Our firm switched from iManage to NetDocuments about six years ago. In that time, the community of third-party vendors developing tools for NetDocuments has grown substantially. Here are a few that we have used to make our NetDocuments logon process easier and more secure and to allow for rapid document scanning into NetDocuments.
Okta – Single Sign On
Okta is a single sign on (SSO) tool that we first deployed as a way to make the NetDocuments login process easier for our users. When we first rolled out NetDocuments back in 2011, we used certificates to log users in. But this was cumbersome to implement – user certificates had to be generated for each user and copied to their local computer and to their Citrix profile. Certificates frequently needed to be redeployed when new workstations were issued or user profiles were replaced. It also was difficult for users when accessing NetDocuments from outside of the office or Citrix, which detracted the always available nature of the cloud-based document management system.
In 2014 NetDocuments started supporting federated identity using Active Directory Federation Services. We implemented our own on-premises ADFS system, which actually required four servers in two different locations for adequate redundancy. This system worked, but it was complex and difficult to maintain. And again we were negating some of the benefit of NetDocuments since access to the service would be cut off to our users if our ADFS system went off-line. So much for disaster recovery! We considered moving ADFS to Azure, but this was even more complex and expensive.
NetDocuments also began supporting third party identity providers (IDaaS) using SAML. The two providers they initially certified were Okta and OneLogin. We quickly saw that this was the answer to all of our NetDocuments login problems. After evaluating the two choices, we chose Okta. Okta provides SAML login for NetDocuments from a cloud-based service, so it is always available to our users regardless of where they are. If they are within our environment, Okta sees that the user is already authenticated to our domain and it passed them right through into NetDocuments seamlessly. If they are outside the office, Okta asks them to provide their user name and password. Once that is verified, they are logged in to NetDocuments.
Once Okta was working with NetDocuments we expanded its use to other systems that supported SAML, such as Office 365 and Asana. Okta can also be configured to manually pass through user credentials for other web sites, such as research sites, newspapers, and just about anything web-based. Users can also configure their own links to automatically log them in to their personal accounts for banking, credit cards and other sites, much like a password manager program.
Duo – Two Factor Authentication (2FA)
Okta provides basic 2FA functionality, but we chose to implement a more robust two factor solution, Duo. Like Okta, Duo can provide SSO via SAML. There is quite a bit of overlap between the two products. But we wanted best of breed services for SSO and 2FA, so we are using both services. In our implementation of 2FA for NetDocuments (currently in pilot) we can use either Duo or Okta for second factor authentication. Duo will also handle two factor for Citrix, Office 365, Outlook Anywhere, and administrative interfaces to firewalls, switches and other services.
DocSolid – Scanning paper directly to NetDocuments
Like many firms, we wanted to digitize more paper and get it out of the office. But we lacked any tools for scanning documents directly into NetDocuments. There were solutions that could be implemented at multi-function devices or through third-part add-on systems such as eCopy. But we were tired of having to change out those systems when scanner and MFP hardware was replaced, and they never really worked well or fast enough that most people wanted to actually use them. We wanted a solution that was not tied to scanner hardware and that was so simple to use that people would actually scan their paper to NetDocuments.
DocSolid was already making middle-ware tools to allow scanning directly into iManage, so we asked them to create similar functionality for NetDocuments. We arranged a meeting between DocSolid and NetDocuments at the ILTA conference in Nashville back in 2011, and their relationship has blossomed ever since. Our first DocSolid – NetDocuments project was to implement a system to use NetDocuments cover sheets to scan documents into NetDocuments. We used that system to quickly scan hundreds of linear feet of back files into NetDocuments.
The next project replaced the paper cover sheets with barcode stickers, cutting out several steps in the profiling process (who wants to print a piece of paper in order to scan paper?). It also allowed us to add a robust quality assurance phase to our scanning.
And right now we are in the process of implementing DocSolid’s newest NetDocuments integration, which will allow users to profile documents and place bar code stickers on them so they can be scanned by our office services group right in to NetDocuments, again with a robust QC process.