The final post in our series looking at “Reasons why scanning to PDF isn’t enough today” is around search and capture.

#6 – Advanced Searching

With a PDF, you are generally limited to searching across the file name itself at the folder level and once inside the document, just the text itself. So we could perform a search in the network HR folder for a particular candidate (John Doe) and see all of his documents. Once inside his file, we can search for specific text that has been made searchable through the PDF iFilter (similar to OCR or Optical Character Recognition for imaged documents). This iFilter process takes the layer of text and makes it text searchable so we can then locate his SSN or perhaps a W-4.

This is a sufficient method for when we can locate the document by its name or the text within, but what if we wanted to only see a specific document type (say all the W-4s for all employees) or maybe a PDF that was an image and had no text to extract, yet was relevant to the file. Say a map or a picture or perhaps a handwritten note that had relevance to this John Doe file?

With a traditional document or content management system, you have a plethora of options when it comes to search and advanced search capabilities. Not only can you rely on the OCR/iFilter text searches for images full of machined text and your electronic documents, but you can take that one step further.

Each document can have additional metadata assigned to it, with customizable fields or inputs to allow you to get very specific about what the document is and what relevant information can be used to retrieve it. So you could have an HR template with fields for Document Type (Employee Application, W-4, I-9, Performance Evaluation, Insurance, etc), along with Last Name, First Name, SSN, Date Hired, Department, and maybe Employee ID # to keep it simple. With this step alone, we are now able to run a search across these field values and you see how much we can do.

We could search all our employees and only see the files related to Insurance Records, or only see employees hired from 1/1/2012 to 6/30/2012. We could easily jump to an employee and be very precise by using a combination of the two such as the SSN and employee application with it taking us right to John Doe’s employee application in a matter of seconds. We could even leverage the full text with this metadata search and search for his address “123 Main Street” along with his Insurance document type and his employee ID # taking us right to the specific page on his insurance that lists his address which may need to be updated. This page can then be emailed on the fly to our employee to confirm we have the information accurate, again in a matter of seconds.

There are obviously a lot more options I left out in this post, but the main idea is that a content management solution provides a much more advanced way of searching across your information, getting you to what you are looking for much faster than relying on PDFs alone.

#7 – Automated Capture

The final reason in our series is related to how documents are captured. When it comes to scanning paper documents (to PDF), most organizations either use software that came with their scanner OR a preferred low-cost alternative. In many cases, their scanning is more ad-hoc than consistent or structured and it leaves a lot desired in terms of functionality, speed, and time required after the scanned item hits the computer. More specifically, each page scanned is looked at the same way (in its batch) and afterwards things like the location it was placed and the name itself may have to be tweaked for an organization’s liking. Overall, a lot of time is spent before, during, and after the paper documents are scanned.

Most content management solutions today have some sort of automated capture tool either built-in or as an optional add-on. Laserfiche has Quick Fields, Westbrook Fortis has tools built-in, and Kofax is another top of mind, very powerful solution when it comes to capture.

These solutions allow you to set up rules or logic based on a specific document type or process, saving time on the front and back-end. Once setup, documents are simply dropped into the scanner and the technology takes over. In many cases, the document can be recognized (invoice vs purchase order) and based on this alone, different rules are then applied (where it ends up after, how it’s named, what data is extracted or looked at to build out the metadata).

In the case of HR, you could have a process setup around blank page removal whereby you can scan entire packets of employees’ files (separating each employee by a blank page). When it recognizes this blank page, it will create a new document and perhaps then look to the first page of this new packet which may be a cover sheet with employee information like their last name, SSN, or employee ID. This information is used to build out the documents name, folder in the system, or maybe other items, all “auto-magically”.

You can even do things like read a barcode, where you may have a lot more information or a simple value that when pulled, then looks to retrieve information from a database. In this case, a barcode might have an employee ID in it (say 353123 when read), which then looks into your HRIS system and populates that documents template fields with all of the information from the HRIS like last name, first name, DOB, address, etc. All of this information NOT needing to be typed in by your staff, so again time is saved.

Some solutions even have the ability to “learn” in real-time so while you may have a new invoice from a vendor that requires a process to be established, thereafter the technology will recognize that specific document and apply the set of rules you outlined earlier. So if there are 1-100 documents like this a month, it might not be a big deal, but if it was 10,000-100,000 a month you can see how this can be very powerful. And in this era of “big data” we are all in today, tools that can help save time and remove steps from your processes are definitely the way to go.

Read other posts in this series
Reasons #1 and #2 – File Names Don’t Matter & Security
Reason #3 – Network & Web Access
Reason #4 and #5 – Auditing & Records Management
Reason #6 and #7 – Advanced Searching & Automated Capture

Fill out our “Request Information” form to learn more about how we can help your organization today. We work with organizations across the Central Valley of California with offices in Fresno, Sacramento, Santa Ana, and Bakersfield.

We saw this story last night and it just goes to show you how “backed up” organizations are, in both staff but also the proper tools and resources to control their information. It also shows the huge personal impact the lack of technology (in some cases) is having on the lives of many, many people.

While the video goes more into more detail, the paper file backlog at the Veterans Affairs office has left 565,000 veterans waiting for their benefits. Many have conditions ranging from shrapnel wounds to PTSD and have filed claims for disability pay.

The story mentions one veteran who, after 7 months of waiting, had only received a letter mentioning “We’re still processing your application for compensation”

The VA has 4.4 million active records across their 56 regional offices (all paper), with most files being hundreds of pages long. They are all currently processed by hand, while they do intend to switch over to an electronic system by the end of 2015. Why does this have to take 3 years is what I’m wondering?

How many more people will be affected by this, and have to wait for their benefits too, who knows? It’s clear though that the right technology in place could have solved this problem many years ago.

If one company could take credit for pushing the “cloud computing” document management phenomenon, it would be Box. In 2010, they took the document management industry by storm giving companies access to a polished easy-to-use product that had low upfront costs. They are used by over 120,000 businesses worldwide, have native applications for all mobile platforms, and are one of the largest players in the market. Why would you not choose Box to be your document management system?

Well, there are a number of reasons why Box is not meant for everyone. This post is not meant to bash Box as they have a great product for sharing and collaborating on documents securely. As a document management system, however, they fall short in many aspects traditional systems have had for years.

1. Handing of Large Files – If you have ever tried to use a large document with Box’s viewer you will know what I mean, and it cannot handle PDF’s over 35MB. Even with times changing and bandwidth in many places being plentiful, waiting for the viewer to render pages can be painstaking. Most traditional document management systems store images as single pages so you are able to quickly jump from page to page without downloading the entire document.
2. Contextual Searches – While Box provides great searching for OCR text, folders and file names, the ability to easily associate other data with a document is extremely helpful for locating files. Tags can work, but the interface for tags is clunky and non-intuitive. It is possible to come up with complex naming schemes that can house much of the information that makes up a document, but the whole idea of Box is creating an easy to use system where everything just works.
3. Paper Conversion – Box excels in the sharing and collaboration of electronic documents(Microsoft Word, Excel, AutoCAD, etc). However, if you are trying to migrate all of your paper to the cloud, Box offers no easy interface for this. You will need to scan to PDF, name your files something that makes sense and pick a folder. Contrast this to products such as Westbrook’s Fortis or Laserfiche where they have many tools to assist with this process and allow for automated naming and capture using combinations of barcodes/zonal OCR(Optical Character Recognition) as well as database lookups to compare and retrieve additional data about the document you are archiving.
4. Document Editing – Sometimes you will have the need to update an existing PDF. With Box’s interface it would require you download the full PDF, update the file and then re-upload. With most major document management systems, this would be a single copy or cut and paste action resulting in a much more streamlined process.
5. Bandwidth – Although this is related to how Box handles large files, it is still a very real issue for many small to medium businesses that are still on the low-end to mid-tier internet connections. If you have someone uploading a large file, prepare for internet slowdown if your office is running off of DSL or a low-end cable internet connection. While the internet is always getting faster, there are still many rural areas that just do not have faster internet options.

In conclusion, Box is great for online collaboration with your primary use dealing with electronic documents. We use Box and we love it for many tasks. However, if you are looking for a system which can hold your electronic documents, but also excels at the housing of your paper documents you may want to look beyond Box. Companies such as Westbrook Technologies and Laserfiche are industry leaders and have been around for many years. You can house their solutions both onsite and off premise while being fully secured.

If you would like more information on how to choose a document management system that is right for you, please use our Contact Us form.

In business, there are generally 3 levels of ROI (return on investment). Level 1 focuses on cost savings, Level 2 costs and benefits, with Level 3 being the most powerful and focusing on the business case.

As more and more organizations today are looking to “go paperless”, converting their paper documents and records into something easier to manage, there still needs to be a ROI to justify these projects.

Regardless though of the type you are looking for support on, the following video should help as it outlines a simple way to come up with the ROI of a document management / enterprise content management (ECM) implementation. Yes, the title is misleading as you DO have to gather this data based on your current environment and processes, but once you have all this information, the rest is very straightforward.

One tool we have looks at 4 common areas where both hard and soft costs are taken into account. These are the “Pre-Deployment Costs” and the video provides more depth around these items as well as the “Investment Costs” and “Post-Deployment Costs” to come up with our “ROI Calculations”.

1. Labor Costs
How many people are involved? What is their salary? How much time do they spend retrieving, sorting, recreating and faxing information?
2. Storage Costs
Where is information stored? How much do we pay for this (per sq/ft)? Is it onsite or offsite? Do staff ever need to access it? If so, what do we pay them?
3. Copying Costs
How many pages of paper are generated or printed each day? What is that cost (including toner/ink)?
4. Distribution Costs
How many faxes do we send/receive a day? What is the cost to fax a page? How much do we spend on overnight delivery and postage?


Best viewed in 720p resolution and fullscreen mode.


We are available to share more information about the tool we used, and we look forward to any questions you have.

Fill out our “Request Information” form to learn more about how we can help your organization today. We work with organizations across the Central Valley of California with offices in Fresno, Sacramento, Santa Ana, and Bakersfield.

Continuing on with our series of 7 reasons why scanning to PDF alone isn’t enough, let’s continue on with reason #4 and #5, auditing and records management.

#4. Auditing

Today, more than ever, it’s important to be able to not just secure your data but also provide insight on what’s occurring with it.

In the “paper world” documents can be left on someone’s desk, eventually read by someone else, removed, lost, damaged, etc. Many people think that their records are more secure here vs. in an electronic format but that’s not the case. We discussed Security earlier, and with a PDF it’s rather hard to track or audit the activity of your staff or colleagues.

Let’s say we have an HR folder on the network where we store all of our PDF files and items we scanned into the computer. So long as staff have access to this folder, they can access these documents, print them, make changes or delete them (given the right), as well as other activities. Say someone did delete a document in here, it’s hard to later go back and track that activity. It’s difficult to run a report showing who accessed the document, what they did with it, and what their final action with it was.

With a document management solution though, all true/false events can essentially be audited or tracked. For example, we could see not only that Jane Doe logged into the system at 2:57 p.m. on April 23, 2012, but also that once inside she attempted to access the John Smith file, and then tried to save it locally. Or she accessed the file, made changes to a particular field. Or she simply selected the file and deleted it. All of these activities can be tracked so that after the fact, there’s an “e-paper trail” a manager could follow. The organization now has insight into the activity surrounding their digital assets, and a report can even be generated highlighting all of this activity.

As a side note, many document management solutions have Recycle Bins (similar to Windows) where if an item is deleted, it’ll end up here. So while Jane Doe may delete a file in the example above, it won’t be permanently deleted and a manager may have access to the Recycle Bin to restore it or see what has been deleted by staff.

#5. Records Management

Another large reason why scanning to PDF today is not enough is records management (RM). Today records management is a phrase spoken and heard by many, and organizations of different sizes are becoming more and more aware of the need for a proper RM strategy to be in place.

Our rule of thumb is that you want to hang onto records long enough to where they are still seen as an asset, but not too long to where they are a liability.

For example, in California after an employee is let go, the employer is responsible to hang on to their respective application and related files for 7 years. Once this retention period is up and the document has met the end of its life cycle, it could technically be purged or destroyed.

In the physical realm, this is generally managed by boxes labeled by year and stored away in your warehouse or perhaps filing room. Unless an organization has a dedicated records manager, they simply follow a process of moving the records offsite for destruction at the beginning of the calendar year when those documents are now eligible for disposition. This is an ideal scenario, while many organizations keep records for much longer than they need to. Some take the approach of storing them forever or in perpetuity while this might not be required.

With PDFs, there really is no good way to handle this outside of doing something similar electronically. In other words, you could create a folder structure in Windows based on year or retention type, although staff won’t see this as helpful and it’ll be tough to access specific records. Those in HR don’t necessarily care about record types and retention, and would prefer to navigate to an employee’s folder and see all of their records in one location, more of an employee-centric view.

With a document/records management software solution, this is now much easier to manage. As records are brought into the solution, their retention schedules can automatically be assigned with staff spending very little time on this step. So the employee files may have a 7 year retention schedule assigned as an example. After that period of time, the solution won’t ever automatically purge or delete them as this would be a risk, and it wouldn’t be helpful. Instead, a records manager or staff member can run a report or search in this system and return all the records that ARE eligible for disposition. Say this report or search brings back 2,000 results, it’s very likely then that these results have reached the end of their life cycle and can be destroyed properly.

As a side note, the highest level of records management certification a software solution today can receive is DoD 5015.2. DoD 5015.2 is the de-facto software standard which provides implementation and procedural guidance on the management of records in the DoD. It establishes requirements for managing classified records, and includes requirements to support the Freedom of Information Act, Privacy Act, and interoperability.

So not only can we track or audit more activity with a document/records management solution compared to just scanning to PDF alone, but we also have more control over how our records are dealt with and can remain in compliance easier.

Read other posts in this series
Reasons #1 and #2 – File Names Don’t Matter & Security
Reason #3 – Network & Web Access
Reason #4 and #5 – Auditing & Records Management
Reason #6 and #7 – Advanced Searching & Automated Capture

Fill out our “Request Information” form to learn more about how we can help your organization today. We work with organizations across the Central Valley of California with offices in Fresno, Sacramento, Santa Ana, and Bakersfield.

Continuing on with our series of 7 reasons why scanning to PDF alone isn’t enough today (where we previously mentioned File Names Don’t Matter and Security), let’s continue on with reason #3.

#3. Network & Web Access

If we look at a PDF, generally the best way for us to share this with staff is through our network of Windows folders. Staff can navigate to a particular drive and then access the respective documents or records (for example, Jane will head to E:/Human Resources/Employee Files). While this is good in practice, it has limitations as there will be times when Jane may need to access something but it resides in a folder she hasn’t been given permission to access. Yes it could be that she’s not supposed to see that respective folder, but many times it’s simply that it hasn’t been done yet OR the documents reside in someone’s local folder. How is Jane able to access a related HR record if it’s on John’s desktop?

So with PDFs we really only have one way of sharing these documents amongst staff (Windows folders) and yes the occasional emailing of them which is more of a reactive approach as it involves too many steps. Compared to Jane going straight to the source and retrieving it herself, she has to contact John who then has to perform a search, and then create an email, attach the files, and send to Jane.

For people outside the organization, it’s even more cumbersome as the process of putting PDFs on your website is always a manual push. In other words, you may want to share board minutes or agendas or particular forms for people to download and access, but you always have to upload or point to a static file. If that file is ever revised, or a new document needs to be uploaded for consumption (say minutes), there’s no simple way to do this without updating that particular page of your website with a new link to that then uploaded PDF document. So for both the public and your own staff, PDFs have limitations on HOW you distribute them and more importantly the steps it takes to retrieve them.

With a dedicated document management solution though, you have a variety of ways to make that information available to both staff and those outside the organization. Number one is that you will be providing a centralized repository to all staff (and even the public if you wanted) where all your content will reside. These applications will serve as the foundation and provide a single source or location for staff to go to when they need to pull information up. Gone will be the information silos, the multiple applications each housing their own respective data (documents & records), and staff will then have a shared service they can all use simultaneously and to access their content.

If it becomes a policy that staff are not to store HR records or related documents locally on their computers, but rather in the document management solution than you will always have a single location to go to with the ability to still provide granular security as we mentioned earlier. So to confirm, Jane Doe could access the solution, login with her username and password, and possibly see just the HR records. John Doe on the other hand will login with his username and password, and also see the Engineering folder, the Accounting folder, etc. A big benefit here is that both didn’t have to ask themselves “What system did I save that record to?” or “Where did Jane/John store the X or Y records that were scanned?”

In addition to simple access through a desktop client, many solutions today offer both web accessibility and even mobile access. So leveraging the same back-end solution where all your content already resides, you can then also add on tools to web-enable the applications. Staff are then able to access documents and records wherever they are in the world really, so long as they have internet access. Most are browser-independent so whatever web browser staff are comfortable using will be just fine, but they are able to search and retrieve records, provide indexing, annotate documents, print, email, and even scan new documents in an ad-hoc fashion.

Mobile solutions allow them to be able to use their iOS devices (iPhone, iPad), as well as Android devices, and pull up any document. They can do almost anything they would in the web-based client on their smartphone, including the ability to use the devices camera as a capture tool while adjusting for the curvature of an image, possibly OCRing (optical character recognition) the document, and sending it directly to the centralized repository for others to access. So you could be out in the field, have a need to capture a specific page or form, capture it with your devices camera and it would then end up in your application for staff at your home office to access, all in real time.

You can see how there are far more benefits to having a dedicated document and/or records management solution compared to just scanning to PDF alone (relying on just storing the content in a network or local Windows folder). We will visit auditing and records management differences in the next post of this series.

Read other posts in this series
Reasons #1 and #2 – File Names Don’t Matter & Security
Reason #3 – Network & Web Access
Reason #4 and #5 – Auditing & Records Management
Reason #6 and #7 – Advanced Searching & Automated Capture

Fill out our “Request Information” form to learn more about how we can help your organization today. We work with organizations across the Central Valley of California with offices in Fresno, Sacramento, Santa Ana, and Bakersfield.

Westbrook Technologies recently released Fortis 2.5 Service Pack 4. We recommend that you apply it in order to stay current and take advantage of feature enhancements.

Service Pack 4 includes updates to Fortis for Kofax Capture to support Kofax Capture 10 as well as additional usability improvements.

Here is a brief summary of what Service Pack 4 includes:

• Improved versioning features including minor versions, and the ability to check-in a version of a document as a new document.

• Nested Pick Lists for improved standardization of data entry.

• Support for Windows 2008 R2, a 64-bit only operating system release from Microsoft®

NOTE: It is not necessary to run a Fortis workstation setup after installing Fortis 2.5 Service Pack 4 as long as a workstation setup was run after the installation of Fortis 2.5.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding Service Pack 4, or would like to schedule an install do not hesitate to contact our support team.

Whether in Fresno or Sacramento, everyday we seem to come across organizations who say exactly the above, “But I’m scanning to PDF already John-Paul…” They wonder what would be different with the solutions we recommend, and are curious how other clients are benefiting compared to the simple approach they’ve been taking.

This article will explore 7 unique reasons why scanning to PDF should not be your end goal. Don’t get us wrong, it’s a great place to start but there are quite a few limitations with this approach compared to using a dedicated document or content management solution (like Laserfiche or Fortis). We will share each item below with a focus towards HR to provide context.

#1. File Names Don’t Matter

With a simple PDF, you are limited by the name of the file in terms of providing context (what it actually is). However, with most document management systems, you have the ability to provide a template or set of metadata for a document. Here you can provide other context like “First Name”, “Last Name”, “SSN”, “Date Hired”, etc. if it’s a personnel file as an example.

We recommend populating whatever fields in this template would make sense from a retrieval standpoint. In other words, you don’t want to get super detailed but it’d be helpful to have some of the most common information indexed. At this point, the documents name becomes irrelevant as we can see at a glance the Last Name, First Name, SSN, Doc Type, etc.

With a PDF you are limited to a combination of characters and this cannot exceed 255 in Windows. While this might be a good approach for a single set of documents within a single department (say employee files within HR), when you branch out from here the system can collapse and you end up with a lack of standardization. New employees will come in and ask “Why did the person before me set this up this way, it makes no sense” or “How can I replicate this across XYZ documents now?”.

#2. Security

Security with a PDF is based on basic user security whereby John Doe has access to the following set of folders on the network and he can access all documents within those folders. Generally each document is treated the same as the others (in terms of what you can do with it once inside these folders) and if a document is incorrectly placed in the wrong location, it’s now possibly able to be accessed. You could encrypt PDFs and sometimes require a password, but this is an unnecessary step that will become a nuisance after a while (both for those accessing the documents and those having to secure them).

Document management solutions on the other hand provide a very granular approach to security. First and foremost, staff are required to login to the application with a username and password or they can just pass their Windows login credentials to the application if this is more convenient. This is the first step of security, and this alone dictates what type of access to documents the system will display. John Doe may be in HR and only be allowed to see the HR documents while his manager Jane Smith may be able to also see the Fiscal and Legal documents.

So not only can security be at the folder level, but once inside the respective folders, staff may have limited access rights or actions they can perform. Some may only have read only access, while others may be able to scan or edit documents. Perhaps you don’t want some staff to be able to see SSNs, so you could annotate or redact this sensitive information but still have a user with the ability to “See through redactions” while a lower level user might not have this ability. In this case, they will just see white or black redactions in those locations. You can even go so far as to give people the ability to view but not print information and really maintain control over your content and how it’s accessed.

Read other posts in this series
Reasons #1 and #2 – File Names Don’t Matter & Security
Reason #3 – Network & Web Access
Reason #4 and #5 – Auditing & Records Management
Reason #6 and #7 – Advanced Searching & Automated Capture

Fill out our “Request Information” form to learn more about how we can help your organization today.

Are you running an ancient version of Westbrook File Magic that severely needs upgrading?

Do you want to get the latest and greatest technology for managing your documents?

Do you want to have to have someone to call when things break?

Do you want an easy and cost effective transition to Fortis?

If so, contact us now for a free consultation to revitalize your old investment.

Westbrook Technologies is pleased to announce that FortisBlue 1.5 is now available. The 1.5 release includes the FortisBlue Drive, a virtual hard drive that provides integration with Microsoft® Office and most other business software. The release offers a FortisBlue SharePoint® Connector which is available at no charge for a limited time. Use the SharePoint Connector to access FortisBlue from SharePoint and view files with the FortisBlue viewer. Documents can be moved and copied between the two repositories.

As a part of the 1.5 release, the feature set of FortisBlue Workflow supports more complex workflows and is no longer a component of the core product. It is purchased separately. Customers who purchased FortisBlue prior to this release will continue to receive software upgrades to FortisBlue Workflow at no charge.

Other optional modules available with the 1.5 release are: FortisBlue Database Lookup and Update which enables users to extract data from Access, SQL and Oracle and other databases to update FortisBlue index data; and a connector for PlanetPress variable printing software.
FortisBlue 1.5 also offers a number of additional quality improvements to make your work lives easier.

Other new features in FortisBlue 1.5 include:

• Related documents feature that enables mapping of related fields to link documents that are involved in one business process
• Redesign of the FortisBlue Audit Log that includes the ability to audit using the
  document ID
• Ability to import XML data
• Free connector for scanning from Ricoh® Multifunction Devices that can be downloaded separately

For more information about FortisBlue and how it can improve office workflow contact us today.