own insurance company’s workflow up to speed.

How To Stay Focused And Energized At Work When You Don’t Feel Like It

How long can you last a typical work day? When you work 8 hour days at a computer, it can be easy to lose focus. The 9-5 grind can have you exhausted before your day is even over. With eye-strain, constant distraction and long periods of sitting, it’s no wonder the current work force is obsessed with improving the concept of the ideal work life.

From the 4-day work week to setting up a work-from-home day, the perfect work-life balance is the holy grail of working professionals and productivity gurus. While you can find tips on the most popular productivity tools, the best mobile apps or productivity tips to help in that area, sometimes what you need is guidance on improving more than just your workflow.

In fact, such tips can typically miss out on one common problem. People call it many things—zoning out, mentally fading, the afternoon slump, spacing out, whatever you call it, you’ve undoubtedly felt it multiple times during the week.  It’s not exactly what you’d call being distracted, but the results usually amount to the same thing: low productivity, higher risk of errors, and time wasted.

Though going for a cup of coffee is usually the number one solution, it’s time to get creative. There are other things that can help you get energized and back on track.

Play Mentally Challenging Games

One good way to keep your mental wheels oiled is to keep yourself intellectually challenged. Try going for popular brain teaser games and training apps or programs like Lumosity. There’s some debate about whether or not these scientifically work to raise your IQ, but what can’t be denied is that they can keep you mentally active.

A short session here and there on your lunch break can help you switch your frame of mind. Other similar services include Congnifit and Fitbrains.  If you prefer to do so on your mobile, you can also try brain teaser games like Sudoku, 2048 or Can You Escape.

Perform Rote Work And Unchallenging Tasks

This may sound counter-intuitive, but this tip will actually give you that much needed momentum during your low energy times. These tasks can be anything–deleting your junk mail, cleaning off your desk or organizing your filing cabinet (or washing dishes if you work from home).

Messy Desk Clutter

A short study has shown that shifting focus to unchallenging work can actually help to boost your mood. The psychology behind this is that when you complete a task, you gain a sense of accomplishment. This can give you the drive needed to build yourself up to a more focused state going into another task.

Create a to-do list on the side of necessary rote tasks you can turn to when needed. This way you’re still taking care of something that needs to get done and not wasting time.

Use Notifications, To-Do Lists, and Timers

There’s nothing like having deadlines to keep you on your toes. Holding yourself accountable when things get slow and sluggish at work can be an effective method to try on yourself. When we’re working against the elements, be it time or resources, we tend to work with more focus to get the job done.

Creating To Do List

For this, set up notifications, create short yet manageable to-do lists and even use the trusted go-to timer strategy (think Pomodoro technique). Lighting a fire under a task will push you to work with more energy, giving you a second wind.

Schedule In De-Stressing Time Online

Unwinding is a huge part of staying alert and keeping your mind fresh. If you find yourself getting stressed out or tired from long periods of intense focus, take a mental break. As little as 15 minutes can mean a world of difference to your productivity.

We covered a few ways to reduce your stress online before. From customizing your musical mood to playing PacMan online, you’re sure to find one tip that’ll do the trick.

Change Your Location,  Your Workspace Or Your Workstation

Another thing you can try is to change your physical setting. Your surroundings can have an effect on your mental state day after day… after day. This includes disruptive noise from neighbouring cubicles, low lighting, and just being in the same drab, dull setting—factors that can elevate or drop your energy levels significantly.

Mobile Workstation

Try and make the modern day office work for you by rearranging your workspace, working in a different area (if you work on a mobile device), decorating your desk or even trade in your PC for a laptop if you can. Your work space matters and a quick switch can turn things around instantly.

We can’t be on the ball at the computer for 8 hours straight, 7 days in a row, on command. Hopefully, these can help give you that jump start you need when you’re drained, low on energy, and losing focus.  Everyone is different, so let us know what works for you.

27 Microsoft Excel Experts Predict The Future Of Excel In Business Intelligence

With over 750 million users worldwide, Microsoft Excel is the traditional tool of choice for presenting and analyzing data.

And now, it’s in a position to be the new BI tool of choice, as well. With Excel 2016, Microsoft announced some forward thinking built in Business Intelligence (BI) features. In the age of big data, this is huge.

This announcement, however, raised many questions in the field of big data manipulation. Is Excel powerful enough? Can it manipulate the amount and types of data businesses deal with today? Does Excel have a future in Business Intelligence workflows?

In the search of answers to these questions, we rounded up renowned MS Excel experts and picked their brains on it. We asked them one visionary question:

Where do you see the future of MS Excel in Business Intelligence Workflows?

And here is what they shared with us:

1. Purna Duggirala – Chandoo

Chandoo.org // @r1c1

Purna DuggiralaThere is a running joke in BI communities.

“What is the most used feature in any business intelligence solution?”
It is the Export to Excel button.

Jokes aside, Excel continues to be the #1 platform when it comes to analyzing data, finding information, preparing charts and presenting them to decision makers. In that sense, I see Excel playing a strong role in BI workflows in future.

Excel continues to be the #1 platform when it comes to analyzing data, finding information, preparing charts and presenting them to decision makers. In that sense, I see Excel playing a strong role in BI workflows in future.

– Purna Duggirala

With the addition of features like Power BI (Power Pivot, Power Query, Power View, Power Maps etc.) that naturally integrate with Excel, analysts, reporting professionals and BI people are finding Excel more relevant for full-length BI implementations.

In order to remain the favorite analytics app of everyone, Excel needs to do what it is amazingly good for. These are – offer a sandbox-like environment where anyone can play with data and come up with information, keep the Excel software offerings clean & simple (with the addition of Power BI, buying and using Excel has become a complex process), give users competent & compatible Excel apps for tablet & phone devices and include features to do powerful data analytics processes with one-click (as against a complex set of formulas, pivot tables & manual steps that many analysts do now).

Long live Excel.

2. Ken Puls – Excel Guru

Excelguru.ca // @kpuls

Ken PulsI personally see Excel as THE future of Business Intelligence workflows.

No matter how many systems a company has, how big they are, or how many millions of dollars have been spent on them, the reality is that the majority of data is exported to Excel before decisions of serious consequence are made. I’d go so far as to say that there are only a handful of finance departments in the world who don’t run their critical decision making analysis through Excel.

With the increasingly diverse toolset being added to Excel — Power Query to source and clean data from disparate dirty sources, Power Pivot to aggregate those disparate sources into business intelligence models, Power View to create dynamic dashboards from those models and Power Map to tell the data story on a geo-spatial plane – it’s very clear that Microsoft is investing heavily to make Excel the Business Intelligence tool of choice.

I personally see Excel as THE future of Business Intelligence workflows.

– Ken Puls

The killer for Excel today is not the fact that it isn’t the best out there for building business intelligence, it is the fact that far too many users are ignorant of the vast amount of capability that was added in the last five years. The attitude of “Excel can’t do that” is still pervasive and relied upon by its competitors to sell THEIR products.

My advice to anyone looking at building business intelligence systems today and considering switching to a competitor’s product: find a business intelligence expert who REALLY uses Excel. Ask them what can be done. Chances are you already own the software that will do it all, you’re just not aware of how.

3. Bill Jelen

Mrexcel.com // @MrExcel

Bill Jelen

The new Power BI Desktop offering from Microsoft will make it easy to create powerful dashboards that you can share to various end points such as iPads within your organization. The easiest way to get data into Power BI is from an Excel file, so Excel continues to be the most important component in the Power BI workflow.

Continue reading →

9 Handy IFTTT Recipes To Automate Office 365 Tasks

When you have the Internet, your productivity can increase drastically. It all depends on how you use it.

If you constantly work on the Internet, then you probably already know all about IFTTT (If This Then That), the online service that automates your daily tasks by connecting popular web services that you use every day.

And IFTTT recently got Office 365 signed on as a service. Now a few of your favourite Office 365 apps are available as IFTTT channels: OneDrive, Mail, Calendar, and Contacts.

Knowing how often you use Office 365 yourself, you can imagine what kind of automated tasks are possible. In this blog post, you’ll learn how to start up your collection of Office 365 IFTTT recipes for some of the most simplest and common tasks you do on a daily basis.

Remember—if you don’t see a recipe that works for you, you can always create your own when you sign up to IFTTT.

Office 365 Contacts Reminder

Create A Calendar Reminder To Follow Up With Newly Added Contacts In A Week

Networking can be considered an art, which admittedly sometimes, requires help in not only remembering people, but proper networking etiquette, as well. Set a calendar reminder to follow up with new Office 365 contacts when you add them on.

Create A Task Card In Trello For Each Of  Your Meetings

Sometimes your schedule can be too hectic to remember the standard follow up tasks–esecially for meetings. Well, if you’re a Trello user, there’s a recipe that will allow you to create task cards reminding you to follow up with meeting notes.

Weather Office Calendar Reminder

Add A Calendar Reminder To Bring An Umbrella

Hate it when you get caught in the rain? If you aren’t in the habit of checking the weather forecast, this neat little recipe can  check in for you. It can give you an automatic Office 365 Calendar reminder to take your umbrella if rain is predicted for the day. Don’t ever get caught unprepared ever again!

Send Your Team A Note That Food Has Arrived

Who doesn’t love group lunches at the office? In workplaces where everyone is spread out among departments, you can save yourself a trip around the office and instantly inform your co-workers that their food has arrived. This “Do” Button Recipe isn’t your traditional “if this, then that recipe.” Instead of combining two actions, you use a single “Do” button on your phone to send an email to their inboxes.

Get A Notification When You Receive A High Priority Email

If you’re expecting an important email, you don’t have to sit around and wait for it. With this recipe, you can get iPhone notifications when you receive a high priority email in your Office 365 Mail inbox. This is a great way to free up your time and let IFTTT keep an eye out for you.

Save Gmail Attachments IFTTT

Archive Incoming Email Attachments To OneDrive

This recipe can help you save attachments you receive to your OneDrive account, allowing you to create an online database that makes it easy to store and find any important files you receive.

Download Liked Tracks From SoundCloud To OneDrive

Where would your productivity be without your music? If you’re a SoundCloud user, you can collect your favourite music and access it directly from your computer with this recipe that lets you download liked tracks on SoundCloud to OneDrive.

Save Your Instagram Photos To OneDrive

If you love taking pictures or are into photography, then you’re probably posting your shots to Instagram on a regular basis. With this recipe you can automatically save your Instagram photos to OneDrive and create an instant backup of all your photos.

Facebook Photos OneDrive IFTTT

Save the Facebook Photos You’re Tagged In To OneDrive

Can’t keep track of the Facebook photos you’re in? Just connect the Facebook and OneDrive channels to stay on top of it. This recipe lets you save any Facebook pictures that your friends tag you in. It’s a neat and easy way to start your own collection of photos with your friends.

There are a ton of other channel combinations you can use with Office 365. It’s just a matter of making the connections between the services you use on a daily basis.

Got your own suggestions? Help expand on this list by sharing some of your own recipes.

11 Awesome Data Visualizations Way Ahead of Their Time [Infographic]

In this day and age of big data and information overload, data visualizations are, hands down, the most effective way of filtering out and presenting complex data.

A single data visualization graphic can be priceless. It can save you hours of research. They’re easy to read, interpret, and, if based on the right sources, accurate, as well.  And with the highly social nature of the web, the data can be lighthearted, fun and presented in so many different ways.

What’s most striking about data visualizations though is that they aren’t as modern a concept as we tend to think they are.

In fact, they go back to more than 2,500 years—before computers and tools for easy visual representation of data even existed.

Curious to see how data visualizations developed over time?

Below is an infographic that highlights 11 unique data visualizations from across different—yet significant, periods in history. It includes the first world map created by Anaximander, the elaborate Catalan atlas commissioned by King Charles V of France, Dr. John Snow’s map of cholera deaths in London that helped in combating the disease in the second half of the 19th century, and so on.

From ancient Greece and Medieval France to Victorian England and 19th century Sweden, these data visualizations and creators were ahead of the times, innovating the way in which information could be presented.

Whether they knew it or not at the time, these creators helped to develop an essential modern-day tool that is now invaluable to the world of statistics. Take a look.

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Data Visualizations Infographic

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