Document Management Software Question

Posted by Andrew Mckay
Sep 2, 2011 at 03:27 AM

Thanks Jack

Hardware wise we have a good quality A4 and A3 scanner which can handle volume. You can set the resolution so I am happy with this. We also have large scanner for A0 and likewise the resolution settings are there. I will experiment with resolution but it will probably be either 100 or 200 dpi. At 300 dpi the files get very large.

OCR is vital. That is the one aspect of Evernote that has impressed me and as we will be doing just a few basic tags to each file I would like OCR

Budget wise if I properly motivate I will get some leeway there but it will be moderate. At this stage we have no system but ultimately I want to introduce an overall system of which the scanning is one part.The archiving needs to be for the future.Many buildings/structures have a 30 year life cycle and we have recently picked up new rehabilitation work from projects completed 30 years ago.

Thanks again Jack. Good questions as I am still in the research and investigation part of the whole exercise. regards Andrew

Jack Crawford wrote:
>Andrew
> >As you say there are a lot of solutions out there but you need to tailor it to
>your requirements. If you haven’t already done so, I would start by trying to answer a
>series of questions such as:
>- what is the total volume of documents I want to scan
>-
>are there are a lot of larger size documents (you mentioned engineering plans) - you
>may then need a large format scanner
>- what sort of resolution do I need (would people
>be expected to read plans via the software)
>- do I need full OCR or just images
>- what
>budget have I got
>- is this a standalone system or does it need to be part of the
>corporate network/system
>- is it a once off backlog or achiving exercise or do you
>want to set up an ongoing document management system
> >And so on.
> >I would then
>research the options - not just online but find out what like sized competitors are
>doing or what the professional association recommends.
> >Finally I caution against
>just going out and buying some scanning software and then trying to craft a solution
>around it. You need the complementary hardware and software from day one.
> >Good
>luck. It sounds like a big job.
> >Jack