Why Document Management Software?

Document Management Solutions

The average worker actually spends over 20 percent of their time looking for information that resides on a mono-media static document, but that only 50 percent of them find that information? That’s really a symptom of what we call information explosion. Today, workers are presented with more and more data all the time. Managing it is a big challenge. Most companies do not have set procedures for filtering, securing, configuring and extracting information from static paper and electronic files and communications. That is what total document management does.


The document is central to information explosion to that problem, because the information you’re looking for is contained in documents, whether a Word document, a spreadsheet, a PDF, an invoice or any other kind of paper document. The role it has is changing though in the sense that the document we choose to be opaque and contain that information will now become much more open through a true document management solution, making for smarter, dynamic documents. It’s going to be able to broadcast its information about itself to all business processes that it plays into. It is also going to be secure at the very fine level where specific parts of the documents will be hidden to specific users and will be accessible to others, and this might actually go down to a very fine level of granularity where specific words might be hidden for specific customers or might not be for others.

There have been a lot of discussions about the paperless office since back in the 80s. We still see paper actually growing, but we don’t use it so much anymore as a long-term storage. We use it more as an informal communication tool, as a short-term archival system, as a review media. So, it’s really still there, but its usage is changing.

Total document management will help you cut costs out of your organization by making your processes automatic and more efficient as well as potentially generate more revenue, because once you realize you can cut this cost, maybe that opens areas for new ways of handling documents, which you can offer your customers and employees. With the proper solution, your company enjoys higher productivity. Having documents that are truly part of the business processes makes your company move faster. Cost can be cut by 25 to 30% with more savings to come by partnering with the right company. DTS can assist you in making documents a more integral part of your business processes. Printing becomes not as important anymore, scanning actually decreases over time and, by partnering with DTS, color printing becomes more strategic. The overall goal of increasing efficiency will be reached.

Did you know that on average, companies have one device, one printing device, for every 2.2 workers? These office devices are used only two percent of a typical day. So, that’s about 50 minutes. That, you know, companies can face output costs of nearly $1,000 per office base employee per year. So, it really shows that document management is not a very well controlled domain in any organization. Now smarter document management can help you cut those costs. You can implement effective device management and save between 10 percent and 30 percent very easily, but with the proper document management solution we believe we’ll be able to achieve more like in the 40 percent to 50 percent savings range.

At DTS, partnering with companies that have an interest in improving workflows, saving hard cost and becoming a better competitor in their perspective industry is our passion. Selecting the proper document management solution or developing an approach to implement a total solution into current company cultures is the key to success in having smarter documents as opposed to having just a system to store and retrieve documents from. This is where DTS is different. We assist you in choosing the proper solution and continue to follow through the implementation and growth of your solution.

What a true solution does is pretty simple. It takes a document, any piece of text, or an electronic file and it will tell you what categories a document belongs to. It can take a document and say, “This is a letter, this is an invoice, this is a resume,” and it will be therefore able to automate one of the most critical steps in a business process, which is routing a document to the right person or to the right business process. In the future, it will automatically fetch relevant content from the Internet or from other sources of information in order to refresh its content and keep it up to date. At DTS, that is what we do and we take pride in every success story.

The cost of these solutions has dramatically decreased over the past few years and the products that are on the market are increasing. Your biggest decision is choosing the right partner to collaborate with. I would look forward to making your company another success story!


Fred Jeffery
Solutions Specialist
Document Technology Solutions
9401 James Ave S, Suite 162; Bloomington, MN 55431
Ph: 952-516-7914; Fax: 952-516-7901
fjeffery@dtsimaging.com
http://www.dtsimaging.com/

Getting the most from a copier

Guidelines for maximizing your MFP

The following guidelines will not only help you get the most out of your MFP, but can also help you find the best MFP for your business.

Make the connection...

There's no question about it, when it comes down to getting the most out of your MFP, if it's not connected to your network, you're shortchanging your business and missing out on the device's additional capabilities. A connected MFP allows you to use it as more than just a walk-up copier. When it's connected, users can print from their desktops, scan documents onto the network, and if the device also has a fax function, transmit faxes

Make sure your MIS/IT personnel understand the benefits of the MFP
It's a good bet if you’re MIS or IT personnel weren’t involved in discussions about how the MFP can improve efficiency and productivity, it's probably not going to get connected and your office will be losing out on many of the benefits of the MFP. The challenge here is getting these individuals to understand and acknowledge the cost savings and productivity benefits of researching and integrating solutions into your current workflow processes.

Wean employees off personal printers...
The challenge you'll find when trying to get employees to use your MFP as their primary printer is weaning them off their personal printers or the local workgroup printer that they've grown accustomed to using over the years. Chances are they'll kick and scream and cry like babies. Now, that's not to say personal and workgroup printers shouldn't be used for small print jobs. The trick is, however, making sure employees route large print jobs to the MFP. Contact your DTS rep if you would like suggestions for your company or if you would like to consider rules based printing implementation.

Fax?...
And for a business that has heavy fax volumes along with heavy copy and print volumes, a copier/ printer-based MFP may create contention issues when multiple users try to access the machine at the same time. That said, if your business has modest fax volumes or needs a backup fax machine, you may want to consider a software or appliance solution. DTS is well equipped to assist you.

Distribute, and then print...

Encourage employees that need to distribute documents to other employees or to clients to distribute them over the network or via e-mail rather than distributing hard copies. This way, recipients can print their own copy, or if they prefer, just read the document on their computer screen and not print it out at all. This method of document distribution reduces paper consumption and reduces the need to make multiple prints on the MFP. DTS employs experts in the field of document distribution, document lifecycles and document management. Let us be your first go to when considering document management, scanning, archival and retrieval.

Summing up software...

Be sure to consider software benefits. All our Sharp MFPs functioning as printers come bundled with software that allows users to enable print jobs, select various finishing options or consolidate time consuming task into a simple mouse click. We carry software that helpful from Document Management to controlling your print environment, and the easier it is to use; the more likely users will be to spend their valuable time doing what it is they do best. Contact DTS to review your workflow.

Time for a "Break"

Everyone who works or has worked in the office environment knows this movie... Office Space Movie Clip

Now be in the movies! Or just feel like it.

Click here to smash a printer yourself!

News from the Sharp Front

Latest from Sharpland. I have always liked the Sharp lines. Here is the latest...

Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America (SIICA), a division of Sharp Electronics Corporation, today announced that it received six "Pick" Awards from Buyers Laboratory Inc. (BLI). The awards acknowledge "outstanding performance" and excellence "in areas of importance to IT professionals" for a wide range of Sharp products, including Sharp Printer Administration Utility version 5 (PAU5); Sharp’s newest A3 MFPs (MX-2600N; MX-3100; MX-4101 and MX-5001); and the MX-C311/DX-C311, Sharp’s first color A4 MFP and part of its Frontier Series.
Mike Marusic, vice president, marketing, Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America. "Our line of MFPs, coupled with our software offerings such as PAU5 can help businesses operate more efficiently and keep service costs to a minimum."

The Sharp MX-C311 and Sharp A3 segment MFPs feature a number of award-winning features that consistently draw rave reviews from customers. These features include an 8.5-inch high-resolution touch-screen color display; Sharp OSA® development platform; and a stylish, textural exterior that compliments any office design. Furthermore, the MX-2600N, MX-3100, MX-4101 and MX-5001 include a standard, retractable keyboard that makes data entry at the MFP quick and easy.

Sharp Captures “Pick” Awards For 41- to 50-ppm Color MFPs
The Sharp MX-4101N and MX-5001N, with color and black speeds of 41 ppm and 50 ppm, respectively, have each earned a Spring 2009 BLI “Pick” because of their top-notch overall performance in BLI’s demanding two-month evaluation.
“We put these models through their paces and they passed with flying colors,” said Lynn Nannariello, BLI’s assistant managing editor. “Sporting a distinctive design that includes a textured exterior and rounded corners, these highly reliable devices offer an array of features that make them very easy to use.” Among these are a large full-color control panel, a standard retractable QWERTY keyboard that makes entry of e-mail destinations and index data more convenient, a remote front panel feature that allows administrators and users to view and control machine operations from a PC workstation and the ability to customize the touch screen so that the most commonly used features can be placed on the main screen. In addition, these devices, which offer an excellent security feature set, support Sharp OSA® (Open Systems Architecture) so that they can be configured to integrate with customers’ document management and other types of applications to automate workflow.Very good multitasking capabilities and color and black print output, plus high marks in all aspects of connectivity, also contributed to BLI’s decision to give these devices “Pick” awards.

“Sharp is extremely proud to have both the MX-4101N and MX-5001N selected by BLI as recipients of the prestigious ‘Pick’ award,” said Shane Coffey, associate director of product planning and marketing for Sharp Imaging and Information Systems of America (SIICA). “Excelling in BLI’s rigorous testing confirms our commitment to delivering products that provide a winning blend of performance, quality and reliability.”

What the heck is DMS?

Believe it or not, when DMS - Document Management Solutions are mentioned in most companies, you get that look from people that tells you that they know this is something they should be able to converse about, but have no idea what it is. Super hero to the rescue! In school, we always began with the history of the subject. Everything has a beginning.

History lesson for adults only!

Beginning in the 1980s, a number of vendors began developing systems to manage paper-based documents. These systems managed paper documents, which included not only printed and published documents, but also photos, prints, etc. Remember laser fiche readers? I had small laser fiche strips and a back lit magnifying for all the manuals I had to carry. True DMS.

Later, a second system was developed, to manage electronic documents, i.e., all those documents, or files, created on computers, and often stored on local user file systems. The earliest electronic document management (EDM) systems were either developed to manage proprietary file types, or a limited number of file formats. Many of these systems were later referred to as document imaging systems, because the main capabilities were capture, storage, indexing and retrieval of image file formats. These systems enabled an organization to capture faxes and forms, save copies of the documents as images, and store the image files in the repository for security and quick retrieval (retrieval was possible because the system handled the extraction of the text from the document as it was captured, and the text indexer provided text retrieval capabilities).

Here is where we are today..
EDM systems evolved to where the system was able to manage any type of file format that could be stored on the network. The applications grew to encompass electronic documents, collaboration tools, security, and auditing capabilities.

Next Lesson - Keep It Simple Stupid

Here are the main components of a DMS..

Metadata

Metadata is typically stored for each document. Metadata may, for example, include the date the document was stored and the identity of the user storing it. The DMS may also extract metadata from the document automatically or prompt the user to add metadata. Some systems also use optical character recognition on scanned images, or perform text extraction on electronic documents. The resulting extracted text can be used to assist users in locating documents by identifying probable keywords or providing for full text search capability, or can be used on its own. Extracted text can also be stored as a component of metadata, stored with the image, or separately as a source for searching document collections.

Integration
Many document management systems attempt to integrate document management directly into other applications, so that users may retrieve existing documents directly from th
e document management system repository, make changes, and save the changed document back to the repository as a new version, all without leaving the application. Such integration is commonly available for office suites and e-mail or collaboration/groupware software. Integration has made many advances, especially recently.

Capture Images of paper documents using scanners or multifunction printers. Optical character recognition (OCR) software is often used, whether integrated into the hardware or as stand-alone software, in order to convert digital images into machine readable text.

Indexing
Track electronic documents. Indexing may be as simple as keeping track of unique document identifiers; but often it takes a more complex form, providing classification through the documents' metadata or even through word indexes extracted from the documents' contents. Indexing exists mainly to support retrieval. One area of critical importance for rapid retrieval is the creation of an index topology.

Storage
Store electronic documents. Storage of the documents often includes management of those same documents; where they are stored, for how long, migration of the documents from one storage media to another (hierarchical storage management) and eventual document destruction.

Retrieval
Retrieve the electronic documents from the storage. Although the notion of retrieving a particular document is simple. Simple retrieval of individual documents can be supported by allowing the user to specify the unique document identifier, and having the system use the basic index to retrieve the document. More flexible retrieval allows the user to specify partial search terms involving the document identifier and/or parts of the expected metadata. This would typically return a list of documents which match the user's search terms.
Newer systems allow you to search for word or word contained in the stored document or words and data that is linked to the document via attached notes or redactions.

Distribution
A published document for distribution has to be in a format that can not be easily altered. As a common practice in law regulated industries, an original master copy of the document is usually never used for distribution other than archiving. If a document is to be distributed electronically in a regulatory environment, then the equipment tasking the job has to be quality endorsed AND validated. Similarly quality endorsed electronic distribution carriers have to be used. This approach applies to both of the systems by which the document is to be inter-exchanged, if the integrity of the document is highly in demand.

Security
Document security is vital in many document management applications. Compliance requirements for certain documents can be quite complex depending on the type of documents. For instance the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requirements dictate that medical documents have certain security requirements. Some document management systems have a rights management module that allows an administrator to give access to documents based on type to only certain people or groups of people.

Workflow
Workflow is a complex problem and some document management systems have a built in workflow module. There are different types of workflow. Usage depends on the environment the electronic document management system (EDMS) is applied to. Manual workflow requires a user to view the document and decide who to send it to. Rules-based workflow allows an administrator to create a rule that dictates the flow of the document through an organization: for instance, an invoice passes through an approval process and then is routed to the accounts payable department. Dynamic rules allow for branches to be created in a workflow process. A simple example would be to enter an invoice amount and if the amount is lower than a certain set amount, it follows different routes through the organization.

Collaboration
Collaboration should be inherent in an EDMS. In its basic form, a collaborative EDMS should allow documents to be retrieved and worked on by an authorized user. Access should be blocked to other users while work is being performed on the document. Other advanced forms of collaboration allow multiple users to view and modify (or markup) a document at the same time in a collaboration session. The resulting document should be viewable in its final shape, while also storing the markups done by each individual user during the collaboration session.

Versioning
Versioning is a process by which documents are checked in or out of the document management system, allowing users to retrieve previous versions and to continue work from a selected point. Versioning is useful for documents that change over time and require updating, but it may be necessary to go back to a previous copy.

Publishing
Publishing a document is sometimes tedious and involves the procedures of proofreading, peer or public reviewing, authorizing, printing and approving etc. Those steps ensure prudence and logic thinking. Any careless handling may result in the inaccuracy of the document and therefore mislead or upset its users and readers. In law regulated industries, some of the procedures have to be completed as evidenced by their corresponding signatures and the date(s) on which the document was signed.

The published document should be in a format that is not easily altered without a specific knowledge or tools, and yet it is read-only or portable.

Conclusion

As you can see, a EDM or DMS can be very complex or simple and inexpensive. The qualifying factors are what are your current needs, budget, pain points in your current workflow. Is there a boat you are going to miss if you don't jump aboard? Maybe not in the immediate future, but definitely there will be a day. In the industry we call the current state Document or workflow evolution. Many bigger companies employ Business workflow analysis, Business Process Managers, heck, ever hear of an IT position? Information Technology. Why will it catch you with your guard down? How are you going to instantly catch up when everything is linked, referenced together, collaborated and required to be submitted digitally with proven versions, e-signed with a proven security trail? Don't be caught scrambling to hire temps, directing valuable company resources to set up the process and training everyone to use a new method overnight. You can start out simple and inexpensive. Just shoot me an email and I will point you out in the right direction, in my territory or not.

 Fell free to contact at http://www.dtsimaging.com/

Another future post

   Many times when people speak of the future, they refer to some ideas. Today's future post is actually in beta testing and working in their lab. EEtimes is reporting about a German lab, Fraunhofer Research Institution for Electronic Nano Systems, developing printable batteries. The batteries are low powered, about 1.5 volts, short term and less than 10 cents a page. Heck, less than 10 cents a page is cheaper than printing a color page out on most color laser printers. (Hum, wonder if I can put these under a price per page contract?)
   They are targeting applications such as smart credit cards with battery-powered displays to show balances and other account information. Think about the other applications. Like greeting cards. I like to talk to people about transforming their current mono-media static documents into smart documents that retain information about themselves, can be instantly shared with multiple people and can apply security to themselves. This would take that a step further. Imaging have web links within the document, the document displaying the linked information within itself or requiring a login to display certain portions of itself to apply security or tracking during its life cycle. How about having information in the document that recognizes it has been read and then disappears like in some Bond movie. You are probably thinking right about now of currently having these types of features in a laptop. Yea, maybe, but not at less than
 10 cents and weighing less than a gram.
   Is the future really paperless?

Send me an email if your interested in getting your static documents into smart documents. It what I do.

Need a big print?

I don't think there is a big need in the business market for the following from Printdreams in the UK, but it is interesting.............

The Largest printout in the World unveiled at CeBIT

15.5 trillion ink dots on 7,000 square meters of ordinary office paper build a full color, high definition image in an unprecedented format. While normal desktop output is best viewed at arm’s length, this record-breaking printout needs to be seen from the sky – or at least a couple hundred meters away.

CeBIT, the world’s largest computer exhibition, is putting its name to the world’s largest ever printout. PrintDreams, the company behind this innovative breakthrough, officially launched its Random Movement Print Technology at CeBit in 2002. RMPT™ set the benchmark as the basis to the world’s smallest letter-size printers. Now, it is set to demonstrate its capabilities by going to the other end of the size spectrum.

Hope it doesn't rain..

Using my copier as a scanner? Are you crazy?

Well the crazy part is debatable among some circles, but the copier/MFP is more than likely your best choice when it comes to scanning.

"But, it will tie up my MFP."
No so Sally. Most scan jobs, with a predesignated workflow and/or the proper software integrated, will take 30 seconds to 2 minutes. If your MFP is that busy, we really should talk.

"But, my stand alone scanners utilize a barcode process we set up and the MFP won't."
Well Willy, who have you spoke to lately? Fact is, barcode scanning, when integrated with the MFP should be an advantage at the MFP. The integration at the MFP is more than likely going to prevent most after scan processing and filing of the documents over using a scan station especially when batching up documents for scanning.

"You can't preview the document before committing it."
Can't speak for all, but as a single line Sharp dealer, the Sharp devices not only give a zoomable thumbnail on a color 8.5 inch screen, but also plays video. (Come check this out! It is rather neat.)

I've heard this one many times....
"Our very expensive scanners provide automatically cleaned up images and small files sizes".
As I said before, come check our Sharp devices. Seeing is believing. Don't recall ever losing a deal over a dedicated scanner.
If you haven't checked out the latest in offerings, contact me. Big color video screen, slide out keyboard, military level security. There is so much more now, we published a small book on it.

Don't waste money on an expensive scanner.

"Why, you can't fit many pages in the doc feeder and the scan speed is slow."
If I keep answering, you might quit arquing and just call me. The feeders handle robust amounts of paper AND both sides of the paper get scanned at once. Then, just ask what "Job Build" and delete blank pages are.

"MFPs can't create searchable PDFs."
Yes you can. MFP scanning software allows you to create and save PDFs that are available for text searches within documents. To take it further, our MFPs take your Active Directory login and give you your own scanning route in the screen. Don't want to login? Do you have one of those employee ID cards?...

"When can I come see this?"
Ah, my kind of question... http://www.dtsimaging.com/