Document Imaging Boosts SharePoint 2007 Workflows

When West Chester University’s (WCU) Provost’s office needed a more efficient and cost effective process to collect and distribute lengthy meeting agendas and materials for a 90-member committee, they turned to SharePoint. A streamlined, electronic process was mapped and put in place using Microsoft SharePoint, developing a Portal for the committee and document libraries for monthly agendas and supporting materials.

The process and technology was an ideal solution – except for one problem. A significant amount of the material for these meetings was still generated in paper form. WCU solved this issue by implementing a document imaging solution.

Like the scenario at WCU, SharePoint is used by all the information workers in a business and so it follows that you also need a document imaging solution that allows those workers to scan paper documents themselves directly into SharePoint repositories. This requires the use of a shared scanning device, such as a MFP or networked scanner, and tight integration of the document imaging software with SharePoint 2007.

When considering a document imaging solution for SharePoint, it helps to consider the following:

• The scanning interface should mirror the SharePoint user experience at the desktop
• SharePoint security models and policies, including authentication and access rights setting, should be incorporated
• The document imaging software should have zero footprint on the SharePoint server
• Full navigation of SharePoint sites, subsites and document libraries should be available at the scanning device
• The document imaging software should support SharePoint content types and workflows
• The integration between the systems should be dynamic to eliminate the need to make changes to both systems

Comments

[Alani Kuye]

Sharepoint is fast becoming the platform for ECM in the windows based enterprise space. With Open Source fast gaining ground, this will not be for long as applications being ported into the Linux environment is fast becoming a standard. online document management and imaging on the other hand is a different ball game as Saas (Software as a Service) leverages the power of open source for solid delivery. the bottom line of discovery is as thus "You're better off decommissioning information than having it and not being able to find it".

Alani Kuye
Phantom Data Systems Inc.
Online Document imaging Solutions
Data Storage and Recovery
Norwalk CT.

[Steve]

eCopy's SharePoint integration is outstanding. The interface is simple to configure, and provides an easy metadata entry interface.

I have evaluated a few, but eCopy is still top of the heap!!