Document Management Industry and SharePoint

I see it over and over…the Document Management industry is in denial about the capabilities of SharePoint when it comes to managing scanned images. I know, I know, it really does have some limitations out of the box: setup and config, capture, PDF ifilter, inline viewing, preview, security config and overall records management. But there is certainly a broad range of applications out there to enhance the product, and fill in the gaps. I really think the industry is shaking in its boots at the potential impact to their revenue. Take a look at the SMB Marketplace, and you see that every business with a server can install WSS, buy a front end capture application like PSI:Capture for SharePoint and a viewer like VizitSP, and poof: a DM system. And oh by the way, at a fraction of the cost of entry level systems by most vendors.

And as Microsoft continues to improve their application, and add enhancements, it will become an easy decision as business look for applications to store their paper in digital form.

What Should I Use for Scanning Images into SharePoint?

Scanner or Copier for SharePoint?

So, how do you choose which to use for your SharePoint MOSS or WSS Scanning/Imaging Project?

Scanning Multifunction Peripherals (MFPs/copiers) have become standard in most offices. I receive the same question all the time from prospects and customers: Can’t I just use my copier for scanning? In most cases, for a typical office, with typical documents, a copier is a perfect scanning solution. As offices become more complex in the way they handle their documents, or they expand their scanning efforts to other departments, dedicated scanners may be required to achieve the desired result.

Below are some interesting statistics provided by InfoTrends:

• 65 % of office workers use digital copiers/MFPs
• Over 50% use the “scan” feature daily
• 71% expect scanning requirements to increase from year to year
• 72% believe it is necessary to view images before processing
• 36% will require dedicated scanners versus MFP devices
• 36% believe they will need both scanners and MFPs

So what are the benefits/drawbacks to scanning with both types of devices? Below is a summary:

Benefits of MFPs as scanners:

• Leverage your existing investment in the MFP
• Most copier maintenance plans do not charge for scans, so you get “free” maintenance for the scanning function (no print/copy, no click charge)
• MFP manufacturers are really focusing on scanning capabilities: fast speeds, better quality and enhanced drivers, etc.
• Network scanning functions:
o Scan to email
o Scan to Windows Folders
o Scan to FTP
• One-to-Many relationship: all workers can use one device.

Drawbacks of MFPs:

• Contention – copying, scanning and printing may cause “a line at the copier”
• Poor performance with differing paper sizes
• Lack of color dropout (Scanning blue or black backgrounds will result in a black page)
• Lack of image correction capabilities (auto deskew, despeckle, black border removal, streak removal, etc.)
• Small Document Feeder sizes (50 – 100 pages)
• On average, file sizes are 10-20% larger
• Duplex scanning/DPI increase greatly slows down rated speed
• Black and White scanning only on some models

Benefits of Dedicated Scanners:

• Convenience – scan at your desk
• Duplexing does not slow down scanner
• Color dropout
• Superior image quality due to enhancement features
• Ease in handling differing paper sizes/types
• Larger document feeder selections (up to 1000+ pages)
• Smaller file sizes
• Ability to preview scanned documents at scan time

Drawbacks of Dedicated Scanners:

• One to One relationship – directly connected to PC
• Additional Maintenance costs

Above are all the pluses and minuses, but in a nutshell, when should you use a dedicated scanner?

• Scanning 100+ documents per day
• Workers that are constantly scanning throughout the day
• Mixed paper sizes, weights and colors
• Poor quality, older documents or when image enhancement is required
• OCR or ICR applications
• High volume copying and printing environments
• Large Document scanning
• High security environments

How do I find the right Scanning Application for Sharepoint?

I find it interesting the different directions scanning and capture hardware and software companies are going when it come to scanning into SharePoint. Most are focusing on enabling the direct connect scanner. Hardware manufacturers, like Fujitsu and Kodak have made efforts to include software apps that can enable “scan to SharePoint” functionality (and just about every other manufacturer).

These apps just seem to be a half-hearted attemp to really look at what is happening in the enterprise. Companies need a standard scanning and capture onramp for the Microsoft SharePoint Platform that can work with any scanning device or process images from directories. It cannot just be limited to a desktop scanner, but needs to work with scanning copiers and MFPs. It needs to be capable of both interactive and automated processing, with a deep feature set that will meet just about any capture need.

So, here are a few recommendations when it comes to choosing a software application for scanning to SharePoint:

Choose a company that has deep roots in scanning and capture. Many of the companies out there have not grown up in the scanning and capture industry, and their lack of experience shows in their product feature set.

Pick a software application that can work with both dedicated scanners and scanning copiers / MFPs

Make sure that the software has the capability to monitor hot folders, and automatically process documents from start to finish

Make sure that the company supports other Document Management Systems and output formats besides SharePoint. Most organizations have a need to migrate documents to other destinations.

Look for true integration with SharePoint. Some cool features out there include: Document Library Settings Import, SharePoint Lookup, and the ability to create libraries and columns automatically

These are just a few recommendations. Good luck.

Enabling the PDF iFilter in SharePoint to Crawl Searchable PDFs

• Out of the box, Microsoft SharePoint will not index full text PDFs.  There are several steps to enable PDF indexing, and also make sure you see Adobe icons within the SharePoint viewer.
• You will first need Adobe Reader, as it includes Adobe  IFilter from http://get.adobe.com/reader/
• You will need to grab the Acrobat PDF Picture.  This will display the PDF icon next to PDF Documents in Microsoft SharePoint.  You can download it from http://www.adobe.com/images/pdficon_small.gif

• You will now need to add the PDF file type to the Extensions List for SharePoint  search by editing the registry
  • Start the registry editor, by going to Run, and typing regedit
  • Open up HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Applications\{Random GUID}\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList
  • You will need to Add “pdf” to the list as a new String Value. Find the highest in the list, typically 37, and create a new key with the next number (38) as the key with the value “pdf”

• Add the Acrobat PDF icon you downloaded above to the Microsoft SharePoint templates directory. Copy the icon called pdficon_small.gif into the folder “%programfiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\TEMPLATE\IMAGES”.

• Now you will have to bind the Acrobat PDF picture to the PDF file type
  • Open the “%programfiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions \12 \TEMPLATE\XML\DOCICON.XML file
  • • Locate  the <DocIcons.ByExtension> section of the file.
    • Add the mapping below:
      <mapping Key=”pdf” Value=”pdficon_small.gif” OpenControl=”" />
    • Change the iFilter mapping in registry
      • Go to start, and run regedit
      • Open the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\
      • Add (or modify) the .pdf key
      • Add a Multi-String value with value {E8978DA6-047F-4E3D-9C78-CDBE46041603} or modify if another GUID value already exists.
      • Open the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office Server\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\
      • Add (or modify) the .pdf key
      • Add a Multi-String value with value {4C904448-74A9-11D0-AF6E-00C04FD8DC02}
        • or modify if another GUID value already exists.
        • You will need to add the Adobe Reader folder to the environment path variable
          • Open the System Icon in the Control Panel
          • Open the Advanced tab
          • Go to the Environment variables
          • Edit the Path variable
          • Add your Reader folder to the Path list, e.g. C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 9.0\Reader
          • Restart the Search service by restarting your server or executing the following commands:
            • Run: net stop osearch
            • Run: net start osearch
            • Open a command prompt and do a iis_reset

Awesome SharePoint Viewer for Scanned / Captured Images

I have been working quite a bit with Atalasoft’s VizitSP lately. The software overcomes some limitations in Microsoft SharePoint’s document viewing capabilities when it comes to scanned PDFs and TIFFs. The product “image enables” SharePoint Document libraries, providing a thin client viewer (read web page), that allows for zooming, going from page to page, having multiple documents open in a tab, tree view, etc. The viewer also provides the ability to save, email and download, as well as annotate the documents. Full SharePoint feature set for VizitSP. When used with a true SharePoint Scanning and Capture application like PSIGEN’s PSI:Capture, which creates searchable PDFs, within standardized folders, it is a truly powerful app. Check out this great product.

PSIGEN Signs Distribution Agreement with Deltalink Consulting CC -Partnership Expands Company’s Growing Distribution Network to Southern Africa

IRVINE, Calif., May 21, 2009  — PSIGEN Software, Inc., the innovative leader in advanced capture solutions, today announced it has signed a distribution agreement with Deltalink Consulting CC, a leading distributor of Document Management, Capture and Scanning Hardware in Southern Africa.

“The addition of Deltalink to our growing distribution network provides us with a solid technical and business partner in the region of Southern Africa,” said Stephen Boals, Vice President of Sales at PSIGEN, “Their focus on Microsoft SharePoint, and experience in Document Management will provide valuable ECM solutions in their market.” 

“We are excited about the benefits that our partnership with PSIGEN will bring to the local market. With PSI:Capture we are now in a position to offer an industry-leading capture solution to all organizations ranging from small companies to the largest corporate enterprise in South Africa and neighbouring countries. To date we have been unable to provide a suitable capture solution to resellers and end-users of either Microsoft SharePoint or MFP devices, both pervasive technologies in our market. With PSI:Capture we feel comfortable that we will be able to meet the diverse requirements of these and the large number of other capture users with a single product,” said Gerrie Terblanche, CEO at Deltalink.

About PSIGEN

PSIGEN Software is the innovative leader in advanced capture and document management solutions. For more than 14 years, PSIGEN has provided software to improve all the processes around the conversion of paper to digital documents. The solutions focus on cost reduction, flexibility, standardization, and improved efficiency.   PSIGEN delivers these solutions through a network of resellers and distributors in the US and abroad. For more information, visit www.psigen.com.

“PSIGEN” is a registered trademark in the US, the EU and other countries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks belong to their respective owners.

CONTACT: PSIGEN Sales and Marketing: Stephen Boals, Vice President of Sales, 949-916-7700 x230.

PSIGEN Software, Inc. releases version 3.5.1 of its powerful Advanced Capture Software

PSIGEN Software, Inc. released version 3.5.1 of PSI:Capture. This latest revision of the powerful product provides an enhanced feature set for migrating to Microsoft SharePoint through a web services integration which allows dynamic document library and column creation, along with SharePoint site configuration import. The new release also provides automatic QA functionality that allows combining and sorting documents based on index fields, Zone OCR enhancements, Google Tesseract OCR Engine option, OMR enhancements and batch import and export for transporting batch sets.
The full PSI:Capture 3.5.1 enhanced feature set can be found here:

PSI:Capture 3.5.1 New Features

PSIGEN Software, Inc. is located in Irvine, CA. The company has been advancing document imaging since 1995.

www.psigen.com
(949) 916-7700

New PSIGEN Site Up

Great info and videos on SharePoint Scanning and Capture:

Take a peek at our SharePoint Capture product, PSI:Capture. Video and other info at:

SharePoint Scanning and Capture

PSIGEN releases PSI:Capture 3.5 for SharePoint

PSIGEN PSI:Capture version 3.5 has hit the streets, and this version definitely adds some horsepower to any SharePoint installation. Video below:

PSI:Capture and Microsoft SharePoint

Advanced Capture Applilcations

In any Document Management or Enterprise Management System, there are three basic components: Hardware, Capture, Archive and Search and Retrieve. So what is the most important piece? Everyone nowadays seems to have the hardware. All of the copiers today have scanning capability, with the newer ones scanning at 70 pages per minute. The simplest archive is a series of folders on your server or workstation. And with files on the network, Windows Search, or the search capabilities within Abode allow you to find what you are looking for quickly (sometimes).

For the more advanced organization, they may have a Document Management System, or utilize Microsoft SharePoint for their archive and search and retrieval functions. But what seems to be lacking in most organizations, is a structured, automated way of capturing files. The argument of this BLOG entry is that Capture is the most important piece to any ECM or DM System.

As mentioned before, when we look at just about any office or organization today, they are scanning with a copier or desktop scanner. But inevitably, they take their paper mess and recreate it digitally. Why? No standardization in the process. Joes scans his files to his email and stores them in Outlook folders, Betty scans to her My Documents on her laptop, and uses a convoluted naming scheme that only she can decipher. They take their paper problem, and create a huge problem for IT. Disparate archives now pose a disaster recovery problem, along with the issues of accessibility.

So what is the answer? Advanced Capture. Advanced Capture applications provide the ability to set structure, and harness the capabilities of all the scanning hardware within the organization. They can provide standardization and structure, along with fantastic efficiency improvements. Take for example, PSIGEN’s PSI:Capture. With its Microsoft SharePoint Migration feature, and auto-import capability, you can set all your scanning copiers to scan to a processing folder. Utilizing the barcode routing capability, you can create cover sheets for each library within your SharePoint site. When you scan, the software will pick up, process, rename and folder files automatically. The end result is a standardized folder structure, standardized naming scheme, and a searchable PDF all within your SharePoint site.

The other major contributor to efficiency with Capture applications is the ability to use separation technology. I see it all the time…the office that has 20 documents to scan. They walk up to the copier, and scan them one by one; a very time consuming process. With document separators, you can scan the entire stack and let the software split the documents, rename and folder them. Let the technology do all the hard work!

For more info on improving your scanning work flow, go to www.psigen.com.