If your department has never used imaging equipment before, here's what you should know before you buy.
A departmental document imaging system is an enterprise-wide system in miniature. A departmental system needs a server, a scanning station, workstations, a storage and archiving system and software to bring it all together.
One difference between a departmental imaging system and one designed for an enterprise is that a department has more limited needs. Departmental systems are tailored to specific applications.
These features should be part of any document imaging system:
1.Scanning. Most imaging applications demand a lot of scanning at first, to bring in all the old paper files. When the set up stage is done you may no longer need expensive high-speed scanners. High-speed scanning can be done with rented equipment or farmed out to an outside contractor.
Figure what your everyday scanning needs will be. Get a scanner that will give you 120% of that. That should leave you with room for growth without having to buy new equipment. The software and the computers you use to run the scanner will affect its performance. A fast scanner will be hampered by slow computers.
These are some scanning hardware and software options:
Canon (Lake Success, NY 516-328-5000) concentrates on small offices and workgroups. Their DR3020 scanner ($4,200) and multifunction devices, the GP30F and GP200F ($13,000-$22,000) are designed to serve small departments and workgroups that need high performance solutions. Multifunction devices save money by combining the functions of several machines in one box. The multifunction machines are modular. You only buy the functions you need.
Image Access' (Boca Raton, FL 561-995-8334) BScan ($1,500-$9,000) is a combined hardware and software scanning kit for both departments and enterprises. The BScan kits are designed to work with all scanners and have interface boards designed to take advantage of each scanner's capabilities. For departments, UpFront ($500-$5,000) simplifies scanning. UpFront users can avoid complex programming. They can still scale up to BScan as their needs grow.
Ascent Capture ($3,500-$7,000 per user) from Kofax (Irvine, CA 714-727-1733) is a shrink-wrapped package of Kofax's imaging tools. It is for departments and small enterprises where general-purpose scanning is needed and where custom programming is too expensive or not called for. Ascent Capture is easily customized using a Visual Basic-like programming language.
Top Image Systems (Ramat Gan, Israel 972-3-752-5626) bills their AFPS Pro ($25,000-$200,000 depending on the number of users) as a forms processing solution. It can be used in any data entry department. Its chief strength is its workflow capabilities. AFPS Pro lets managers monitor forms recognition jobs as they move from worker to worker. The user interface is highly customizable letting users work as comfortably as possible.
2.Workflow and Document Management. Workflow is about routing documents from one worker to another. Workflow could be as simple as posting scanned documents to a directory on a computer and having employees take turns looking at them. Ad hoc solutions like this are most suitable to small departments. Once you get above a dozen seats, you may want a more elaborate workflow system.
Document management applications normally work by launching a browser. The browser allows you to search for the documents you're interested in. It associates related documents. It will probably include an image or document viewer and should be able to launch productivity applications. If you want to work with a text document, the workflow software should automatically launch your favorite word processor.
The main difference between document management systems is the user interface. Some document managers try to look as much like the operating system as possible. InterTech's (Atlanta, GA 770-804-8080) Docupact is almost indistinguishable from Windows 95's Explorer. Other document managers will create their own user interface.
Not all departmental imaging systems need elaborate workflow management. Some systems may be set up just to scan and archive documents. Workflow is confined to cataloging scanned documents and making sure the scans are clear and easy to read.
A great feature to look for in a workflow/document management system, and one that is becoming increasingly easy to find on all the popular image viewers, is annotation software. Annotation, also called redlining, lets users look at a document and attach notes to it.
Annotation features to look for include sticky notes, highlighting, drawing tools and the ability to add hypertext links. Some annotation systems permit sounds to be added to documents.
.The notes appear as if they were sticky notes taped to a paper document except that they can be edited, moved around and presented in multiple colors. They don't affect or change the document they are attached to.
How powerful is annotation software? Suppose you are running a marketing department and your department is putting together a sales brochure.
Copywriters prepare text and the artists prepare illustrations. The text and illustrations can be sent from person to person for review.
Using annotation software, each person in the workflow can look at the pictures and copy and provide input that everyone else in the workgroup can see without disrupting the original documents.
To take full advantage of this feature, make sure your email and archiving and storage software will support the file formats used by your image viewer's annotation software.
Archetype's (Cambridge, MA 617-520-8550) document management and workflow product, MediaBank ($10,000 for five users) was originally geared toward prepress shops. It's flexible and works on many platforms. It handles many file and document types.
Destiny ($25,000) from Centillion Digital Systems (Indianapolis, IN 317-262-4896) comes from the publishing and marketing business. Destiny lets members of a department or workgroup share documents and collaborate even when separated by large distances. Destiny provides document storage and retrieval as well as a rich annotation utility.
Intertech recommends that their document management system, Docupact, be used with a minimum of 10 users. It is more cost effective with more users. Docupact's user interface is identical to Windows Explorer. This makes Docupact easy to use, especially for new users.
Traditional document management and easy installation is the forte of PC Docs' (Burlington, MA 617-273-3800) Docs Open ($1,500 server, $400 per user).
The simple user interface is easy to understand. Docs Open has plenty of add-on components for scanning, workflow, publishing and Internet/intranet access. Docs Open can seamlessly manage documents on multiple servers, making it a good choice for tying multiple departments together into a single system.
ImageTech's (Southfield, MI 248-203-9222) PaperGate document management software is simple, traditional document management. But PaperGate is full featured. Basic systems start at $15,000. The software includes an image viewer with basic annotations and industry standard architecture.
If you have widely dispersed workgroups, consider NetRight Technologies' (Chicago, IL 312-977-0664) IManage ($2,000 server, $230 client). NetRight designed Internet access into IManage from the beginning. Users can access the document server with any browser application that can run IManage's robust Java applet.
Of particular interest to government agencies and their contractors is Universal Systems' (Chantilly, VA 703-222-2840) Documetrix WorkManager ($700 per seat). In addition to the usual document management tools, Documetrix has complete workflow management.
Documents can be automatically routed from one worker to another. The product is designed according to government standards. This makes it a good choice for contractors who need to meet federal guidelines.
3.Storage and retrieval. Between online, nearline and offline, there are many ways to store data. In most departments there are only two. Either you need to access a document quickly and regularly, or the document needs to be archived for long-term storage.
Documents consulted regularly include those recently entered into the system or being used as part of a current project. They need to be kept online. Archiving is typically used for documents that need to be kept for legal reasons. Archived documents do not always need to be readily available. Nearline storage can be used if archives are consulted regularly. Offline storage is used to store archives that will rarely be accessed.
Archiving old documents is a major challenge on large enterprise imaging systems. Large systems may have to store hundreds of megabytes worth of documents. This is less of a problem for departmental document imaging systems.
Most enterprise-wide document storage systems keep documents online for an arbitrary period of time. Usually less than a year. If you've ever called your bank to track down a cancelled check, you probably found that they only have only a few months worth of transactions stored on-line. After that, the documents are automatically sent to offline storage. This is a problem if your department's documents remain active for long periods of time or suddenly become active after a long period of inactivity.
A departmental system doesn't have to store documents for the entire company. Where an enterprise-wide system might use tape libraries for cost-effective archiving, a departmental system could archive documents on a RAID system or CD-ROM jukebox. Even if your department can't justify the purchase of a RAID system or jukebox, CD-R archives can be made and kept handy in case they are needed.
In a small department, users can keep track of their own archives and mount them as necessary. This is something that cannot be done on an enterprise-wide system.
Although Indus' (West Salem, WI 608-786-0300) Virtual Office ($7,000) can scan, it is primarily a document filing system. Virtual Office has built-in fail-safe mechanisms designed to prevent data loss.
While most imaging vendors focus on software, Data General (Westboro, MA 508-898-5000) concentrates on building hardware like their CLARiiON Raid storage systems (starting at $25,000).
They also license software for their AV series of imaging packages. Data General sells systems. Put together a complete departmental imaging system.
Mobius' (New Rochelle, NY 914-637-7200) client/server software packages, View Direct and Document Direct ($750 per seat), are designed to make it easy to keep track of documents. Both of these software packages are simple enough for the departmental level yet can be scaled to large enterprises.
One-Stop Shopping
For most users, the best solution to setting up a document imaging system within their department is to get an all in one package.
What makes Alos' (Montgomery, NY 914-457-4400) DocuWare ($15,000-$30,000) suited to departmental document imaging is its modular structure. Start with only the parts you need and expand the system as your needs grow. Modularity keeps costs down.
INSCI's (Westborough, MA 508-870-4000) trio of document imaging products, COINSERV, COINSCAN and COINSFLOW, make it easy to set up an imaging system that can be scaled up to enterprise level. INSCI systems provide imaging, COLD and workflow management.
Price for a complete system starts at $60,000. The servers are UNIX based so they can support thousands of users. A Windows NT version of the product is on its way to the market.
LaserFiche (Torrance, CA 310-793-1888) makes a starter system. You start out with LaserFiche 4.1 ($1,500) in small departments with as few as 10 users and later scale up to hundreds of users. LaserFiche's services are primarily for scanning and COLD storage.
Departments often build their own systems independently. Making all those different systems work together can be quite a challenge. Lava Systems' (Mississauga, Ontario 416-236-5282) software is designed to bring disparate document management systems and productivity applications together in one system.
Lava works with legacy software as well as with current applications. The key to this is Lava Enabler. Lava Enabler makes different applications work together. Even those that run on obsolete and archaic computer systems.
Although better known for their optical equipment, Minolta (Ramsey, NJ 201-825-4000) has a business information systems division providing departmental and enterprise document imaging and workflow management software.
At the heart of Minolta's offerings is MIMS 3000. MIMS 3000 ($1,000 per seat) can be scaled up to the entire enterprise.
It features industry standard technology. That means it can be seamlessly combined with most third party software products.
Optech's (State College, PA 814-238-0038) document imaging suite can be installed in a small department and scaled up to the entire enterprise.
It includes components for scanning, archiving and workflow management. View documents in the OptiImage viewer. Open them with just about any popular productivity software.
