Bimonthly Records and Information Discussion Group
Dedicated to the Improvement of Federal Records Management
Feith
The Path to an Electronic Records Management Solution
Susan Little, CIO, US Access Board
Feith Annual Conference & Training
Feith Virtual Conference
October 7th and 8th, 2020
We’d like to invite you to this year’s Feith Annual User Conference and Training, our annual educational get-together streamed live for our Feith customers.
Learn theory, real-world applications, and best practices, all geared toward giving you and your organization a better Feith experience for the next 12 months and beyond.
VIDEO: Using Geographical Dashboards in Records Management
We will dig into how Feith Systems uses Geographical Dashboards and Lat/Long data to make sense of Documents and Records.
Use any timestamp below to jump to that portion of the video!
Introduction/Prerequisites – 0:00
Adding/Configuring a GeoMap Pod – 2:11
Adding hyperlinks to Pins – 4:28
Adding Custom Colors to GeoMaps – 5:12
Navigating/Searching in Maps – 7:01
JAD Beta – Design the Future of Feith
At Feith Systems, we pride ourselves on our closeness with customers—we like to say that all of our software is born from customer need.
That’s why every year we host JAD- a Joint Application Development session where customers tell us how they’re using the software and what we can do to make it work better for them. Some features that came from past JAD sessions include:
- Add page- select multiple documents and append a page to them in bulk
- Record when a user logs into WebFDD for reporting (last login)
- Print Workflow Diagram to PDF
- RSS feed to notify customers of new releases.
This year during JAD, we had some of the very first customers using FeithDrive in production participate, which prompted us to look at the application in-depth with the entire JAD audience. We got great feedback on one of the features of FeithDrive from a customer who hasn’t even implemented it yet!
See, in FeithDrive, we save the entire revision history for every document—we do this for a few reasons:
- Some clients NEED to preserve a full audit trail for every document they have—we want our software to be compliant with their needs
- The convenience of seeing who made changes, when, and being able to see older versions of the documents at a moment’s notice. You only have to overwrite your work once to know the pain of losing it!
Some of our other customers want to ability to turn this off- to have new versions of a document overwrite older versions with no version history preserved.
And we said—why not. As long as the functionality remains in place for customers who need it for compliance, then we don’t see the harm in removing the audit trail for systems that have less strict requirements.
And then another customer had an idea for JAD Beta- that’s right, it wasn’t even our idea! To test new software on the customers we want to use it while it’s still being written.
So here we are—we want your feedback on the software we’re still writing. All we want to do is show it to you and if you happen to say, “what about…” then we’re all ears.
So, what are you keeping in your file cabinet?
I’m talking about those metal boxes with drawers — you know, the things you don’t need now that your company moved to FDD.
I opened up the file cabinet in my cubicle yesterday and found a pair of high heels that I ambitiously wore to work once and ditched after an hour. That’s it.
Why? Because nobody at Feith uses metal file cabinets to hold documents.
That’s my theory anyway, and I’ve been asking around.
- In Richard’s cabinet—a few Tupperware containers that he’s been meaning to take home all week.
- Gregory keeps action figures and snacks, because emergency could strike at any moment.
- Josh keeps a set of spare clothes for after a jog, or in case riding his motorcycle proves messy.
- Patrick told me he has “a pet monkey on a bicycle playing the tuba.” Maybe his German accent is having an effect here, but I’m pretty sure he’s serious.
- Finally, when I asked Gwyn she looked around her cubicle and said, “Wait, I have a file cabinet?”
I rest my case.
Here’s what I want to know:
What are you using your file cabinet for, now that you don’t need it?
Send in the Drones!
Send in the Drones!
Another beautiful Friday afternoon here at Feith Systems and Software, and what better way to celebrate than by taking the old UAV for a spin?
Austin, one of our Solutions Architects, has been telling us about his drones for a few months now (although he insists they’re more accurately described as quadcopters).
We couldn’t wait to see them.
So, while the weather was clear, the wind was low, and all of the executives were tied up in meetings, a few of us managed to sneak outside to see them.
Austin attached a camera to the drone to transmit video to the goggles pictured above, so you can truly get a ‘birds eye view’. It can take some getting used to, especially when Austin sends it into a nose dive.
That was fun, but it looks like it’s getting a little cloudy on the horizon. Better pack it up.
PS: If you’re coming to the annual conference this year, don’t forget to keep a look out for Austin and his drones. Rumor has it he will be flying them on the beach at FACT/2015 in Atlantic City, NJ.
Engineering’s Brewing Day
At Feith we strive to live by the Work Hard, Play Hard philosophy. That’s why no one at Feith was surprised when a handful of us took a few hours Friday afternoon to create our own Feith-branded craft beer.
Our lead graphic designer, Jessica Cohen, was in attendance.
She was kind enough to take some envy-inducing pictures and even copied down the recipe so we could enjoy the experience.
How does one home brew their own Feith Beer?
First, you want to start by growing your own hops– preferably at your place of employment à la Senior Software Engineer, Tom McLean.
Tom is the master of this operation, and he swears by preparing the beer in an 8-gallon turkey fryer.
It took the water about an hour to get to the optimal temperature (about 165 degrees Fahrenheit).
Then Tom turned off the heat, and steeped a bag of roasted grains for half an hour before removing them. After the grains are removed, the concoction is brought back to a boil and malt extract is added.
Next came the first .25 oz of hops. The pot was left to boil for another 30 minutes, after which .25 oz more of hops were added.
This process was repeated twice more.
Once the boiling process was finished, the copper coil was placed in the pot and cold water was run through it to cool down the contents.
Once the liquid was cooled enough, the yeast was added and the liquid was transferred to the fermenting jar.
And there it sat for several months. Feith beer was debuted last week at our end-of-summer picnic. Tom tapped the keg and everyone was welcome to sample.
The general consensus? We didn’t make enough!
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