Benefits of Open Archive Document Management

by David J. Wilson

Get your Information when, where and how you want it.

OK, we know that everyone out there is always efficient, remembers to distribute information to all the correct people, and never forgets to put the file back in its drawer! Except that it’s already 6:00 PM and you've got to get to your kids soccer match, so you'll just put that customer file with its invoice question on top of your desk and get to it first thing in the morning. Only, the next morning, the first thing is a lengthy meeting. That file is now in your "really important" to do pile and when that customer calls back, no one can find the file.

Picture this

never being accused of being a file folder hog
never looking for information in someone else’s "really important" pile
never looking at that "need to file" pile ever again

And

finding all the information you need by typing in a few keywords
easily viewing various document or drawing types
making notations/comments that stay with that document
you don't have to distribute information because all the "correct people" can get it themselves

Document management lets you mange your information instead of letting it manage you. Creating efficient information management is easier than you think. Today’s digital scanning equipment allows any company to easily capture documents and drawings and import this information into smart, intuitive, and accessible document management systems.

Collaboration, information management, productivity improvements, space recovery, and streamlined business practices are just a few examples of the benefits that can be obtained by implementing document management software with a Mac-Durgin digital scan to file solution.

The Basics

It starts with a scan. Any type of document or drawing can be scanned into an image. This image can then be given an identity beyond its name with indexing. The indexing process assigns property values (project name, customer name, PO number, author, date, document type, etc.) that can be searched on later. The property values are customizable to make sure they are fully relevant to your business environment and meet your document organization needs. An ICR function also indexes the text of scanned documents for full text searching. This document is now ready to import into a database. The database is accessible to all users, local, LAN, and over the Internet. Users can sort and search for any document or drawing using any keyword or property value, and view most document types without launching the native application. Printing, redlining, file sharing and distribution locally, over the Web or with CD/DVD’s completes the cycle.

The echive Advantage

The echive Series, from Open Archive Systems, is a family of document and drawing management solutions. Its component design allows companies to select just the products that are needed. A scalable design, built on well-known and established industry standards ensures a comprehensive solution without using any customized or proprietary file formats.

echive Indexer contains one step image quality review and indexing tools. Add property value indexing, full text extraction (using OCR engines) and more to previously scanned large, small, and mixed size documents.

echive Organizer is the database component of echive. This is an industry standard database that supports hundreds of file formats including office documents, pdf, TIFF, CAD, and more. It provides full text and property field searching for every document. Then publish an entire database or just selected files to CD/DVD’s or to the Web.

echive Explorer provides desktop search, view, redline and print. It contains a full set of intuitive viewing tools that include zoom, bannering, and redlining.

echive Media Explorer is a specialized version of Explorer for use with CD/DVD database publishing.

echive Case Studies

For more case studies, please see our echive installations page

Office Documents
An accounting firm had a typical wall of filing cabinets loaded with important tax information, correspondence, tax returns and meeting notes. Misfiling and document location was becoming increasingly costly. echive provided the answers to their organizational dilemma. The contents of each file folder were scanned and indexed using an office scanner and echive Indexer. Scanned files, with the indexed information, were imported into echive Organizer. Every piece of client information, both current and historical, is now available with a click of a mouse. Read our Accounting Office case study for more details

Drawing and Manufacturing Environments
Tracking the revision history of an engineering drawing with its associated PO’s was becoming increasingly difficult for this tool and die company. Handwritten revisions and rescanning on the shop floor was creating a paper path that was difficult to follow. The echive solution enabled this company to maintain their drawings and associated files in an easily accessible database. Now drawings and any related documentation can be easily viewed inhouse and distributed on CD/DVD’s for viewing outside of the facility or delivery to their customer.More details on Tobin Tools case study

More examples of echive document management solutions are available on the Open Archive case study page. Or, take a look at our client list to see a bigger selection of case studies.

What you can expect

Improved information access, sharing, and distribution. The echive Series will provide bottom line benefits by streamlining everyday business practices, improving communications, efficiently distributing data, improving workflow efficiency, and increasing productivity. So, now you can get to your kids soccer game on time.

This is an illustration of how easy it is to input data into property fields using Indexer. This prepares files for sorting as illustrated in the slide below.

echive Organizer picks up the fields you created in echive Indexer and/or you can create new fields. This example shows the files being sorted by these property fields. Similar to MS Windows, all fields are "sortable" so you can view your files in any order.

E-mail: dwilson@openarchive.com