How Small and Medium sized Business can adapt to control Paper and information costs

Today we feature a short article written by Andrew Reiman, the President of McLean, Virginia based Modern Image USA. Modern Image USA is a FileHold VAR partner.

How Small and Medium sized Business can adapt to control Paper and information costs

Today's economic tribulations have created an environment that requires small and medium business (SMB), as well as the Government, physician practices, and associations to adopt a document management system. For SMB's, gaining control of their documents and streamlining paper-based business activity equals higher efficiency and profit from every dollar earned. For the Government, the massive bailouts and stimulus package requires the transparency provided by proper record management. SMB's and the Government also desperately need a way to store documents, including email, scanned paper, files that were born electronic, and paper archives in a single, browsable and searchable system.

As part of the current US Federal government stimulus package, physician practices and hospitals will be moving more rapidly to the Electronic Medical Record (EMR). The purpose of the EMR is to give physicians and everyone involved in patient care the ability to rapidly access and assess patient records, including the current data captured electronically and the historical paper files, captured with a scanner into the same system. Associations have taken a huge hit economically, but the need to provide high levels of service to their members remains the same. This is forcing associations to take a look at their document-based processes and look for places to improve efficiency and reduce costs.


An affordable Cutting Edge Solution
Document Management Software from FileHold is the solution for the past, present, and future. Modern Image selected FileHold document and record lifecycle because the software addresses all the key business drivers for document and record management, with cutting-edge technology at and affordable price.

Each of our clients has an archive of paper-based files and records that must be safeguarded. By implementing FileHold, we provide our clients with the ability operate continuously in the event of disaster, preserve the organizational treasures, and archive vital records.

All organizations must reduce expenses and be compliant to their industry regulations today. Immediately upon implementation of FileHold, our clients will be eliminating costs associated with storing documents onsite, as well as costs associated with search and retrieval. While difficult to quantify, customer service will also be enhanced because one can respond quickly and accurately to customer needs. FileHold certainly plays a big role in required record management, EMR, SOX, and E-Discovery.

The future belongs to those who are most efficient and innovative. All knowledge of an organization will be contained within the FileHold repository, complete with automated workflow, and integration to the Microsoft suite of Office products. Since FileHold was designed to work well with other products and applications, the ability to tune the FileHold system to any organization is both easy due to the open architecture and API's. Lastly, freeing an organization from worrying about documents will free both the human and financial capital to be directed towards innovation.


Modern Image - your world without paper

Andrew Reiman
President
Modern Image USA
1913 Barbee Street
McLean, VA 22101
703.286.7735 office
www.modernimageusa.com

Document Management API Code Snippet - Add Documents with Metadata

Sometimes customers will integrate the FileHold document management software system with other systems, databases and applications in their network or enterprise. While the majority of our wide ranging customer base use FileHold Document Management Software out of the box, there are customer examples who require an API for integration into other systems. For example, we have customers that have integrated with SAP, GlobalShop ERP, Java based systems via SOAP, Oracle E-Business Suite Financials, MS SharePoint, and custom intranet applications as well as various types of corporate enterprise information portals.

FileHold is a .NET 2.0 / 3.0 C# based system designed around a scalable, highly configurable web services oriented architecture.

This blog post features a useful code snippet that shows how you can add a document to the FileHold document management software system via the FileHold web services based API.

For those who do not understand what a code snippet is - this is an example of how to use code - not an entirely self contained piece of software.

============================
The Document Manager class has a method AddDocument and one of the
parameters is a array of FieldWithValues structure.



// ----------- code snippet


// get the fields definition for the schema

FieldDefinition[] fielddefinitions =
DocumentSchemaManager.GetDocumentSchemaFields( SchemaId );


//create the new schema values for the document

List fieldsWithValues = new List();


//for each schema field

foreach ( FieldDefinition field in fielddefinitions )

{

// only do for NON system fields

if ( !field.IsSystem )

{

FieldWithValue newFieldValue = = new
FieldWithValue();



//global field id

newFieldValue.FieldId = field.MetadataFieldId;



// define variable ob type object

object value = null;

// and now based on the field type assign the value

// if you want to assign default value

// value = field.InitialValue;



// if it is string

// value = "text of the metadata"



// if it is date

// DateTime dt = new DateTime( 2008, 4, 12 );

// value = dt;



// in case of dropdown menu

// get the menu items into array

// DropdownFieldChoice[] menuchoices =
DocumentSchemaManager.GetDropDownMenuItems(field.MetadataFieldId);

// // set the default null value

// value = new int[] { };

// foreach (DocumentSchemaManagerService.DropdownFieldChoice menu in
menuchoices )

// {

// if (menu.Value == YOU_MENU_FIELD_VALUE )

// {

// value = new int[] { menu.Id };

// break;

// }

// }



// set the value

newFieldValue.FieldValue = value;

// add the field value to the list

fieldsWithValues.Add( newFieldValue );

}

}



// now you can use the fieldsWithValues variable in the AddDocument method



// ----------- end of code snippet

FileHold Training Video: Scanner and Imaging Software Integration - Training

With this blog posting, we conclude our three part overview of the training videos that supplement setup, configuration and administration in FileHold document management software with an overview of how FileHold integrates with EMC Captiva's QuickScan Pro scanning and imaging software. The final video also discusses in detail the integration with Kofax Corporation's Ascent Capture software.

Both QuickScan pro and Kofax Ascent Capture are capable of generating an XML export file for each batch of scanned documents. This XMl file can contain index information as well as file path information to where the scanned TIFF, JPG or PDF document is located. FileHold's import service known as the FileScan Bridge then imports this information to automate as much as possible in the process.

It is also possible to use this XML based approach in a generic fashion for integration with other systems and platforms. This approach has been used by FileHold customers and resellers to integrate with various financial, portal and ERP systems.

Finally, using FileHold's powerful .NET based API you can create auto-filing components that can intelligently file documents and even create Cabinets, Folders and other library objects in an automated fashion. FileHold's consulting team can work with you to provide this advanced functionality for high volume scanning environments or for other solutions that require increased efficiency.

3a) Scanning Integration Overview Video (10:52)

This presentation will show you how FileHold works with EMC Captiva's QuickScan Pro scanning software to provide a comprehensive solution for the scanning, classification, storage and retrieval of paper documents. This video provides background information for the remaining activities you will complete in the remainder of this video series.

3b) Scanning Concepts & Considerations - A Scanning Primer (9:31)

This presentation provides an overview of the key scanning concepts and best practices considerations when designing a scanning solution. This is a great place to start if you are new to scanning or require a refresher on some of the key scanning terms. This video will cover the following topics;

1. Breaking down each stage of the scanning workflow
2. Scanning automation and document separation
3. Scan Image file processing / image retouching and file format output considerations
4. The differences between full text and zonal Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and when each applies
5. Techniques for accurate and efficient document tagging

3c) Configuring QuickScan Pro (19:48)

This presentation walks users through the key settings required when configuring QuickScan Pro to work with FileScan Bridge. This video builds on the concepts learned in the Scanning Integration Overview video. This video will walk you through the following QuickScan Pro settings using the QuickScan Pro scanning software batch configuration utility;

1. QSP Scanning & Job Separation settings
2. Image Processing Filter settings
3. Full text OCR & Adobe PDF Output settings
4. Tagging settings
5. XML Output settings
6. Tips on Organizing scanner output files
7. Tips on how to quickly create Barcodes recognizable by QuickScan Pro

3d) Configuring FileScan Bridge (11:45)

This presentation walks users through the key settings required when configuring FileScan Bridge (a subset of features in the FileHold Desktop application) to work with QuickScan Pro, Kofax Ascent Capture or any other scanning software or third party application. This video builds on the concepts learned in the previous video. This video will walk you through the following settings using the FileScan Bridge features of the FileHold Desktop Application;

1. How to configure FileScan to watch for scanning output from QuickScan Pro or Kofax Ascent Capture
2. How to setup field mapping so that index tags captured when scanning are passed to FileHold
3. How to configure auto-filing for documents
4. Scanning workflow automation settings of FileScan Bridge
   

FileHold: Training Video - System Administration for FileHold Document Management Software

Today's post will showcase the System Administration portion of our online video training titles that are available for FileHold document management software customers around the world. These videos supplement the human touch provided by the FileHold support and implementation team when they work directly with customers in the training and configuring of the FileHold document management library. Our goal with each customer is to make document management implementation a simple and straightforward process.

Remember: FileHold's online help system is always available:

1) System Administration Series: 3 Videos
1a)FileHold User & Document Security Overview (15:06)

This tutorial video series is designed to help you to understand FileHold security and setup of the System Administration area of FileHold.

This presentation provides an overview of FileHold’s user and content security model and provides best practices guidance when planning your FileHold implementation.

This video covers the following topics;

1. FileHold Groups & roles bases security model
2. Locally Managed & Active Directory Domain managed user accounts
3. How documents are secured (content authentication)
4. Best practices when preparing to add users / documents

1b) Implementing your User & Document Security Standards (12:25)

This video provides step-by-step instruction on how to implement your user and document security standards in FileHold.Once the exercises in this video are complete you should be ready to test the security standards you have implemented prior to rolling it out to end users in the next video.

This video covers the following topics;

1. Create FileHold Groups & Assign roles to each group
2. Add users (or Import Synchronized Users from Active Directory)
3. Assign Users to FileHold Groups
4. Setup Document Type Memberships
5. Setup Cabinet memberships, drawers & sample folders

1c) Testing your User & Document Security Standards (5:06)

In this final video title of the System Administration series, this presentation focuses on how to test the security model you have implemented as a result of the exercises outlined in the implementing your security model video.

This video covers the following topics;

1. Test user / system security (authorization to File Cabinets and Folders)
2. Test document security (document permissions and authentication)
3. Test search security (Users can only search within Cabinets, Folders and File types that they are authorized to access)