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.

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

“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.

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.

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.

School Pays for Student Laptops via the Paperless Office

The UK national newspaper The Guardian posted an article today in its education section about a high school that helped pay for its students' laptops by implementing a paperless office strategy through MFP document imaging. The savings came from eliminating the cost of distributing paper documents. The article can be read by clicking here. You know that when a national, daily newspaper starts writing about MFP document imaging, the topic is beginning to be popular.

Platforms power the future of MFPs (Part 1)

It’s interesting to think sometimes about the evolution of the copier. It wasn’t too long ago that the copier was just that – a single function copy machine. It wasn’t even connected to the network. Today, the copier has morphed into the multifunction peripheral (MFP) – offering copying, printing, scanning and faxing. And now, two technology advances by the MFP manufacturers are pointing towards the device becoming more input-centric than output-centric -- a far cry from its roots.

On the hardware side, vendors are making control panels larger and easier to use, as well as adding full size, external keyboards to the MFPs. And on the software side, there have been a number of advances in MFP device platforms, such as: Canon MEAP; Xerox EIP; Ricoh ESA; Konica Minolta Open API; and Sharp OSA among others. These platforms allow for 3rd party software applications to be built to run on the MFP, using the MFP’s interface to display the application.

These advances are essentially making MFPs act as computers – enabling two-way interaction with business applications and a user experience at the capture device that is very similar to what they have at their desktop. And it is the delivery of a quality user experience through development on that platform -- providing functionality such as the ability to scan and distribute paper documents into existing business workflows -- that will continue to drive the evolution, adoption, and value of the MFP.

As mentioned earlier, the common trait of both of these advances is that the biggest value they bring to the end user is related to input of information. Of course, there will continue to be value in output-related applications for MFPs. But the future of the MFP is both an on-ramp AND an off-ramp for paper.

Look for more about platforms for document scanning later this week...