by Jesse Wood, CEO of eFileCabinet
Have you pondered the idea of an entirely paperless office, could you settle for the “less paper” office? It’s not merely a goal, it’s a fact and it is being implemented by many businesses. If it’s possible to envision your entire office with less paper, the time to bring your workplace into the electronic age is now.
It will require commitment and some planning, but don’t fret we will make it seamless. Our white-glove customer service will guide you through the entire process, step by step.
Search and Store, mastering the basics.
Mastering document management search and store features is one of the first steps in effectively leveraging a document management solution. In fact, successful utilization of these systems hinges on mastering its more basic components.
We’ll begin by assessing some of the cloud-based document management functions of these solutions.
For instance, SecureDrawer can integrate with both Desktop and Online products, showcasing how the cloud harnesses a growing amount of bandwidth.
The Speed of Information Drives Document Management Search and Store Success.
The speed of information is what drives success.
That is why Google is the busiest site on the internet. It is the ultimate search engine. But a document management system (DMS) is the equivalent of Google for document search within an organization. That’s right, a DMS is to files what Google is to websites.
With a document management system, you can search by names (files folders or drawers), profiles all within the OCR engine. Together with a DMS, you don’t have to go to cabinets or drawers or folders or subfolders to find documents again, but you simply search by these terms, if you wish.
As is true for a Google search, you can look for a title of a record and find it almost instantly.
You can also search via indexing and OCR. You are creating a digital copy of document if you scan a physical piece of paper, and when that happens, a DMS turns it into a pdf.
The computer doesn’t recognize what’s contained in the document until a very advanced and powerful software is run, called OCR. Once that’s happens, it becomes searchable in the OCR engine. (zonal OCR is different). This is an enormous part of Document Management Store and Search features.
Then, by indexing it you can find documents that contain certain words within the document management solution.
Zonal OCR helps us identify areas within the document, which are all the same. But the unique identifiers are the information contained in the fields.
Within document management search and store features, you can leverage the OCR confidence of certain fields.
For instance, if you know the form is a W-2, because you understand the particular fields that are going to be in that w-2). The field or text identification is the thing that simplifies storage and business and also assists with all the routing of documents. This eliminates the need for manual data entry.
This document management search and store feature can save bundles of time just by itself for small to mid-sized organizations.
Pretend you’re an enrolled agent (EA) and one of your clients’ last name is Smith. And you want smith’s w-2. Say for some reason you forget his name, but you remember the street he lives on, which is Briarwood.
If you hunt briarwood, you’re going to have the ability to detect his w-2 because of the metadata fields, even if the term briarwood isn’t in the pdf document’s name. It found it through the metadata of this record not the information contained within the document’s profile.
The power of Full Text Search.
If you type in Briarwood and click full text search, the w-2 will still come up. If you left click on it the highlighted word you searched for will come up.
This is full text search. Full text search lets you look inside documents and gives you a result in the HTML 5 viewing pane with documents that have words you searched for inside them, not just in their titles.
Name search: click on a cabinet, and then a drawer, say you’re looking for George Washington’s Tax return. Then go to search box and type in tax return, then click the box beneath the search bar that says “search in current container.” It then retrieves the matched documents for you to view in the previewer.
Watched Folders: Admin Functionality Only.
Watched folders are an effective workaround for administrators of the document management solution, and serve the organization in maximizing document management search and store capacities.
The best practice for this feature is to have a dedicated scanner to your computer. If you do not have that, admins can set up watched folders that you can scan in to, and they’ll be directly mapped into the document management solution.
Jesse Wood is the CEO of document management software vendor, eFileCabinet. Founded in 2001, eFileCabinet, Inc. began as a cutting-edge tool to digitally store records in accounting firms. As it grew in popularity, eFileCabinet developed into a full-fledged electronic document management solution designed to help organizations automate redundant processes, ensure security, and solve common office problems.
