Over the years of organization's life there could be considerable amount of records piled-up. Even though, the organization moves into DMS today, the past records could be crucial for the day-to-day operations. Also in most of the cases, as a statutory requirement, records must be maintained upto a certain minimum number of years. Only when the organization convert these records into the DMS, their full ability to utilize the system is achieved. The time scale for populating these records with accurate, legible information ultimately determines the start-date for payback on investment. This could be a mammoth exercise for any organization that is not ready for it.

By populating this electronic storage of records, the organization shall immediately start reaping some of the following benefits:

• Storage Space
• Storage Maintenance Cost
• Manpower Cost on Storage/Ware-house maintenance
• Highest level of Security
• Highest level of Access Control
• Protection against loss/theft/damage/fire
• Increase in staff productivity by immediate access to the documents
• Reduction in idle time on waiting for documents to be received from storage area
• Instant customer support for most/all types of queries
• Revision control of documents
• Electronic log on record access
• Immediate analysis on usage of documents
• High availability of documents
• Accessibility of documents via Internet which could result in immediate decision/action
• Possibility of incorporating rule-based workflow, electronically, and thus ease of document movement, better control and faster actions.
• Reduction in time and resources on copying the documents for filing in different files/locations and/or distributing to various users.
• No loss on document quality due to aging.
• Rule-based auto storage of on-line, near-line and off-line.

Despite all the detailed pre-planning that goes into the introduction of an electronic Document Management System, the problems associated with Document Capture are often overlooked. When it comes to the task of extracting documents from various storage locations, the availability of manpower is presumed rather than planned.

It is a popular misconception that such a simple process can be carried out by anyone with time to spare. In fact, to do it well requires an element of dedication and know-how.

An improperly indexed document is a problem waiting to happen, the existence of which will only become apparent when the document is needed and cannot be found. In many existing document management environments an electronic database is available which supplies an index to the paper on document store. In some cases however this data is only available either from the documents themselves or form a paper-based index, or a combination of both. Such data may be comprehensive, up-to-date and accurate or may be minimal, out-of-date and inaccurate. To be of any use in a computer based document management system it must conform as closely as possible to the former. Generating and validating the index data against the documents themselves should be seen as an opportunity to avoid the potential disaster of lost documents.

Regardless of the amount of resource invested in automating document retrieval, if the document is unreadable, the investment is wasted. Populating your document management system is probably the only time in the history of your document store when you have the chance to examine each and every document and verify every index. All the hidden risks of lost or unreadable documents should be quantified and dealt with in the QA process.

Despite all the necessary steps considered in removing the documents from source for the scanning process, the problem of putting back the documents to its source file and location will be a tedious exercise. During the complete process of this scanning exercise should ensure and establish control and procedures for easy filing and identification of documents back to its source file and returning to its original location.

HiSys are specialized in providing services to customers on converting backlog records into electronic storage and are the market leader in this region, and probably the only service provider, with availability of state of the art expertise, know-how, experience and local resources.