Capture Incognito

by Ralph Gammon

Whenever you read about cutting-edge document capture applications, the stories usually involve third-party software capture products from the likes of Kofax, Captiva or Captovation, to name a few. But the fact is, the majority of imaging users implement the "standard" capture modules supplied by their document or content management system vendors.

According to a worldwide study of the capture market conducted last year by U.K.-based Strategy Partners and East Northport, NY-based Harvey Spencer & Associates, more than 70 percent of users rely on document capture software supplied by management system suppliers.

Third-party capture systems gained visibility in the mid to late 1990s, in part because these tools typically offered best-of-breed recognition and automation features. Meanwhile, many management system vendors were preoccupied with the move to integrated document management, Web-based access and, later, enterprise content management. Some of these vendors invested little to keep their capture technologies up to date and all but ceded advanced capture applications to third-party vendors. More recently, however, a few management system vendors have reinvested in capture and are reasserting their ability to provide cutting-edge capture applications.

One such vendor is Costa Mesa, CA-based FileNet, which claims to offer some 30 new features as part of its FileNet Capture application. For example, the company has integrated its capture software with digital copiers, and it is currently developing .Net-based distributed scanning capabilities.

"Since 1998, we've sold more than 30,000 licenses of our capture product," says Diane Jolly, product marketing manager for FileNet Capture. "We're the biggest unknown capture vendor in the world."

Jolly says end users like the tight integration of FileNet's capture software with the FileNet repository. "If you're working with products from different vendors, when you upgrade to a new version of one, you'll often need to change the release script that connects the two," she asserts. "By coordinating its upgrades, FileNet alleviates that problem."

Westlake, OH-based Hyland Software is also turning more attention to capture. Earlier this year, Hyland added a Front Office Scanning module for its OnBase management system. Aimed at ad hoc scanning needs, the module is said to fit a range of emerging vertical capture applications.

"To meet with the requirements of the Patriot Act, banks are now required to scan identification cards when an individual opens a new account," says Ray Gerwig, Hyland's scanning product manager. "In hospitals and county government offices, various insurance and identification documents also need to be scanned."

The Front Office Scanning module works in conjunction with Hyland's Web Application Enabler, which "lets users create indexing information from Web-based, front-office applications," explains Bill Priemer, Hyland's vice president of sales and marketing. "In a hospital, when a patient checks in and presents his identification and insurance cards, the front-desk clerk can pull together indexing information [from the patient records application] with a few mouse clicks. The images and indexing information can then be uploaded into a Hyland OnBase document repository."

Yet another management vendor with a new capture module is Long Beach, CA-based LaserFiche. Introduced early this year, the company's QuickFields module is an upgrade from the company's standard capture software, and it combines zonal OCR, OMR, barcode and form recognition technology suitable for automated document capture and basic data capture applications.

Among the LaserFiche customers that have upgraded to QuickFields is Bloss & Dillard, a managing general agent (insurance intermediary) based in Huntington, WV. The company faced a backfile conversion project involving 350,000 pages of documentation related to 7,000 insurance policies, and automation technology was a must.

"We estimated it would take at least 20 minutes to manually scan and index each policy," says Bloss & Dillard IT manager Tate Tooley, adding that this would have required approximately 100 full-time-equivalent work days.

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