Document Imaging Blog

Extending SharePoint to Support Document Workflows

Next Tuesday, June 24th, Microsoft and eCopy executives will present a Webinar on how to generate more value from Microsoft SharePoint environments by adding third-party document workflow applications that support an organization’s existing business processes.

The featured speaker at the Webinar is John Graham, Microsoft senior product manager, who will discuss the role of SharePoint in enabling electronic document workflows that connect people, information and processes. He will also discuss the types of applications that organizations should consider integrating with Microsoft SharePoint, with a focus on document imaging software.

Among other topics, the webinar will provide information to help organizations:
- Extend SharePoint investments by supporting specific business workflows with third-party applications.
- Choose third-party applications that integrate with Microsoft applications.
- Seamlessly integrate paper-based information into SharePoint with a document imaging solution to move towards a paperless office environment.
- Increase the ROI of line of business applications by utilizing document scanning software that easily converts paper documents into searchable, electronic files.   

The Webinar takes place on June 24, 2008 starting at 2:00 p.m. EDT, and interested parties can sign-up in advance by accessing the event registration site. It features a live Q&A session for the participants to present questions to the expert speakers.

New Document Imaging Group on LinkedIn

Many of you are probably familiar with the business-oriented social networking site LinkedIn, which streamlines the networking process by allowing you to build a list of contacts and connections within an online profile. LinkedIn has a fairly new feature that allows you to create and join industry and professional groups for networking purposes.

We just created the Document Imaging Group on LinkedIn to provide an online gathering place for people involved in document imaging. Here’s the link to check it out and join.

The Document Imaging Group allows you to find and contact other members on LinkedIn, both inside and outside of your network, who are interested in document imaging. Once you’re in the group, you can easily reach other members of the document imaging industry and create career and business opportunities through referrals.

The group also helps you to know more than a name – once you are a member you can view professional profiles from fellow Document Imaging Group members. You can also learn valuable information about your peers’ backgrounds and expertise that is relevant to your professional needs.

We see the group providing all members some great networking opportunities. Hope to see you in the group!

Information Zen and other good info sources

AIIM, the Enterprise Content Management Association, just launched a new online community, Information Zen. Big kudos to AIIM for starting this up and I'm pledging to be active in the new community, as well as to get my colleagues involved. Take a moment to poke around the site...it has great information on all things ECM and information management and will hopefully turn into an active community!

A big reason that I am excited about this new community is that it is another resource for both end users and vendors to discuss challenges, successes and best practices around ECM. As we all know, ECM is a big umbrella and includes document imaging as a subset. At eCopy, we've started this blog and the Document Imaging Wiki to provide a similar, central resource for document imaging. I'm hoping that we can create lots of back and forth between our Web 2.0 initiatives and AIIM's...providing awareness of document imaging within the ECM conversations and offering a place to come and learn more about specific document imaging-related information in our blog and wiki.

These Web-based resources are a tremendous asset to our industry and a big thank you goes out to AIIM for continuing to increase awareness and spur conversation.

Scanning as a Compliance Driver

In an unpublished InfoTrends’ research project conducted slightly more than one year ago, we surveyed the US financial services industry to learn about the adoption rates and technology usage behaviors of office/workgroup document solutions. Compliance matters loomed large in this study.

We surveyed more than 350 businesses in the segments of: banking, insurance, investment, and credit and lending. Approximately 50% of the respondents came from large businesses with 1,000 employees, followed by an even split between medium (100-999) and small (1-99) at 25% each.

We asked many questions about technology and compliance. One question in particular caught my attention and was able to summon up the slide from my archives. The question posed had 344 respondents and it was phrased this way, “please identify whether you believe the following technologies would help with the following compliance regulations. Please check all that apply.” (refer to graph immediately below)

View this photo

Scanning hardcopy documents as an action to help organizations meet the requirements of compliance ranked highest in value across all ten compliance measures tested, whereas, scanning hardcopy documents directly to a central repository scored second highest in value against these same measures.

It became clear to us that scanning as a baseline business activity is highly valued by the respondents of our survey as playing a critically important function in helping their organization to satisfy a plethora of compliance regulations. Capturing paper-based documents digitally via scan followed by indexing, routing, storing and securing same is vital to an organization’s ability to be compliant, regardless of the regulation in play.

So is scanning a compliance driver? From our perspective, yes indeed.

For more information, I would focus on the following regulations/standards, which hit all of the major elements of compliance and are the most far-reaching and well-known:

Amended FRCP (Federal Rules of Civil Procedure)

Records management, archiving, and discovery perspective

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Rules_of_Civil_Procedure <-- high-level overview
• www.uscourts.gov/rules/EDiscovery_w_Notes.pdf <-- the amendments with notes
• https://extranet1.klgates.com/ediscovery/ ß a searchable database of e-discovery cases… good stuff

HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability & Assurance Act)

Security and privacy

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIPAA
• http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/ - Health & human Services Web site for HIPAA information
• http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/m2e411a1.htm - HIPAA Privacy Rule and Public Health Guidance from CDC and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services*

SOX (Sarbanes Oxley)

Internal controls

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes-Oxley_Act
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOX_404_top-down_risk_assessment <-- section 404 of SOX is the infamous “internal controls” part… this risk assessment is a key aspect of compliance

This is also interesting -- http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/memoranda/fy2008/m08-15.pdf

A white house memo saying that “When planning for and acquiring information systems and services, agencies must incorporate records management and archival functions, including the cost of implementing and maintaining those functions, into the design, development, and implementation of information systems.”

MFPs in Distributive Scanning

Because of the proliferation of MFP devices in the office, the accessibility to scanning has increased.  Awareness and use of the MFP scanner have risen because of the ease of integrated solutions and openness to share the device.  At InfoTrends, we believe that the acceptance of scanning due to this proliferation of MFP devices has exponentially increased scanning activity (the overall pie has grown). More workers in the office are becoming accustomed to scanning Ad Hoc documents; therefore, this is no longer a specialized application in the office environment.  As workflow solutions begin to play a greater role in the office environment, scanning and scanner technology are becoming vital elements for knowledge workers.  The following interesting statistics are from a recently published study (conducted at the end of 2007 and published in early 2008) from our Image Scanning Trends practice area entitled US Document Image Scanning Report 2007:

·         70% of companies using document scanners report that MFPs are used for scanning in their organization.

·         Respondents using MFP scanners estimate their weekly average scan volume is greater than the weekly average scan volume reported for Workgroup scanners - The mean volume per scanner per week is estimated at 2,672 pages for MFP scanners and 1,892 pages for Workgroup scanners.

·         Many respondents (56%) estimate that their MFP scanning volume will increase - 31% estimate that their MFP scanning volume will stay the same, while only 13% estimate that volume will decrease.

·         The highest percentage of documents scanned on MFPs is for ad-hoc purposes (40% of documents). However, increasing numbers of users are scanning for more advanced applications such as records management (62% of users) and for business process applications (54% of users) - The percentages of documents scanned for records management and business process applications are not as high as for ad-hoc scanning, but the percentage of respondents who are broadening their usage of MFP scanning is significant.

·         Many respondents expect they will be scanning more documents to use as part of business processes - 40% of those that use MFPs for business-process applications report that their use of scanning to enable business processes will increase. 24% believe that they will increase the number of documents scanned so that data may be extracted from the documents and used as part of a business process. 33% believe that the volume of documents scanned for archiving, document management, and records management will increase.

·         Higher percentages of users who use single-function document scanners in addition to their MFPs scan for business-process applications than those who use only MFPs - Users with only MFPs tend to do a higher percentage of ad-hoc scanning (52% of documents) than those who also have distributed single-function scanners (34% of documents). More respondents who have both MFPs and single-function document scanners use the MFPs for records management (70% of users) than those who use only MFPs (44% of users). We therefore speculate that users who employ distributed single-function scanners may be more inclined to extend the applications they perform on distributed single-function scanners to their distributed MFP scanners as well.

For the near term, InfoTrends believes that MFP scanning will largely continue to be used for low-volume applications rather than high-volume applications, primarily because sharing a device with those who are copying and printing is not practical in a high-volume situation. It is likely that numerous small companies that wish to scan and have very little equipment will turn to MFPs in these situations, rather than buying a low-volume, single-function scanner. At the same time, many companies will still appreciate the capabilities that a single-function scanners bring to the office in terms of image quality, usability, and paper handling, and will opt for these devices. Single-function scanners are also beginning to be equipped with some of the same features as MFP scanning devices, such as large screen displays, networked (shared) capabilities, and application integration support.  At any rate, we believe that scanning, whether it is from an MFP or scanning device, has acquired a significant role in the office environment.

Greening the Office/Workgroup Environment

The “green” wave is finally working its way into the daily conversation and consciousness of American business. Although this topic is complex, multi-faceted, and far too sophisticated to be covered adequately in a one time blog entry, I thought I might take this opportunity to focus on one tiny element of business sustainability: document capture and scanning.

Reducing the negative impact of a business on the environment has become an imperative strategic initiative for an ever increasing number of SMB and enterprise class organizations. The methods being used to achieve this goal range from reducing resource usage and implementing carbon offsets to recycling and engaging in many other green activities: this list goes on and on.

Many organizations are finding that document management solutions and imaging products are integral to their environmental agenda, assuming they have one. Among other benefits, businesses that implement document management strategies often experience a dramatic reduction in their company-wide paper consumption and CO2 emissions through the reduced printing, postage, and storage of everyday business documents.  An obvious way to reduce paper usage in the office is to use scanners to convert paper-based documents to digital format.  Although there is still a paper component in the scanning process, the purpose of the process of the workflow (i.e.: scan to repository) is to reduce paper and increase efficiency.  This results in other positive residual effects on the environment such as reducing the storage or physical mailing/transporting of paper-based documents, which can impact fuel costs related to the transportation of those documents.

In the case of the office/workgroup, reducing the consumption of environmental resources, , can be accomplished by addressing the endless sea of paper that is used by implementing an electronic document management system. The digital age has already transformed the office environment as it relates to paper.  Just 20 years ago, the office did not have tools like the Internet or e-mail. The Internet has changed the dynamics of communications and had some positive effect on our environment, as it has led to less copying of documents and a lower volume of memos being sent around the office or to other locations.  One would think that the shift to electronic storage and transport of documents electronically would benefit the planet and reduce the consumption of paper-based documents, but the question remains whether our generation is still printing pages at its destination and/or reprinting electronically stored documents.

As with any tool or technology, it is how these mechanisms are deployed, managed, and policed that can really make the difference when attempting to bring about change.  Taking the initiative to set these policies, put these practices (to store more and print less) into place, and make a conscious effort to help future generations is really the only way we will be able to make a difference.

Document Capture in a Down Economy

Because of the mixed effect of general economic conditions here in the USA many economists and industry analysts have opined that IT spending will continue at a flat rate through 2008, although the majority of IT spending that does occur will be heavily focused on ROI in addition to technologies that address and promote knowledge-worker efficiency.  We see this as a grand opportunity for the document capture, workflow and the document management markets.  As companies continue to focus on reducing costs and invoking parallel cost avoidance measures, so are vendors looking to provide solutions to help companies achieve these goals.  InfoTrends has observed an important trend unfolding in our market and it has to do with the growing interest and activity around the optimization of MFP fleets and the initiation of workflow improvements to increase work efficiency and reduce costs.

 

In our on-going research in this area, we continue to measure companies’ document related output spend and that in  many cases we have observed SMB and enterprise class businesses spending upwards of 6% of their annual overall revenues on document output related activities! InfoTrends believes the first step toward the realization of cost savings can most easily be achieved through managing output spending more effectively via fleet management – Sharing MFP devices and eliminating from the fleet inefficient devices that are costly.  The next step in reducing unnecessary print output and also improving efficiencies is through capture, workflow and document management initiatives.  Interestingly enough, when C-Level executives first experience the savings from both of these initiatives, they are much more inclined than not to act upon these reasons than any other.  In a recent Multi-client study entitled,” Document Assessments and Cost Optimization” InfoTrends found that, on the average, companies that have performed document assessments have saved 15% to 20% on output related costs. Furthermore, 90% of these very same organizations implement strategies and tactics to continuously improve document workflow across the enterprise in their drive toward operational efficiency. When asked “What types of software solutions has your company incorporated in your organization due to implementing document assessment and workflow services?” – The top 2 solutions mentioned were document management/electronic storage and scanning/capture technologies.

Jon K. Reardon - Group Director, InfoTrends

InfoTrends Overview of Document Capture Market

Hello, my name is Jon Reardon and I am the group director of office document technology services for InfoTrends, Inc. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with InfoTrends, we are an industry analyst firm that conducts market research and consulting services in the document imaging industry.

I will be making a daily blog entry on this site for the balance of this week. I will be exploring several topics related to the document capture (scanning) segment of office document solutions. More specifically I will be writing about the drivers of document capture, one per day: economy, environment, mfp influence on distributive capture, and regulatory compliance.

I think it is always important to establish a conceptual framework up front in terms of how InfoTrends views our market here in the U.S. from the perspective of revenue size. Having said that, we forecast the U.S. document solutions market to enjoy a healthy growth, at an aggregated compound annual growth of 27 percent. In terms of revenue dollars, 2006 was sized at approximately $611,000,000 and in 2011 at slightly more than $2,000,000,000! This is quite significant as we only forecast the copier hardware (color & mono; single function and multi-function) market growing at a CAGR of 4.9 percent in revenue over the same forecast period ($12,464,000,000 in 2006 and forecasted to reach $15,800,000,000 in 2011)

Back to the document capture/routing forecast,  InfoTrends reports that this solutions segment will enjoy consistent, healthy growth (CAGR of 28%) over our last five year forecast period (2006-2011).  We have charted revenues of $253,400,000 in 2006 and forecast the market at $855,000,000 in 2011.

Interestingly enough, eCopy is one of the primary document capture leaders here in terms of revenue and licenses sold.

Moving from document capture market size to market trends, at the macro level of the U.S. market, InfoTrends believes:

• That document capture awareness has grown over the last 10 years, where it has moved from a specialty or vertical application to mainstream.
• The document capture pie has grown in overall size.
• That the proliferation of MFP’s delivering simple scanning capabilities has educated the general office worker on the ease and benefits of document capture.
• Document solutions in general are also playing a role in the capture market peaking workgroup’s interest to digitize information.
• Compliance initiatives in certain verticals are also requiring the capture of traditional hardcopy documents. And,
• Scanning is Alive and Kicking! – But, what technology will capture the captured page?

Thank you!

Jon K. Reardon

Group Director, InfoTrends

Four Tips for Document Imaging and SharePoint

"Companies are turning in droves to Microsoft’s SharePoint platform, quickly recognizing the benefits of a system that enables better collaboration and document workflows, and therefore improving information worker productivity and efficiency. However, many processes and workflows require information that’s only available in paper documents."

This is the start of an article this week in WindowsITPro, and is a statement that more and more end user organizations can relate to as they implement SharePoint and face the problem of integrating their paper-based and electronic workflows. Document imaging software – made available to any office worker – is the best solution, but there are many choices of which software to use.

When considering document imaging software for use with Microsoft SharePoint, four considerations can help you make a good decision:

1) The document imaging software should have a zero footprint on the SharePoint server.

2) Look for software that offers out-of-the-box functionality and navigation into your SharePoint environment. Document imaging software should adapt immediately to the environment that you have setup – even if you have done extensive customization to the environment.

3) The document imaging software should offer support for all SharePoint Content Types, Metadata, Workflows (Workflow Foundation Server), etc.

4) Security – The software should match the user authentication and access rights settings that have been set on the SharePoint server. There should be no need to setup separate authentication processes for document imaging.

There are lots of additional resources to learn about document imaging for SharePoint, including archived Webinars and case studies, at this link.

Distributed Capture Platforms

Frost & Sullivan has released a new white paper: “Distributed Capture Platforms: Reducing Costs, Removing Bottlenecks and Mitigating Risk”. It provides a great overview of distributed capture, the opportunities that it presents across multiple industries and challenges that may face. In full disclosure, eCopy co-sponsored this report with EMC. Download the report here.

A particular phrase within the report struck a chord with me.

“Regardless of why a distributed workforce exists, the use of distributed capture technology can help ensure employees in decentralized settings are successful.”

A distributed workforce no longer just the realm of the sales team and a few specified industries like retail and banking. The fact is -- when considering how to capture paper – if that paper has to be moved from its point of origin than a distributed workforce exists and there is an opportunity for distributed capture.

If you are heading to EMC World in a couple of weeks, be sure to stop by the eCopy booth (#323), the EMC booth (#425) or the Burntsand booth (#413) to chat about distributed capture and how the three companies can combine to deliver a powerful distributed capture solution.

Guarding against insider security threats

Alan Joch wrote an interesting post on the Printing & Imaging Blog this week about insider security breaches and steps companies are taking to protect their information. He suggests that companies investigate print logs – paying attention to what is printed, who is printing that information and when (during or after business hours, for example).

This is a good practice, especially for companies that deal with compliance and audit concerns, and should also be considered for scanned documents. It reminds me of a story a colleague shared recently about a customer of ours in the Securities industry. Being in the business of securities and trading – and therefore under the watchful eye of the SEC -- the company had concerns over who was sending what information, and where it was being sent. They wanted to allow employees to scan and e-mail documents from the MFP and therefore need to choose a document imaging solution that could meet those security requirements. This company recognized two core document tracking needs to address when it came to choosing their document imaging solution:

1) They needed to be able to track & log information such as the sender, time, date, # of pages and recipient for any document scanned and sent from the MFP
2) They needed to be able to log and store the actual content of the scanned document

Some document imaging solutions are able to address #1, and some can also address #2. However, this company also wanted the ability to encrypt scanned documents, a very common document imaging requirement. By adding encryption to the mix, the ability to log and store the actual content of scanned documents is a much more difficult task. But it is an important need to address. Think about it. An employee may very well think that they can go up to an MFP, scan a document, encrypt that document and send it via e-mail. Because it has been encrypted, they believe that no one could see what the contents were.

To my knowledge, eCopy ShareScan is the only imaging solution that can handle this requirement. Our document tracking feature, which is accessed through the administrative console, can be set to both log document scanning activity and send a copy of the scanned document to a storage location that has access dictated by network security policies. If the document has been encrypted during scanning, the copy sent to the storage location is stored unencrypted. The beauty of this is that is doesn’t restrict functionality such as encryption that is used for “good”, it just lets you track abuse.

So if there is a need for “Big Brother” in an organization, you should make sure that both the ability to log print and scan jobs is included. And make sure that there are no loopholes, such as encrypted documents, that can poke holes in these security measures.

AIIM Webinar Q&A – Part 4

Time to answer the last question posed during the April 9th AIIM webinar, Document Imaging for Microsoft-Driven Organizations. If you missed the webinar, a recording is available on our Website.  And please post a comment to this blog post if you have further questions that you would like me to answer. I’m happy to keep this Q&A going as long as the questions come in!

Our final question is around document services and came in from an IT executive at a professional services company. He asks:

Does eCopy have the ability, when dealing with a common document format to, while scanning the doc, pull data in certain areas for OCR, then using that data for naming, routing, or storing metadata in a database?

Yes and no. eCopy ShareScan comes bundled with an OCR engine for full text indexing and search purposes. For example, a document can be OCRd during the scanning process to create a searchable PDF for improved search and retrieval from databases or back end application. Our product does not automatically extract portions of data (i.e. zonal OCR) for purposes of indexing and routing. However, eCopy ShareScan is an open development environment with a published API and document services interface. Through this services interface, capabilities such as metadata extraction, barcode recognition, and image compression and cleanup can be easily added. For example, one of eCopy’s partners, I.R.I.S., has used the SDK to offer a set of document services for ShareScan.

Thanks again for all the great questions around document imaging & Microsoft. And please, if you have any other questions, please post them as a comment to the blog.

Bill DeStefanis
Director of Product Management

AIIM Webinar Q&A – Part 3

In part 3 of our Q&A follow-up to last week’s AIIM Webinar (see part 1 and part 2), I’m going to answer a couple of questions around getting paper documents into Microsoft SharePoint. SharePoint, not surprisingly, is top of mind with Microsoft-driven organizations who are implementing the technology in droves to enable better collaboration and document workflows. And one of the big challenges that these organizations face is how to ensure that knowledge workers are able to include information that resides on paper inside SharePoint.

Our first question asks: How does eCopy know where to send documents and metadata content to SharePoint?

Our integration with SharePoint is done through our Connector to eCopy ShareScan. Our SharePoint connectivity is predicated upon authenticated user access, i.e. the username/password assigned to users who access SharePoint. With this information, users are logged into their SharePoint repository at the MFP and can self-determine where to deposit information by browsing to the site, subsite, document library, etc. at the MFP. Alternatively, eCopy’s SharePoint connectivity can be pre-configured for a dedicated capture operation, for example, scanning resumes to a dedicated folder accessible by Human Resources. In this configuration, there is no user interaction with SharePoint, but the application intelligently knows where to store the document and what indexing information should be included with it, i.e. username, date, document type, etc.

The second question asks: What are the benefits of eCopy with MOSS 2007. And is eCopy a good connector for MOSS 2007?

The answer to the second part is yes, of course.  We recently upgraded our connector to support many of the features that were added to SharePoint in MOSS 2007, including support for multiple content types and workflows.

As for the benefits, I’ll list three of the biggest. 1) Our SharePoint Connector replicates the user’s desktop experience with SharePoint at the MFP, allowing navigation through sites, subsites, document libraries, etc. This leads to high user adoption and a reduction in errors because the workflow process is unchanged.  2) The Connector features dynamic connectivity to a live environment, meaning that a user is working with a live environment vs. a static image of the application. So in that environment, if new folders or other destinations are added to the SharePoint environment, these are automatically available to the user during the capture process.  3) From an IT perspective, our SharePoint connectivity requires no changes to the SharePoint environment and there are no modifications or additions necessary to the MOSS server.

We’ll be back next week with the final questions from last week’s webinar (view a recording here).

Bill DeStefanis
Director of Product Management

“Easy to Use” Scanning

Visioneer’s VP of Marketing wrote a post on Xerox’s “Big I, Little t” blog about easy to use scanning solutions. He said that what his customers have told him is that it is important for them to be able to scan documents and send them to a destination such as a back end application by touching a single button – something that Visioneer’s OneTouch solution can deliver. Granted, this is very easy to use. However, it is not always appropriate for companies’ various document workflows.

His post specifically mentions Microsoft SharePoint as a backend application that customers would want to include paper-based information in. This is a perfect example of why it is important to offer employees a scanning solution that is both easy to use AND supports various document workflows. SharePoint is a powerful collaboration and workflow tool for knowledge workers. And those knowledge workers want to be able to include paper-based information inside SharePoint. But it is rare that every document will need to go to the exact same destination, or will need advanced imaging processing. Most of the time, knowledge workers are interested in converting that paper document to a PDF file, possibly OCRing the document and/or adding some simple indexing information for improved search and retrieval, and then choosing the destination (site, subsite, document library, etc.) within SharePoint to send it to. They can not do this when the scan task is pre-defined.

There may, of course, be some cases where a choice of “one touch” scanning for a repeatable scanning task and destination may be the preferable method. An example of this could be scanning in timecards to a destination that the payroll department can access. This type of scanning can be combined with more flexible options in a solution that provides users with the choice to scan and send documents in the way that best meets their workflow needs.

In this scenario, when that user walks up to a scanning device, they may be presented with two (or more) choices – Scan to SharePoint (which allows them to select scan settings and navigate to areas of SharePoint that they have access to) and Scan to Payroll (which automatically chooses the scan settings and routes the document to the destination with one touch). The point is that a document imaging solution that is flexible enough to support any workflow is, in fact, the easiest to use because it does not make knowledge workers change the way that they work.

Choice -- especially when presented in an interface at the scanning device which is comparable to the interface at their desktop -- does not equal complexity. And it benefits employees by saving time and effort, improving accuracy and increasing job satisfaction – all while increasing the value of a shared scanning device.

AIIM Webinar Q&A -- Part 2

I’m back again with more Q&A from last week’s AIIM Webinar, Document Imaging for Microsoft-Driven Environments”. In part one of this series; I covered questions primarily dealing with the process for ensuring proper indexing of documents in a distributed environment. Today, I’m going to address a couple of questions around the topic of MFPs, or multifunction peripherals.

The first question is around the operating environments of MFPs:

How soon do you foresee having a large number of Web services enabled MFPs in the market?

Well, today approximately 9 million (laser) MFPs are put into the market each year and a growing number of those will have a Web services operating environment. A few vendors, such as Xerox, Sharp and Toshiba, are shipping devices with these environments today. But even with that being the case, the main challenges for the ISV community remains that while each of these are Web services based, they still remain different -- and proprietary -- development environments.  The ideal for the ISV community would be a single, “standard” Web services based development environment. Unfortunately, that is not the development landscape available from the MFP vendors today.  What is available are document imaging platforms like eCopy’s, which works on all of the major MFP and scanner brands and provides a single development environment (SDK) from which ISVs and end users can connect to a variety of MFPs.

Today’s second question is about whether MFPs are appropriate for processing back files, and asks, “this can’t really be done on an MFP?”

Agreed, that is not what MFPs are designed to do.  MFPs are great capture environments for low-volume document scanning by office workers.  Back file scanning is task that is best suited for high-speed, high volume scan operations with a dedicated scanning professional. One thing to think about however, is if “one-off” documents enter the organization that would need to be added to an archive. In those cases, the ability to have an office worker scan that document to the archive at a later date using an MFP can be beneficial. So, it is not so much that it can not be done on an MFP, but there are certainly processes that are better suited for other scanning processes.

I’ll be back later this week with some questions around scanning documents into SharePoint.

Bill DeStefanis
Director of Product Management

Document Imaging for Microsoft-Driven Organizations – Webinar Q&A

I co-presented a Webinar on document imaging for Microsoft-driven organizations with Forrester Research last Wednesday afternoon.  A terrific audience of nearly 400 attendees posed a number of questions at the end of the Webinar and I will be posting those questions and answers on the blog this week. If you missed the Webinar last week, you can download a recording here.

The first question I will cover came in from an end user who works for a Credit Union. He asked:

In a distributed capture model, who captures the metadata/index information? How do you best control consistency and accuracy? And, how do you control user/site license costs?

While I hate to start off this week-long Q&A like this, the answer is it depends. A good distributed capture application should be flexible enough to automatically capture metadata information  based on items such as username, date, time, etc., AND present a Windows-like user interface that prompts the user for metadata information. In terms of control and accuracy, this can be addressed by the application designer/administrator through the use of tools such as list boxes, character limitation, mandatory indexing, and other selection fields. In the case of eCopy ShareScan, user selections would be pulled live from the backend application – for example with SharePoint, indexing fields are displayed with options such as content or document type to reflect the same metadata requirements at the MFP that users would see at their desktop. So, if you have trained your users to save electronic documents to a repository, the same process will apply at the MFP.

In terms of controlling user/site license costs, scanning at shared scanning devices like MFPs is typically not charged on a per user basis. When working with a backend application, a users SharePoint CAL is valid at either the user’s desktop and the scanning device, so no additional CAL should be necessary.

A follow-up question to this was also posed:

So, while reducing a centralized scan/capture environment, would we still need a centralized index/quality control-type environment?

Distributed scanning processes are not necessarily designed as a replacement to centralized scanning operations. So, it is very likely that both will be maintained. As far as indexing/QC operations, in an application like eCopy’s those functions are done by the user at the point of capture (preview, indexing, metadata, etc.). However, a distributed capture application can also augment a  centralized capture process, pushing the indexing/QC functions further out to the workforce.

We’ll have more questions on the blog later this week. In the meantime, please feel free to post any questions that you may have about Document Imaging in the comment field below.

Bill DeStefanis

Director of Product Management

Konica Minolta, Danka & Cross Platform Software

On April 8, MFP manufacturer Konica Minolta announced that it intends to acquire Danka, a large office equipment dealer. You can read the press release here. Danka is a well established dealer for Canon MFPs and also represents Toshiba, too.

If the acquisition is completed, Danka customers will likely face the possibility that they will no longer be able to buy Canon MFPs from Danka. In addition, they will need to consider if they want to continue with the same document scanning software. If their current document scanning software works on both Canon and Konica, then the MFP hardware (and the acquisition) won't be an issue. But if the currently-used software doesn't work on Konica and they want to continue with Danka, new document scanning software will be required. And new software means that the users will need to be retrained and any customization or application integration will need to be re-developed.

This is an extreme example of why the industry analyst firm Gartner recommends that their clients select document scanning software that works across MFP platforms. See my earlier post from the Gartner Print and Imaging Summit for more details on what Gartner recommends. Platform agnostic software is required if you want to make sure that you are not locked into a particular brand of MFP.

eCopy Open Document Services

In the April 7 issue of the Document Imaging Report, Editor Ralph Gammon has an informative interview with I.R.I.S. CEO Pierre De Muelenaere. You CAN'T read the article unless you are a subscriber, but you can click on Document Imaging Report to learn more about Gammon's publication.

The article is interesting because it discusses how I.R.I.S. is one of the first to take advantage of eCopy opening its document services layer to corporate developers, ISVs and SIs. According to Gammon, "instead of having to release documents to apply processes such as OCR, in the new services-based paradigm, a third-party OCR could be run within [eCopy] ShareScan. This would produce a full-text searchable document that could then be released through a Connector into a third-party app."

OCR is just one, easy-to-understand example of document services that could be embedded within ShareScan. Just about any document imaging service could be incorported.

The press release describing the new I.R.I.S. document services partnership can be read at I.R.I.S and eCopy Partner. I.R.I.S has created a great page on the Document Imaging Wiki. See I.R.I.S. to learn more about the company. Other ISVs that should consider writing document services modules for eCopy ShareScan include A2IA, Adlib, Atalasoft, Cvision and Accusoft. There are many, many more.

Document Imaging for Microsoft-Driven Orgs – Webinar on April 9

This Wednesday we are co-presenting an AIIM-hosted webinar with Forrester Research analyst Craig Le Clair on the topic of Document Imaging for Microsoft-Driven Environments.  To register for the free Webinar, click here.

The webinar is designed to help companies that have invested in Microsoft software understand how to best integrate paper-based documents into the electronic workflows that are powered by applications such as Microsoft Office, SharePoint, SQL Databases and beyond. Craig will also talk about how companies can leverage both Microsoft technologies and 3rd party applications that tightly integrate with Microsoft to help bridge the information gap between back office operations and the front office, leading to the goal of a highly productive Information Workplace.

Join us on Wednesday at 2:00 EST for this Webinar, followed by an open Q&A with Craig and Bill DeStefanis of eCopy.

AIIM’s State of the ECM Industry Report – Paper Déjà vu

This month, AIIM released its annual State of the ECM Industry Report, which is always a good read and full of good data points collected from AIIM’s survey of end user organizations. Among the many observations in this year’s report, AIIM President John Mancini highlighted a topic that is near and dear to document imaging -- Paper Déjà vu. He says:

There are three dimensions of this problem that we need to help organizations understand. The first is the traditional one – getting rid of paper. The second dimension relates to getting rid of paper from information that was actually born digitally. We have a tendency in the work of blogs and wikis and Enterprise 2.0 technologies to somehow imagine the paper is a thing of the past… And lastly, I think that part of the renaissance of paper concerns in organizations will center around green concerns.

I agree with all three dimensions, but think that a fourth needs to be added to that list: information access. John references this as one of the four major trends in ECM, but in an echo of what I hear from end user organizations, he focuses on electronic information access. For organizations to capitalize on the value that applications like SharePoint and other document tools the reach the desktops of workers across an organization, electronic and paper-based information need to be merged together in these new workflow processes. Providing all employees access to an easy to use document imaging solution can help meet this goal.

MFP Development Platforms – Part 2: Cross-Platform SDKs

The topic of MFP platforms and the SDKs for writing to these platforms is gaining steam. Take a look at Alan Joch’s post today on the Print & Imaging Blog.

In Part 1 of our post on document imaging platforms for MFPs, we talked about some of the considerations that developers should consider when choosing a platform to write to when looking to integrate MFPs with software applications.

The biggest may be cross platform support. Developers should look for a document imaging platform that offers a single SDK that allows the development of a connector or document service that will work across any type or brand of scanning device – whether that is an MFP or a scanner. Even if your environment today only has one brand, taking a cross-platform approach will prevent problems that result from being locked into a specific brand or type of device and allow flexibility in office equipment purchasing decisions down the road. 

There are also other advantages to a cross platform approach:

• A single SDK – eliminates the need to track changes to SDKs from multiple vendors that support different and limited capabilities
• Scanning Services – eliminates the need to learn how different MFPs and scanners scan documents, change scanner settings and handle scanning errors, etc. This is built into a cross-platform document imaging solution
• Administration – you can integrate any connection or document service into a single administration console that can be used for any MFP or scanner in a heterogeneous environment.

Whether you are a corporate developer or software vendor, the emergence of development platforms for MFPs are certainly worth looking into in order to help get paper-based information into software applications.

Making Scanning & Sharing Documents Easier with SharePoint

Microsoft posted a SharePoint customer case study article today on the Microsoft Momentum site. The article features eCopy document imaging software customer Introgen Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company that used SharePoint and eCopy to meet government regulations. The author, Alan Earls, discusses how eCopy duplicates the Microsoft SharePoint user experience at the MFP. To read the article click on Microsoft SharePont document imaging.

EMC & eCopy Webinar on Distributed Capture

On Tuesday, March 18, EMC and eCopy will be co-presenting a Webinar on Distributed Capture. A distributed capture approach is a highly effective way for organizations with multiple locations – across a campus or the world – to quickly and securely share information between remote locations and a central processing site.  This is particularly true for transactional, paper-based content that may need to be processed through advanced document processing software -- such as EMC Captiva – but arrives in a location separate from the central processing site.

Tune into this Webinar on Tuesday to learn how to:

• Leverage the office equipment that you currently use – like MFPs/copiers and scanners – to capture incoming paper documents from multiple locations
• Add intelligence to remote scanning operations – from content capture to classification, extraction, validation and delivery
• Control access to sensitive paper documents by eliminating the need to ship outside the office
• Reduce document processing time from days to seconds

To register, click here.

eCopy Launches The Document Imaging Wiki

The Document Imaging industry encompasses a lot of technology, companies, experts and products – from scanners to MFPs, desktop applications to enterprise-wide software and everything in between. When conducting research about document imaging, information is not always easily accessible or consolidated in one place.

To help solve this problem, eCopy has created and launched the Document Imaging Wiki as a centralized source of information open to anyone who is researching document imaging technologies and trying to learn what would best benefit their work environment. It’s basically a Wikipedia for the Document Imaging industry, including information on industry terms, companies, industry experts and analysts, and sources to find additional information on document imaging.

The Document Imaging Wiki is a public Website and is designed to be updated at any time by individuals with knowledge of the document imaging industry. In addition, people are encouraged to contribute questions to be addressed by the document imaging community in the discussion forums.

For more information on the wiki, you can read the press release. We look forward to seeing your contributions to the site and helping it grow as a resource for the industry.

AIIM Expo - Presentation for Developers

If you are heading to the AIIM Expo next week and are a software developer, systems integrator or corporate developer interested in learning how to add document imaging and capture capabilities to a software application, head to the Application Showcase Theater on the show floor at 11:30 on Tuesday, March 4th. Chip Whitman, director of software alliances for eCopy, will be presenting "Eight Critical Considerations When Extending Your Software to Include Document Imaging." 

Software applications are only as valuable as the information contained within them, and integrating document imaging capabilities to those applications can increase their value by providing an easy way for any office worker to scan paper documents and include information contained in those documents into software applications.

The session will outline the critical factors that need to be considered in a document imaging platform so that the resulting application is not only easy to use and administer but also securely connects to existing business workflows. The session will also highlight the go-to-market considerations for developers as they bring these scanning applications to customers, including:

• How to select the right MFP and scanner platforms for document capture.
• The essential tools a document imaging software development kit must deliver.
• A look at integration issues when connecting document scanning with business software applications.
• Best approaches for building customized solutions to address specific application issues.
• The “must have” document services that should be included in any development platform.

We hope that you can stop by on Tuesday to hear this presentation. And don't forget to look for eCopy in the many booths that the product will be demonstrated in next week!