Document Imaging Blog

Automating Document-Centric Processes with SharePoint

We’re excited to be sponsoring tomorrow’s AIIM Webinar, "Automating Document-Centric Processes with SharePoint” and presenting with Mauro Cardarelli, author of Essential SharePoint 2007: Delivering High Impact Collaboration. I’ve had a sneak peak into the content of the Webinar, and it promises to be full of practical advice for those looking to automate common paper-based processes.

One of the interesting pieces of information that Mauro will share is the difference between “automation” and “invention” in terms of business processes, which is more appropriate for paper-based processes, and what processes are good candidates for SharePoint.  In addition, eCopy’s Greg Gies will be sharing advice on the best practice approaches for integrating paper-based content into SharePoint using document imaging.

We hope you can join us for this Webinar. You can register here.

SharePoint and Document Imaging: Five Considerations

If you have -- or are planning to deploy -- SharePoint in your organization and are looking for a way to add paper-based information to the system (and why wouldn’t you!), here are five considerations to take into account when choosing a document imaging solution.

Consideration #1 – Paper connectivity should not require major IT involvement.
In many organizations, SharePoint projects are departmentalized and are outside of the domain of IT. In fact, according to AIIM’s 2008 State of the ECM Industry, only 42% of SharePoint projects have a formal plan that involved IT. Therefore, your capture integration with SharePoint should be virtually “plug and play” and should not require any modifications to the SharePoint server.

Consideration #2 – Are SharePoint project teams outside your firewall?
Do any of your SharePoint applications include non-employees, suppliers, outside counsel, consultants, customers, etc.? Do these individuals need to be able to access paper-based content within SharePoint?

Consideration #3 – Are hosted SharePoint services in your future?
Will your document imaging solution support a hosted environment?  Also consider image size of scanned documents. What file types are needed and supported? How is image compression handled? And ensure that encrypted transmission is supported.

Consideration #4 – Is real-time integration with SharePoint supported?
Does the capture solution recognize changes on the SharePoint site, such as updated or deleted folders and libraries? Does the document imaging solution provide an immediate confirmation of a successful scanning job? Does it support authenticated access to prevent information from being stored to unauthorized locations?

Consideration #5 – Is the document imaging application flexible and does it support multiple workflows?
Especially when scanning unstructured content (which makes up a large portion of content stored in SharePoint), the imaging application should allow the office worker scanning a document to browse destinations for the document within SharePoint, just like they were using their Web browser at their desk.  The application should also allow for pre-configured “QuickScan” jobs too, for easy execution of repetitive workflows. In addition, all SharePoint content types should also be supported so that paper content can be properly turned into electronic files.

What other considerations have you come up with when considering document imaging solutions for SharePoint?

If you would like more information on how to use SharePoint to help manage document-centric processes and how to include paper-based information into SharePoint, join us next Wednesday for the AIIM Webinar on the topic. Register for this free event here.

Deliver Fast ROI via Document Imaging

With the end of the year approaching and a weakening economic forecast, there is a lot of talk right now about the IT forecasts for the coming year. A recent AIIM survey of end users found that 42% or organizations see hard dollar ROI as "more" or "much more" important than 12 months ago. On a positive note, the same survey showed that only 27% of organizations expect IT spending to decrease.

I’m certainly biased, but this news is encouraging for the document imaging space. Why? It is a technology that delivers fast, demonstratable ROI in a number of ways. Just a few examples:

1. Cuts operating costs – hard dollars are recovered by lowering the costs of resources, materials, courier and fax charges, and storage related to paper processes
2. Increases worker efficiencies – replacing manual, labor-intensive and error-prone paper-based processes with electronic workflows allows you to get more value from your existing employees, reducing the need for expanding your workforce
3. Leverage your IT systems – businesses aren’t fully benefiting from software investments because information/data that exists in paper form isn’t being processed as quickly or securely as the information that resides in those systems.

As these examples show, document imaging ROI is typically process-oriented. But BPM and other process automation methods and technologies are at risk of being put on hold due to tightened budgets and a track record of taking a long time to implement and even longer time to demonstrate ROI. Maybe this year is not the time to undertake a corporate-wide BPM project. But it is definitely the year to look at eliminating paper from typical business processes such as invoice processing, expense reporting, purchase orders, employee on-boarding, recruitment, contract management, loan processing and so on. More examples are available here.

If you can demonstrate immediate ROI by using document imaging to improve business processes by integrating paper into electronic workflows this year, it will go a long way towards a successful business process management initiative in the future.