Hyland streamlines open enrollment with platform-driven intelligence

Summary

Hyland modernized open enrollment using the Content Innovation Cloud to deliver accurate, consistent benefits guidance at scale — without adding work for HR or IT. Deployed in just 2.5 weeks, the solution absorbed most repetitive enrollment questions, enabling HR to focus on higher-value cases while delivering trusted answers wherever employees already ask questions. 

Reducing enrollment friction for employees and HR

Open enrollment is one of the most demanding moments in the HR calendar. At Hyland, it traditionally triggered a surge of repetitive questions — where to find plan guides, what changed this year and how deductions work — placing immediate strain on HR teams responsible for delivering timely, accurate guidance. 

Much of this friction stemmed from how benefits information was accessed. While content lived within the HR portal, its volume and complexity made it difficult for employees to quickly find answers, leading many to navigate multiple pages or reach out directly to HR. For HR, maintaining consistency and accuracy at scale became increasingly challenging, as time spent answering the same questions diverted attention from more complex or sensitive situations. 

“During open enrollment, our goal is always to help employees feel confident in their decisions, but the volume of repetitive questions made that harder every year,” Hyland AVP of Global HR Operations & Total Rewards Laura Tuttle said. “We needed a way to give people clear, consistent answers without overwhelming our HR team or slowing down the experience.” 

Recognizing this pattern was unsustainable, Hyland set out to reduce enrollment friction by ensuring trusted answers were always available — exactly when and where employees needed them. 

Building a governed content foundation

The transformation began by centralizing all benefits materials — plan guides, comparison charts, deduction tables, policy updates and FAQs — into a single Hyland OnBase™ document type. This created one authoritative, access-controlled source for enrollment information, ensuring every answer employees received was accurate, approved and current. Built-in version control, security and retention rules reduced the risk of outdated or conflicting content during this critical period. 

“With our centralized benefits content available in one governed system, we gained confidence that every answer employees received was accurate, up to date and ready for Knowledge Discovery,” Hyland Human Resources Manager Katie Barnhart said. “This shift made our content more accessible and AI-ready, so employees could get consistent answers wherever they asked questions.” 

Once content entered OnBase, the Content Innovation Cloud transformed it into AI-ready knowledge. Hyland Knowledge Discovery™ automatically parsed and indexed unstructured documents, while Hyland Knowledge Enrichment™ added semantic understanding to interpret natural language questions accurately — without manual tagging, scripting or model training. 

This governed knowledge layer removed ambiguity from the enrollment experience, giving employees confidence in consistent, accurate answers while ensuring every HR interaction was grounded in approved content — establishing a stable foundation for delivering intelligence across the organization. 

Delivering real-time, consistent answers across every channel

With a governed content foundation in place, Hyland deployed a single Knowledge Discovery agent across the channels employees already use to deliver consistent, real-time answers. 

• HR benefits portal: Embedded conversational Q&A helps employees surface accurate answers instantly without navigating complex documentation. 

• Microsoft Teams: Employees ask questions in the flow of work and receive immediate, source-linked responses. 

• WorkView HR Assistance: The agent surfaces relevant content and prepopulated replies, improving triage and response efficiency. 

This approach transformed the open enrollment experience. Instead of searching through PDFs or waiting for HR to respond, employees received clear guidance in seconds.  

“Employees never had to learn a new tool or change their behavior. They received consistent, accurate answers wherever they asked their question,” Barnhart said. 

For HR, the impact was equally significant. By absorbing most repetitive inquiries, the agent allowed the team to focus on cases requiring deeper expertise, while maintaining consistent, approved responses across channels.  

“Consistent, real-time answers only work when the information behind them is governed and trusted,” said Stephen Watt, SVP and CIO at Hyland. “The Content Innovation Cloud gives us a reliable way to activate approved content across every channel without introducing risk or complexity for employees.” 

Sustaining a smarter, self-improving enrollment model

Momentum built quickly as the new approach took hold. The Open Enrollment Agent was fully deployed in just 2.5 weeks, demonstrating how rapidly governed content and intelligent services can deliver value.  

“What stood out to me was how quickly we moved from idea to production,” Tuttle said. “In just a few weeks, we had a governed, intelligent solution in place that other departments immediately wanted to hear more about.” 

Once live, the model proved easy to sustain. Each year, HR refreshes content in OnBase while Knowledge Discovery automatically reprocesses it, keeping answers current without rebuilds, reconfiguration or engineering support. As a result, the agent absorbed many repetitive enrollment questions, allowing HR to focus on more complex, specialized cases. 

The success extended beyond HR, prompting Legal, Finance, Security and Cloud Operations to explore the same governed content model for their high-volume processes.  

“Delivering an enterprise-ready solution in weeks, not months, shows what’s possible when strong content governance meets an AI-native platform,” Watt said. “The model is now ready to scale well beyond HR.” 

With a sustainable, self-improving model in place, open enrollment became the starting point for a more scalable, intelligent enterprise experience.