The Electronic Mailroom (Part 3)
Here's the final part of my blog on the Electronic Mailroom.
So far we've been using the analogy of 'dirty washing' to highlight our process and bring it to a much simpler level of understanding for everybody.
In Part 2 of the blog we sorted the washing and washed it. In business terms, we worked out what the documents were and then extracted data. There are still two stages left for the washing: it needs to be ironed
and put somewhere ready for use.
The Ironing
We've completed the washing, it's all dry and the next step is to iron the clothes (after all, you wouldn't go out in clothes that were covered in creases!). What we are doing here, hidden away in the corner of our software solution, is verifying our data (ironing out the bits we don't want to be there). The documents are taken to other applications and databases and are checked to ensure what we have is correct. Making sure, for instance, that a customer reference number is already in our CRM system or a PO Number is allocated in the accounting package.
There is a lot of complexity under the hood here and, from a user's point of view, you should be assured that the right system will gather all the relevant information from line of business apps and databases without any human intervention. Meanwhile, we should remember that the dirt that was extracted is still sat in the machine and linked (invisibly) to the item of clothing it came from.
Putting The Washing Away
We're now ready to put the washing away in the right places, well, for the physical items/documents that invariably is a cupboard or chest of drawers. Think of these as databases. You're better off having on large cupboard to store all of your clothes rather than a number of different places. It just makes things easier to manage.
All of our documents now wind up in their rightful places, but how do users get at them? That's where the dirt comes in: the dirt (extracted data) is used to cross reference line of business applications, databases and which drawer (document type) it came from. Essentially, the data is used by users to start internal business processes and to manage their archives.
Well, there you go, that's a very high level, very simplistic overview of the Electronic Mailroom. This technology is here now. There are so many benefits to this type of solution and with the basis of understanding you have learnt from these posts you are now on the right path towards getting the most out of the Electronic Mailroom. It's a lot more than just capturing a document as it comes into a business, there's a whole load of intelligence there behind the scenes.
Click2Scan Limited have been working in this sophisticated niche of the document management marketplace for some time now and our expertise is utilised by businesses from all walks of life, including charities, manufacturers and universities.
The Electronic Mailroom (Part 2)
In Part 1 we started looking at the world of the Electronic Mailroom and how we best explain its uses to those people who have not come across the concept before. I tend to use a lot of analogies to cover this, and in this case we're using 'dirty washing'. I've used this on numerous occasions to speak with non technical people about, and place a seed of understanding as to, the processes we undertake.
Sorting the Washing
When we receive the washing it's all muddled up. It contains lots of different colours and they need to be sorted because we can only wash colours together if they are the same colour. This is a pre-washing process and would be undertaken by a human. However, in the electronic mailroom world the software is intelligent enough to identify the different colours. Now, remember that the colours I'm referring to are your different document types. The first thing the software will do is use its business-specific logic to find out what 'colour' the 'washing' is. Is it blue? (maybe an invoice), is it red? (maybe a letter), is it yellow? (maybe an application form).
So, sorting the washing is the same as identifying the document types. This is important because we need to know what the document type is for the next stage of the process.
Doing the Washing
This next stage is where we put each different type of washing in for its specific wash.
Before we put on the load we need to remove the dirt from our washing. The 'dirt' is the data that we need to extract. This part can be really complicated as we may need to verify that we have removed the right dirt by looking at samples from elsewhere. But in its simplest form we just want to remove the dirt!
Now, we have an item of blue washing – it's an invoice – and we need to extract the PO number, invoice number and many more different types of data. There's only one thing holding us back at this point: we don't know where on the page this information is, because we may have different 'shades' of blue for different suppliers or the dirt may be in different places. In an electronic mailroom scenario the software uses business logic to find the dirt, or data, and remove it automatically.
So, there we go, we've Sorted our washing and washed it. In a practical world though, theres still more to do. It needs to be ironed and placed into the cupboard, ready for use. These two final stages I'll cover in part 3 of the blog.
5 things to consider when choosing a document imaging application
It's fair to say I have test driven quite a few scanning applications over the last few years. You only have to Google "scanning software" to get a few hundred matches of applications that will no doubt do the job. When you have a serious volume of files though the right software can help make the process go along a lot quicker and more smoothly. There is nothing more frustrating that an application that has cost well over a £1000 that crashes for no apparent reason or still isn't rated to work on Windows 7. I won't go straight in for the kill and tell you which one to go for but here are 5 important considerations.
1) Barcode Reading - Does the software allow barcode reading and rare 2d barcodes like PDF417 in particular? "Why?", you may ask. Very simply, a barcode separator will allow you to keep the scanner running without having to key in a file name and restart the scanning process. More and more documents have barcodes, so choosing to work with a rare one like a PDF417 will make sure you are only separating at the right time. It's really easy to generate a barcode label or barcode sheet and, as all files need preparing for scanning - taking out staples etc, its no difficulty at all for the prepper to apply a sticky barcode label. The barcode can also be used to name the file. This saves on a post scanning indexing role.
2) PDF/A - Many organisation archivists are insisting on the archiving variant of PDF so it is important that the scanned document can output to the format of choice.
3) Image Enhancements & Processes - Most scanners will scan both sides at the same time and will intelligently take out the blank pages. Canon scanners are particularly good at this. It's also very handy if the software can deskew, take out boders or clean up edges as well as enhance the image where needed.
4) Scan Then Export - Many applications ask you to choose a file format such as Tiff or PDF and then start building a file straight away. The best way is to have the scanned file assembled in front of you and for you to delete pages or insert pages or move them around. Then when you are ready you export the finished document into the format of choice. This scan then export model is far superior to simply building up a file as you go. It also allows for files to be exported into applications like Sharepoint or Alfresco.
5) Searchable PDF - If you are scanning to PDF there is no harm in making it searchable. Trying to do this to a batch or folder of files after then event is a pain to say the least and applications can be horrifically expensive. As part of the export process above it's a lovely feature if the scanning application will do the OCR-ing without tying up the computer while it does it.
I could go on and list another 5 or 10 important features but if you are looking at doing some in-house scanning and want the project to run smoothly then having a great scanning application is a must. So which one would I recommend ? Without a hesitation the best desktop application for scanning is Kofax Express 3.0. This isn't an enterprise application designed for a 20 user mailroom but for the typical department looking to scan 20 filing cabinets of files or for day to day scanning of the post, this application is fantastic. It's bang up to date, with new versions released regularly (unlike, say, Quick Scan Pro) and is better priced than lesser applications like Kodak Capture Pro or Iris Power Scan.
Most people get straight into choosing a scanner but in all honesty the scanner isn't as important as the software that drives it. You can't go wrong with a Canon or Kodak scanner but you can get hugely frustrated with the wrong program running it. Do your research well, or trust my hundreds of hours experience and take a short cut!