Document Imaging Blog

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!

eCopy Expands Document Imaging Offerings

Last week, I posted about how corporate and third-party developers should consider writing integrations between MFPs and software applications using an open platform document imaging solution, like eCopy ShareScan. I noted that using an open platform solution to integrate MFPs and business application has significant advantages over proprietary document imaging solutions by allowing companies to easily support their current business environment and needs, as well as changes to that environment and business demands moving forward.

On Wednesday, we made a number of announcements around our product portfolio that expand this message.  The first is a repackaging of our ShareScan and eCopy Desktop product lines, expanding our offering to a wider range of document imaging solutions that meet any requirement – from supporting basic personal productivity needs to powering company-wide business process efficiency initiatives.

The second announcement is the availability of eCopy ShareScan for Xerox MFPs. This expands the availability of eCopy to work with the seven leading MFP brands in the world. With the expanded availability of eCopy products for leading MFP and scanner brands, companies are able to standardize their document imaging process and offer their employees a single, easy-to-use way to integrate paper into their electronic business processes – regardless of the type of scanning device that they are using.

The third announcement is that under an OEM relationship, Canon will embed eCopy ShareScan Essentials software on the Canon ScanFront, a compact, standalone network scanner offering. The availability of ShareScan on network scanners like the Canon ScanFront – a rapidly expanding class of document scanners – as well as any ISIS scanner, gives businesses the option to standardize their document imaging process across whatever scanning device is most appropriate for their business environment.

The final announcement last week is that we have opened up the Document Services layer of ShareScan, allowing developers to integrate document services offerings into ShareScan. Document Services improve the handling, appearance, categorization and management of scanned documents through image services (de-speckle, de-skew, page removal, page separation, etc.) and data publishing (barcode processing, zonal optical character recognition (OCR), forms recognition, automated data extraction, etc.) applications. The availability of these new services helps companies offer advanced document imaging to any office worker.

We’re excited about all of these new offerings and the opportunities that they bring to organizations looking to standardize their document imaging technology. If you have comments or questions, please post a comment below.

Leveraging MFP Investments – Part 1: Development Platforms

Let’s assume that your company’s employees are scanning documents using your MFPs. They appreciate the accessibility and familiarity of using this familiar office device to not only print and copy, but also convert their paper documents into electronic files that they can work with like the rest of their information. There is a good chance, however, that most of the time they are scanning paper documents and either sending them to themselves via e-mail or saving them to a network file location where they then retrieve them.

While this is a good first step, it still leaves a multiple-step process for adding paper into the business applications that run your business – scan, send, search, retrieve and then add to business applications. And, it does not leverage the capabilities made possible by today’s MFPs and document imaging software through their development platforms.

These development platforms make it possible to build integrations between the MFP and business applications so that users can directly access and scan to those applications while at the MFP – saving extra time, steps and increasing document security.  There are two ways to leverage these development platforms, either as a corporate developer, independent software vendor or systems integrator:

• Write the integration directly to the manufacturers’ platform using their SDK
• Write the integration to a document imaging platform that offers support for multiple manufacturers’ platforms, such as eCopy ShareScan

A number of factors can play into which option to go with, but here are three of the biggest reasons to use an open platform environment, like eCopy’s:
1) If your company is using more than one brand of MFP, or if you upgrade devices in stages vs. the entire fleet at a time, you will have to build and update the integrations for each brand and, likely, each time you get a new MFP
2) Multiple integrations require the use of multiple SDKs. You should choose an SDK that uses an industry-standard environment - like MS Visual Studio, and has features that make it easy to use such as a UI forms designer and wizards.
3) The development platform should support the features that you need for your scanning process, including document services such as barcode recognition and image enhancement; identity services; OCR; and cost recovery services.

Integrations between MFPs and business applications are a key component to leveraging investments in both your MFP and the business applications that run your business. Using open platform document imaging software like eCopy ShareScan, these integrations can be easily built to support your current business environment, as well as changes to that environment and business needs moving forward.

AIIM Expo – Connecting Hardware and Software

The annual AIIM Expo is coming up in Boston on March 3-6. Since combining with the Print On Demand show a few years back, the AIIM Expo has really become the premier opportunity to see both the hardware and software vendors that work within the content and information management industry.  On the hardware end, all the major MFP and scanner manufacturers are usually in attendance. And from the software side, everyone from the largest ECM vendors to specialized ISVs is represented.

For those considering document imaging solutions, it’s the perfect show. At the hardware booths, you can talk about what software applications they can connect to as part of a document management or content management solution.  And at the software booths, you can talk about what your options are for ensuring that paper is easily and securely included in those systems. Too many times, organizations look at their hardware purchases and software purchases in silos, not thinking about how they can and should be integrated.

So if you are heading to the AIIM Expo in March and are walking the floor, think about your document workflows and whether there is a way to integrate your organization’s hardware and software systems. And if you are in one of the following booths, be sure to ask them to demonstrate eCopy ShareScan to you.

Hardware Vendors: Canon (#1416); Konica Minolta (#913,916); HP (#1817); Ricoh (#631)

Software Vendors: Artsyl Technologies (#2773); ADOS (Microsoft Pavilion/MP16); ABBYY (#2451); Biscom (#2472); EMC (#2231); I.R.I.S. (#2817); K2 (Microsoft Pavilion /MP16); Questys (#2655); Rochester Software Associates (#625); Sagem-Interstar (#2967); Softlinx (#2364); Equitrac (#947); Laserfiche (#2525); Hyland (#2731); and Westbrook/Fortis (#2243).

Document Imaging and Legal Practice Management

Ross Kodner of Ross Ipsa Loquiter Blog, which incidently is an amazing source of information on legal technology and document management information, yesterday posted live from LegalTech about the opportunities that SharePoint is bringing to legal. To quote him on one of the standout points of the SharePoint proposition:

The emphasis in practice information tracking on the “individual as a member of teams,” rather than the typical practice management focus on the “matters first, team second, individuals third” approach interwoven through contemporary practice management systems. In other words, most practice managers today are matter-centric: it’s all about the matter. What I saw today was definitely matter-centric, but in a different way. The emphasis was on the people who work on the matters first, then matter info secondarily. That’s a considerable application focus shift. Was that the hint of a wiff of a paradigm shifting nearby?

This same emphasis can be applied to document imaging. When you empower individual users to scan their own documents at shared scanning devices and distribute them to the applications (like SharePoint or any traditional practice management or document management system, it is critical that the scanning process be as easy and intuitive as possible. Here's a great example.

The way this happens is to present the same interface at the scanning device (MFP or scanner) that they see at their desktop. When they log into the document imaging software and scan to -- say SharePoint -- they should be presented with the same options as they see when they open the application at their desktop. NOT just a list of folders or matters, but a list of the ones that they use. Dynamic integration between the two applications makes this possible.

When you make it easy to include paper documents into the applications that run your business, you eliminate the delays caused by paper workflows. And, you empower your employees by making their jobs easier -- which, of course, in turn makes for happier, more productive employees.

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