iStash Document Repository – More than just an archive

Cumulo9’s iStash Document Repository is an enterprise document archive that offers more than most applications in this field.

The business sector in which iStash operates is the production and delivery of high volume transactional documents for utilities, insurance, government and local body organisations.

Traditionally these organisations outsource the production and delivery of their high volume client documents to mailhouses or bureau IT providers for origination and delivery. The purpose of an archive system is to enable the organisation to recover a true replica of what was produced by the mailhouse for handling customer service enquires. Examples are lost copies, disputes and historic analysis requests from the organisation’s customers. For most organisations and in most instances, the ability to produce an exact replica of what the mailhouse produced out of their ERP system is impossible.

The iStash archive takes the same print stream generated by the mailhouse for print or email delivery and stores replica documents in a secure database that is optimised to handle very high volumes of documents.

The main constraints in storing copies of all documents produced is the physical storage that is required. Although the cost of electronic storage per GB is now considerably lower that what it was 10 years ago, there is still a significant cost in securing these documents in a safe and reliable environment. All documents require backup copies to be kept and the overhead in providing full backup functionality with the associated administration, is much higher than the cost of the physical storage environment itself.

iStash deploys exclusive proprietary software that can reduce the physical storage requirement to 10% of the original size of documents. It does this without any impact on performance when locating and recovering individual documents.

More than just an archive

Storage is only part of the iStash story.

iStash is deployed as a SAAS model with direct access via either an intuitive web interface or direct connection to client applications via web services.

The web interface is fully branded to meet client branding requirements and deploys an intuitive web interface designed specifically to meet client document recovery requirements.

The same web interface can have multiple layers of security deployed to enable direct access for customers enabling them to “self help”.

Direct links may be generated within email notifications if customers are given direct access to their documents from within an email. This provides a much safer and reliable method of delivering electronic documents as opposed to the traditional push method using attachments to emails. The links are fully encrypted for security purposed and documents can be “pulled” by the customer either with or without client authentication.

Bill payment functionality has also been built into iStash where customers with direct access to their own documents can opt to pay their account using either credit card or internet banking. This allows iStash to provide full payment reconciliation reports daily to the client; eliminating confusion in reconciling payments made for multiple invoices in an open item billing system.

Other functionality to provide user self-management, print stream control, individual document delivery method preference setting and document trans-promo control, combine to place iStash as a comprehensive document delivery management service.