Document Processing
The Digital Company – How to move from analog to digital processes with UDOCX?
If you “google” for the digital company you will come across different articles and definitions. “Going digital” can be understood as communicating digitally i.e. by using social media like Twitter, Facebook but “going digital” is understood differently by us – and not only by us.
Companies “going digital” is more than just using digital communication technologies; it includes digitizing working processes and information processing such as document distribution, archiving and sharing/collaboration. In the last decade, researchers at MIT and Gartner have defined 7 pillars that characterize highly productive companies by turning them into ‘digital organizations’. Their basic conclusion is that “going digital” means becoming more productive.
Introduction to the first pillar: “Move from analog to digital processes”
One of the first steps of becoming a more productive and digital organization is to transform analog business processes into digital processes.
How do you do that?
Standardizing your IT infrastructure is nothing we can help you with (except when it comes to fax) but when it comes to getting your documents digitized we certainly can – you don’t even have to standardize your fleet of multifunctional printers, scanners or copiers.
What do you need?
UDOCX is a (cloud based) document capturing and processing solution that integrates multifunctionals seamlessly with SharePoint to help organizations worldwide to digitize all of their documents in a structured and secure way. Documents that are captured with UDOCX are enriched with keywords, meta-tagging and OCR, ready for storage or archiving in PDF/A or for further workflow processing or data retrieval/mining.
We will explain more about document digitization (document enrichment?, what are keywords? what is meta tagging? What does OCR do? What is PDF/A) and its added value for digital companies in our next articles. If you already have questions concerning SharePoint, document enrichment (meta tagging, OCR, keywords), PDF/A or anything around document digitization with UDOCX do not hesitate to leave a comment or mail us directly info@udocx.com.
The digital company
First of all my apologies for not posting any new articles the last two weeks but I have been on a well-deserved holiday 
.
The UDOCX team nevertheless did not rest and has been very busy developing the product and talking with different customers, clients, alliances and associations in order to understand further needs and demands when it comes to digitizing documents.
UDOCX is not only about scanning documents to SharePoint but also helps organizations to digitize documents companywide in a structured way for further processing, workflow, archiving, collaboration and retrieval. In order to explain the UDOCX positioning within the digital company I would like to take some steps backwards and take a closer look at digitization of documents and the digital company in general.
If you already understand the importance and the opportunities of the digital organization, the benefits of UDOCX are quite clear.
In one of our recent sales meeting we were given a presentation about the seven pillars of the digital company, described in 2005 by MIT’s Center for Business. [i]
Seven Pillars of the Digital Organization:
UDOCX is part of the first three important “pillars” of the digital organization and supports the remaining four. In our next article I will explain the first pillar: How to move from analog to digital processes with UDOCX?
Keep checking our blog the next days … or go to UDOCX Scan to SharePoint for more product information.
Financial Services and digitizing documents
Financial Services are digitizing all of their documents in order to stay competitive, control costs, improve their services and stay compliant. UDOCX digitizes all paper documents from any multifunctional device helping financial services to streamline and improve their electronic document processing.
Organizations in the financial sector like banks, investment services and mortgage companies are currently facing the effects of the worldwide economic crises on the one hand and the effects of global commerce and competition on the other. In order to stay competitive, increase their service levels and reduce costs, financial organizations are consolidating their IT infrastructures, streamlining business processes and deploying new technologies. Furthermore, those organizations need to stay compliant with industry regulations and laws which require indexing and archiving documents and records securely and efficiently.
Document management systems like Microsoft SharePoint have become more and more crucial for financial organizations in order to comply with regulations, reduce costs and to improve customer service. Electronic documents are now archived, routed into automated workflows and securely shared with third parties, facilitating both communication and collaboration.
Even with the financial sector seeking the paperless office, physical documents are not yet fully integrated into digital workflows or electronically archived as scanning processes are still inefficient, time consuming and prone to error.
UDOCX Scan-to-SharePoint is a convenient and low priced document processing solution for any all-on-one multifunctional peripheral/device (MFP/MFD). UDOCX digitizes all paper documents by capturing, enriching them with optical character recognition and metadata, and accurately storing them into SharePoint for further processing, workflow, and archiving. The UDOCX authentication system ensures restricted access to important information and UDOCX logging/tracking ensures accountability. Using document management systems like SharePoint to their fullest potential is crucial for any financial organization in order to stay competitive, compliant and efficient.
10 reasons for digitizing all your documents with UDOCX and SharePoint
1. Better, quicker, and easier Online Collaboration and Communication
Employees use SharePoint to share all kinds of documents efficiently and effectively across teams, departments, and large organizations easily and reliably, whether they are within the same location, at remote locations, across the country or around the world. [i]
Digitizing paper documents with UDOCX allows employees to quickly scan paper documents to SharePoint for sharing, further processing, workflow, or archiving them immediately.
Collaboration and communication becomes even better, quicker and easier.
2. Easier Access to All documents
Companies still receive a lot of business-critical documents by post, couriers or fax. Even when SharePoint is already used to store and manage electronic documents, paper documents are often not integrated into digital workflows or electronic archives as the scanning process is often inefficient, prone to error and time consuming. Scanning documents directly into SharePoint is easy with UDOCX and the resulting PDF files are complete with optical character recognition and metadata, making it possible to access, search and retrieve the information easier and faster.
3. Increased Productivity and Efficiency
Time spent scanning documents into SharePoint and time spent for manually searching documents through offline file folders is almost eliminated. Integrating multifunctional peripherals (all-in-one scan/copy/print devices) with SharePoint through UDOCX streamlines these processes and allows your employees to work more efficiently and be more productive. Leveraging SharePoint’s workflow capabilities allows these digitized documents to initiate business processes automatically, further improving efficiency.
4. Authentication, security and compliancy
UDOCX offers support for domain-level authentication and security requiring employees or other users to provide either their full credentials or login name/PIN code to access the service. All SharePoint access via UDOCX utilizes these credentials, thus ensuring that the end-users have the same functional access from the multifunctional device as they would from their desktop.
5. Reduce Costs
Scanning paper documents directly to SharePoint using UDOCX makes documents immediately available for further sharing or archiving. Documents do not need to be copied, printed or redistributed via post or fax and offline storage is no longer required. Staff workers can simply provide a SharePoint link to colleagues, teams, departments or third parties (if they have the rights to enter the SharePoint environment) and SharePoint itself becomes the archival storage system. Paper, toner, courier and storage costs also decrease dramatically.
6. ALL Documents Become Retrievable and Accessible From Anywhere
Microsoft SharePoint allows mobile workers as well as other employees to access documents while working from home or on a business trip away from the office.
UDOCX allows employees to not only scan documents from any multifunctional device directly into SharePoint but also access any document stored in SharePoint from the multifunctional and retrieve (print) it directly from there. Document management, both inbound and outbound, is possible from any location.
7. Saves Money Both Directly and Indirectly
I will quote a blog here as it sums it up with a great example:
Let’s say you have a relatively paper-intensive business that goes through a lot of paper and does a lot of filing each day – a law firm for example. If an employee spends one hour per day filing papers, searching for files and simply walking back and forth from the records room, that would equate to approximately 250 hours per year (assuming a 5 day work week). If that employee is making $20/hr, that’s $5,000 per year spent on simple paper filing tasks that could be eliminated by going digital. [ii]
UDOCX Scan to SharePoint saves you money
8. Better Service
As paper documents get digitized and “pushed” directly into SharePoint, ALL documents can be processed (digitized, accessed and retrieved) anywhere. Purchase orders, invoices, credit forms, etc., can be processed quickly and efficiently. Invoices get paid faster resulting in better service towards customers, clients, suppliers and colleagues.
9. Faster Cash Flow
As already mentioned in point 8, orders and reclamations can be processed quicker, invoices get paid faster; all money-related processes that are mostly handled with paper are improved.
10. Faster ROI on your SharePoint and MFP investments
Microsoft SharePoint can only reach its full potential when all business documents are assigned to digital workflows and/or securely archived in digital form. Most MFP devices are only used as “dumb” copiers or printers and are never deployed in ways that allow them to reach their full potential. The UDOCX service allows you to maximize your ROI for both SharePoint and your multifunctional devices, allowing these normally disparate solutions to complement each other and maximize their effectiveness in your organization.
Document Management
I was reading an interesting article the other day about “document management” and how it is defined differently depending on the technical background of the individual referring to it.
I have found the following definition on the web:
“Document management is the process of handling documents in such a way that information can be created, shared, organized and stored efficiently and appropriately. For many businesses, the focus of document management is on the organization and storage of documents. They want to be able to store documents in an organized and secure way that still allows documents to be found easily.” [i]
In my opinion, the ongoing quest for the paperless office must expand the definition of “Document Management” to include the words “electronic” and “digitized”.
Document management should be the process of handling ALL kinds of documents in such a way that information can be created, shared, organized and stored efficiently, appropriately and electronically. Organizations should be able to store electronic documents in an organized and secure way that allows digitized documents to be found easily.
Thus, organizations must implement a document management system (like SharePoint) while also employing technology to digitize physical documents accurately and efficiently.
General advantages of document management systems:
We designed UDOCX to be a fast, structured and SIMPLE way to get paper documents from any multifunctional printer/scanner or copier, enrich them with optical character recognition and metadata, and accurately store them into SharePoint (or SharePoint Online) for further processing, workflow, or archiving.
UDOCX is a cloud solution and not a piece of software to install so it can be rolled out within days to an entire organization with a multi branded copier/scanner fleet without additional licensing, maintenance or support costs.
Watch our video or try it yourself and sign up for UDOCX for your MFP fleet as well.
Print-from-SharePoint
I realize that we have been focusing a lot on UDOCX and its Scan-to-SharePoint applications. Although we have mentioned our UDOCX Print Anywhere™ feature we have not gone into any great detail about it. Today we’ll describe how you can print any document stored within SharePoint (including SharePoint Online) directly from the MFP while maintaining full data control and security.
Here is a short summary of how our Print Anywhere™ is used:
Log into the MFP via the touchscreen display.
Print-from-SharePoint
The Print-from-SharePoint feature allows you to browse through your SharePoint libraries and immediately print stored documents. UDOCX respects all SharePoint authentication and user access rights, mirroring the same information that would be available from the user’s workstation – no more and no less.
UDOCX supports over three-hundred attachment file types!
UDOCX administrators may also add one or more custom functions to the UDOCX display on a per MFP or per department basis, improving the efficiency of tasks that are common to a subset of users. Documents are printed securely while the user is standing at the MFP, eliminating the potential for sensitive documents to be forgotten in the tray or getting mixed in with other print jobs and go missing. This is especially critical with human resources data and financial information.
Benefits
Contact us for more information.
Here is a short summary of how our Print Anywhere™ is used: Log into the MFP via the touchscreen display.
UDOCX and SharePoint On-Premise
We have been talking mostly about UDOCX and its ability to integrate multifunctional devices from companies like Ricoh and Xerox (Canon and Sharp soon to come) with Microsoft services including Office 365 and SharePoint Online.
People often ask us if you can still use UDOCX even if you haven’t migrated to a cloud-based infrastructure and are still using a traditional, on-premise installation of SharePoint. The answer is YES!
You can scan documents directly from your multifunctional scan/copy/print devices to on-premise SharePoint document libraries. We even support hybrid environments where some SharePoint destinations are local and some are cloud based. To read more about configuring UDOCX for hybrid environments, click here.
How?
Your UDOCX-enabled multifunctional devices communicate through the UDOCX cloud service to either SharePoint Online or a local, on-premise installation of SharePoint. Your employees may access your on-premise SharePoint services even when they are traveling or telecommuting. Because UDOCX connects to SharePoint using the credentials of the currently logged in user, all of the same connectivity rights are available to the UDOCX service during that session.
The location of the SharePoint server, in the office or in the cloud, is completely transparent to the end user, therefore if you can access your SharePoint services over the Internet, so can UDOCX. This also helps to explain why UDOCX does not require any on-premise hardware or software. UDOCX is a completely cloud-based Internet service.
Is it secure?
UDOCX uses the same domain-level authentication and security that you’re already using on a daily basis in your organization. Setting up UDOCX requires absolutely no security changes to your existing environment and it completely adheres to SharePoint’s (formidable) security protocols.
This ensures that all configurations are 100% compliant with any security policies that your organization may already have in place. UDOCX never grants a user more or less SharePoint access than they would normally have from their workstation.
In a nutshell, UDOCX is a cloud-based service that leverages the latent technology inherent in today’s multifunctional copy/scan/print devices to provide seamless Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange integration, both on-premise and in the cloud.
Any questions? Ask us!
Thanks Mark
Scan-to-SharePoint Apps in practice
In our last articles we discussed the new Scan-to-SharePoint apps and recent changes to the UDOCX admin portal. However, we did not go into detail about how our customers are using SharePoint applications in practice.
Today I want to describe how some of our clients are using the Scan-to-SharePoint app and how it can be used to streamline your business workflows.
Case 1: Our own Finance department
Our company not only builds cloud solutions but also develops fax and mobile messaging software. As such, we receive a lot of faxes – mostly maintenance and support agreements from our Fenestrae Communication Server and Fenestrae Faxination Server customers.
Previously our finance department would store these documents manually, one by one, into a “Maintenance and Support” document library within SharePoint. Now they have a custom “Maintenance and Support” button on the UDOCX screen of their departmental MFP. This Scan App has been customized through our UDOCX admin portal to meet the specific needs of the finance department and is unique to their MFP within the organization. Now they simply place the document on the scanner, press the Scan App button, and enter the contract name and renewal date on the touchscreen display. The document is immediately scanned, OCR’d, and saved as a PDF in the “Maintenance and Support” document library with a descriptive file name and meta data. This not only saves time but also improves accuracy and ensures that the document is properly stored and indexed by SharePoint, allowing it to be easily located at any time with a simple SharePoint search. No more important contracts disappearing into the void.
Case 2
One of our UDOCX clients trades in lumber. They have two locations; one for sales and account management and the other for finance and distribution.
Orders are first processed at the sales/account management location where they are printed out and approved. From there they are faxed twice – once to finance and once to distribution. Because these procedures do not always run in parallel, finance would often get their faxes before distribution causing customers to get payment reminders before they had received their product. This and other embarrassments were the result of poor business workflow design and processes that invited human error.
After reorganization in 2011 they identified the weaknesses in their workflows and procedures and began to research solutions that would help them meet their efficiency goals. Eventually they moved to Office 365 with SharePoint Online and soon after added UDOCX services to their existing MFPs. Scan apps customized for each department route documents to predetermined SharePoint document libraries where automated triggers alert employees via workflow rules. SharePoint manages all of the documents and workflow and UDOCX is the icing on the cake!
I will give you more user cases when I’m back from holiday (one week).
Scanning and OCR
We had a short conference call this morning with our sales department about the new and extended Scan-to-SharePoint application. It was intended to be a 100% technical meeting regarding the Scan-to-SharePoint configuration in the admin portal, what administrators can do with it and how the scan settings can affect a single MFP or an entire fleet. We came to the PowerPoint slide where the extended OCR features were explained. I think we all know what the acronym OCR stands for, but just to be safe: Optical Character recognition.
Let’s ask Wikipedia as usual
“Optical character recognition, usually abbreviated to OCR, is the mechanical or electronic translation of scanned images of handwritten, typewritten or printed text into machine-encoded text. It is widely used to convert books and documents into electronic files, to computerize a record-keeping system in an office, or to publish the text on a website.”
But what can you do with OCR?
Why would you want your scanned documents to be OCR’d and why do we offer OCR?
Well, I will try to explain it with my own words. It is handy, efficient and secure.
OCR is handy and efficient
When you scan a document with an MFP the device creates a PDF with pictures of the pages of your document, like using your digital camera to take pictures of the pages in a book. Although you can still read it, you can no longer index or easily reference or modify the data. This may be sufficient if you only need to create a “dumb” archive or backup. Now imagine a scenario where you are tasked with locating a scanned document that has been mixed in with hundreds or even thousands of other documents. You try to do a search using Windows but it comes back empty – there was no text within the PDF for Windows to index. Maybe you know the date that it was scanned. That might get you close. What’s left? You have to open each and every PDF manually, one at a time, looking for just the right document. Maybe you were planning to skip lunch today anyway.
However, if your document gets OCR’d during the scanning process the actual text of the document is electronically “read” and stored along with the pictures within the PDF. Windows can now index the data and the search functions will work. You can select and copy actual text data from the PDF and paste it into other applications. Some document management systems can even sort and initiate workflows based on text. Imagine scanning a purchase order from a customer and having it automatically routed to their account manager.
My colleagues from the accounting find OCR very handy because it allows them to work much more efficiently, saving the company both time and money.
OCR is secure
Well, I have to admit that I wasn’t aware of this before today. OCR helps to protect companies.
How?
People within an organization use multifunctionals not only to scan and print but also to communicate both internally and externally. Multifunctionals are often islands in a company that everyone can use to send emails and faxes or just make copies of documents. It’s nearly impossible to secure them without negatively impacting the efficiency and productivity of the employees. You can require them to log into the machine and control access but you can’t really monitor the content of the documents that they’re scanning and sending. Using UDOCX and our OCR technology to “read” these documents, you can.
Large organizations today often use sophisticated monitoring tools to look for specific keywords in their employee communications which may suggest elicit behavior. This is relatively easy when all of your communication flows through a single email server and all of the documents are “readable”. Scanned documents of sensitive data might normally slip through the cracks, but OCR turns these scans into readable text at the source. Why did our new sales hire send a fax that included payroll data about one of our largest clients? I think we may have some questions for her…
Last week (like I do on a weekly basis) I quickly ran through my daily newsletters which I am subscribed to and my attention was drawn to a special Dutch headline in the docufacts newletter. “New legislation boosts electronic invoicing worldwide – business e-invoicing up to +20%”[i] (I have translated it for a better understanding.)
The headline seemed already quite familiar and indeed the article was written in January 2011. The legislation concerning e-invoicing (electronic invoicing) changed in January 2011 which has made it possible to exchange e-invoices with business partners in Europe (EU-member states). This change of legislation was prompted by complaints to the Commission from traders for different reasons.[ii]
Goals of the new legislation:
What is electronic invoicing?
Electronic invoicing or digital invoicing is the process of sending an invoice electronically to business clients whereby the invoice can be provided with services like paying module, after-sales service, CRM and archiving.
What does that have to do with UDOCX?
Well, UDOCX is not offering software solutions to exchange electronic invoices and be honest: How many of you do have an electronic invoicing software solution installed and if you have, how many of you are lucky enough that all of your business partner have as well?
If you have and if you are that lucky, that is great! The reality does look different though.
Invoices come in via email, fax or post. Even 96% of invoice processing is manual keying of data from paper as invoices need to be faxed, mailed or printed out for further approvals or processing – thus paper documents need to be shared with others. There is no better solution (on premise or in the cloud) to centralized share documents than Microsoft SharePoint. I will not go into detail about the possibilities of SharePoint concerning electronic invoicing processing but SharePoint makes a lot possible!
UDOCX clients digitize ALL of their invoices (electronic and paper), archive them or process them further in Microsoft SharePoint while reducing manual keying of data. No need for expensive additional software solutions! They just purchase the UDOCX app “Scan to SharePoint” for their multifunctional scanners (copier/printer) for a low monthly fee and are ready to go. Invoices can easily be scanned directly from the machine to specific or general SharePoint folders where they can be shared, processed further or just archived. Employees just log in via the display of the device and digitize the paper documents securely, error free, compliant and to the correct folders. Watch here our short video how.
Please contact us directly if you have detailed questions, ask for a demo and try it for free. I will go further in to detail how you can digitize your invoice in my next article.
