What OASIS describe as the 'fifth generation' offering is a true cloud platform which allows users at all levels to quickly and easily create the business workflows they need to automate their back-office processes. Traditional enterprise 'blue chip' clients - of which OASIS has many - are now being joined by increasing numbers of SME users attracted by the intuitive and user-friendly new cloud-based product.

While deployments of version 4 of Omnidox required significant bespoke development for every customer, resulting in each implementation being different, Omnidox 5 sees the entire offering rebuilt almost from scratch, developed largely with those SME prospects in mind, to help users automate workflows themselves with little or no bespoke development required.

Bypassing the need for extensive IT involvement means that the potential ROI from Omnidox is significantly increased, as well as allowing departments and organisations to move to digital processing in a much shorter time-frame.

Omnidox can process any of the 'usual suspect' documents a user organisation might throw at it - HR, finance (Accounts Payable/Receivable), or digital mailroom, for instance - without breaking a sweat. OASIS also has clients as diverse as airlines, banks and hospitals using the system for structured forms such as logs, forms and personnel records.

We tested various demonstration scenarios using Omnidox 5, including HR onboarding and exit interview documentation, mailroom workflows and invoice processing, and it is very clear that, whatever the business requirement, the user experience is standardised and intuitive, with clear and simple design at the core.

End users can easily devise their own workflows using graphical tools and pulldown menus at each step of the process. Folder management is also remarkably straightforward - adding new child folder levels or altering file structures is again a simple matter of selecting from a pulldown menu and naming the new folders. Even security can be managed by the users, as they can easily set up password policies, character requirements or expiry rules from within the system to suit the business requirements of their organisation.

At the same time it is important to note that ease of use does not mean Omnidox sacrifices power: anything uploaded into the system is instantly OCR'd, for instance, which makes for a powerful and far-reaching full-text search facility that can find any string of text in any document at the click of the mouse.

OASIS has described its intentions with Omnidox 5 as 'bringing the consumer experience to enterprise users' and it is fair to say that they have succeeded impressively in that regard. At the same time Omnidox remains a very sophisticated, powerful and advanced information management solution.

More info: www.oasisgroup.com