Scanning and Digitization
1. How should I understand the term digitization?
Digitization of records is an application that is used to store documents in the digitized form. This functionality also includes a controlled data extraction from digitized documents through OCR according to the pre-defined profiles. The extracted data and digitized documents are automatically stored in attributes and attachments of the records.
2. What is OCR and how to set up OCR scanning?
OCR is an abbreviation of optical character recognition, i.e. text conversion from graphic format to text format. To put it simply, the scanning device scans documents as images or pdf files that are not editable. OCR is used to convert them into an editable file. Thus, during the scanning, the user enters OCR area – he indicates data area on the page that will be used to fill the attributes. For an overview and a simple search it is important to identify, for example, an invoice number or tax registration number and the address of the supplier. Once the area is set, the application is able to recognise the supplier and it automatically matches the scanned document to a particular supplier and thereby speeds up the internal corporate business processes.
3. How long does the scanning take?
DMS Greeny allows multiple documents scanning. In practise, it means the scanning will take as long as the customer needs. For instance, a customer needs to scan 40 different documents of varying length in one day (e.g., a contract may have different appendices and the document itself is about 20 pages long), he must barcode the first page of the document type. After the scanning process, the user can check whether documents have been scanned correctly and save them to repository. If the documents are not correctly scanned, he can modify them manually. OCR process can be automated or manually handled by users. The advantage of multiple documents scanning is that the user inserts all bar-coded documents into the scanning device. He can perform other tasks during the scanning; meanwhile the scanning device scans all inserted documents into DMS Greeny. His presence is not required which speeds up the working processes in the company.
4. What scanning device is appropriate?
For digitalization of documents on scanning equipment which is directly connected to the user’s computer, it is necessary to dispose of a scanning equipment supporting WIA interface – Windows Image Acquisition (WIA - also known as a visual architecture of Windows). MFPs also dispose of WIA interface.
If your scanning equipment is not directly connected to user’s computer, you need a type of device, which can save scanned documents on standard memory storage, e.g. USB drive or a shared directory (in case of involvement of the device to a computer network).
The price of the scanning equipment ranges in dependence of the producer, additional functionalities and their properties. When choosing scanning equipment it is important to consider the size of the tray. For someone a 50-sheet tray is enough, another company needs a 500-sheet tray or even more. The price of these equipments ranges from 100, - USD higher, depending on the desired performance and other functionalities.
5. OCR profile?
In the OCR profile management, there is a toolbar and a tree of open OCR profiles. If needed, the user can provide operation, such as save, delete, cancel, create a new OCR profile etc. OCR profile represents just one record type. Each record type (e.g. invoice) must have a defined OCR profile to be recognized correctly during the scanning process. OCR profile contains pages and areas. It is therefore important that the first page of the document scanned would be bar-coded.
6. What are OCR pages and OCR areas and how to set them up correctly?
One OCR page defines one scanned document; so if, for example, an expected invoice comprises three pages, the user must define 3 OCR pages. When defining a new OCR page, the user must define the new model scan located on the disc which will be used for OCR areas definition. It is necessary to define the pages in the correct order so that the first page of the scanned document is bar-coded. Each OCR may contain OCR areas defining the place on the scanned document. To create OCR areas, use the icon on the toolbar. So, by a simple frame, the user defines the required OCR area, for example tax registration number of the supplier, or anything he needs.
