Author Tony DeLoera, the chief technology officer at Ice Miller, describes how to manage document imaging the right way:
"Simplicity. This was the guiding principle in our selection of a document-imaging system. In early 2005, Indianapolis-based Ice Miller was overrun with paper. With 225 attorneys, and three branch offices in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Naperville, Ill., we decided to leverage the decision to change our office copiers as an opportunity to gain more control over our workflow.
"We needed a document-imaging system that our attorneys and other professionals could use with little or no training. We wanted our users to be able to walk up to a copier and scan documents directly to a PC desktop or to software, such as Microsoft‘s Word and Outlook, or Hummingbird Enterprise. We wanted a simple system so our users could copy without calling the IT help desk.
"But simplicity didn’t mean we wanted a simplistic application. We did not want to scan documents only to have them scatter, unindexed, inside our IT network. All that would do is transfer our document handling difficulties from unstructured paper to unstructured electronic data. Rather, we wanted a program that integrated with our existing software (Hummingbird Enterprise, Captaris Inc.‘s RightFax, Word and Outlook) and would improve our office efficiencies."
The full article is a must-read for those interested in expanding their roles into firm management…
Document imaging is an essential element of doing business today. As a means of creating electronic copies of important papers, diagrams, and pictures, document imaging helps to ensure that business paperwork can be saved and archived safely. Here are the basics involved with document imaging, including storage and distribution of the saved images.