CCH is working on a hosted version of its Knowledge Connect, a knowledge management program, after the next tax season. But overall, it's a program probably hasn't had the impact on the market the company has hoped. One reason was the program hit the market during the worst of the economic problems and it was viewed as a discretionary purchase.
"We are finishing up the hosted environment, which we think will be better," was a comment made by product manager
Jerry Connor said at this month's CCH User Conference. Conner noted that implementation and cultural change are important elements of getting a knowledge management system accepted at an accepting firm. The product is still a new concept for many users and in a group of about 10 professionals at a round table at the conference, none were using the product, although one had purchased it.
Connor said he personally gets a great number of daily calls from CCH sales people about products and that knowledge management can help establish the answers to many of these. Similarly in a firm, 'You might get a guru who knows the tax software or the auditing software. If there is a new question if they get it once, they will get it 10 times," he said.
Capturing the knowledge of firm gurus, whether official or unofficial, is one task Knowledge Connect can accomplish. But he also said the gurus want recognition for the contributions and the software can be utilized to provide this. The system can compile the amount of information or number of posts contributed by a individual, along with how many questions that person has answered.
A firm member can be assigned a role as a guru, and "the system will track the knowledge you are contributing and identify you as a guru," Connor said.
Another enhancement is going to be federated search, the ability to search information outside of the firm. "We built some federated searching in there. In addition to searching the internal knowledge base you search external knowledge bases at the same time," he said.
Bob Scott has provided information to the tax and accounting community since 1991, first as technology editor of Accounting Today, and from 1997 through 2009 as editor of its sister publication, Accounting Technology. He is known throughout the industry for his depth of knowledge and for his high journalistic standards. Scott has made frequent appearances as a speaker, moderator and panelist and events serving tax and accounting professionals. He has a strong background in computer journalism as an editor with two former trade publications, Computer+Software News and MIS Week and spent several years with weekly and daily newspapers in Morris County New Jersey prior to that. A graduate of Indiana University with a degree in journalism, Bob is a native of Madison, Ind
