Document Management is software used to store, manage, retrieve and distribute documents quickly and easily on the computer, regardless if they are paper documents or electronic files.

Scanner

A scanner is used to convert paper documents to electronic image. If you are scanning several pages at once, you will want a scanner that has an automated document feeder (ADF). Scanners, costing less than $1,000 can scan up to 20 to 25 pages per minute. Scanners that will scan at 65 ppm are $5,000 and up. Questys works with most ISIS or TWAIN scanners.

Duplex vs.Double-Sided

Duplex scanners automatically scan both sides of a double-sided page, producing two images at once. Double-sided scanning uses a single-sided scanner to scan double-sided pages, scanning one collated stack of paper, then flipping it over and scanning the other
side.

ADF

Scanners with an Automatic Document Feeder can automatically scan a stack of documents.

Flatbed Scanner

A flat-surface scanner that allows users to input books and other documents. Normally used for environments where the documents to be scanned are fragile or damaged preventing them from traveling through an auto document feeder.

Storage

Electronic images can be fairly large in size. You want to make sure you have adequate storage space and backup capacity. A rough estimate is that 20,000 pages (8 1/2 x 11) scanned at 200dpi will require 1GB of storage space.

Server

Questys requires a Window's based server running Windows 2000 or 2003 server..

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Indexing

In order to easily and quickly find and retrieve documents and files, assigned indexes/keywords can be created for each document. Questys can automate this requirement using templates. Questys can also perform searches on the full text of a document..

Search and Retrieval

How fast a document can be found is what sets one system apart from another. In Questys you can search by document name. document category, keywords or full text or any combination thereof. Results are returned in seconds.

Full-text Indexing and Search

Enables the retrieval of documents by either their word or phrase content. Every word in the document is indexed into a master word list with pointers to the documents and pages where each occurrence of the word appears.

Security Access

Questys offers tight security control so that only the right people have access to the right documents.

Output Distribution

Documents, sets of documents or even specific pages within a document can be printed, emailed or faxed.

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Simply - cost savings and efficiency. It is reported that 90% of corporate information resides on paper or some type of instructured format. For highly organized companies it takes an average of six minutes to pull and re-file a document. You also have an additional cost of storing the documents - requiring file cabinets and space. For $50 you can store the equivalent of 100 4-drawer file cabinets on a single 50GB drive compared to the cost of the cabinets estimated at $9,600 a year. Research done by Coopers & Lybrand shows...

• 90% of all documents are merely shuffled
• A document is copied an average of 19 times
• It costs about...
  • $20 to file a document
  • $120 to find a misfiled document
  • $220 to replace a lost document
• 7.5% of all documents get lost
• 3% get misfiled

With a paper-based system only one person at a time can read a document unless you make multiple copies. A document management system allows several people to quickly access and read the document at the same time.

If a client calls with questions you can locate any document with a few mouse clicks and email or fax the document, resulting in better customer response.

What if a disaster were to happen to your organization? What happens to all of the paper documents? Your company would probably come to a screeching halt! By having off-site backups of your electronic documents, you can be back in business within a couple of days.

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Lower cost of software - Hardware prices have dropped significantly in the past years but most document management systems still cost over $15,000. The investment for Questys starts at $1,500 for a single PC or $3000 for a networked system without sacrificing any features.

Email import

Questys supports the ability to import your email and contacts. This helps with Sarbanes-Oxley compliancy.

Auto Filing

You can set up a pre-determined filing process based on the keyword for a class of documents. This dramatically speeds up the input process.

Folder Templates

You can set-up pre-determine folder sets to avoid having to manually create the same structure over and over.

Retention Scheduling

Retention periods for categories of documents can be set to ensure documents are kept for the required period.

Revision Control

Documents can be checked out, changes made and checked back in as a new version. Previous versions can be reviewed or retrieved as current version.

Security Log

Password protection and user specific access rights ensures that only the people who should be accessing and working with files are. Questys maintains an audit trail of who did what, to which files and when. This helps wth Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPPA and general security of your company's important records.

External Database Lookup

Questys provides an ODBC (Open DataBase Connectivity) interface which speeds adding index values to documents by copying the relevant data from any ODBC or OLEDB complaint data source.

Annotations

Changes or additions can be made to a document using sticky notes, a highlighter, or other electronic tools. Document images or text can be highlighted in different colors, redacted (blacked-out or whited-out), stamped (e.g. “FAXED” or “CONFIDENTIAL”), or have electronic sticky notes attached. Annotations are overlaid and do not change the original document.

Redaction

A type of document annotation that provides word-level security by concealing from view specific portions of sensitive documents. Like all annotations, redactions are image overlays that protect information but do not alter original document images.

Bar Code Cover Sheet

This is an addon component to most imaging software and is STANDARD in Questys. Utilizing a Barcode Cover Sheet tool increases the speed with which documents can be archived and permits batch scanning from any scanning device, even multi-function copiers.

CD Publishing

An alternative to photocopying large volumes of paper documents. This method involves coupling documents with viewer software on CDs. Questys search software is automatically included on the CDs to enhance search capabilities. When a Searchable CD is created, all the files that are copied to it are converted to PDF files during the copy process. This enables you to create the searchable CD without having to worry about licensing viewers. The original files in the Questys database are not converted to PDF, they remain in their native format.

OCR

Optical Character Recognition. A software process that recognizes printed text as alphanumeric characters. This allows for full text searching once a document is indexed, or archived, is an imaging system.

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Standalone Edition

This edition is for one scanner and single user application.

Network Edition

This edition is for one scanner and 6 concurrent users.

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Additional User Licenses

Additional users licenses are added in increments of 5 concurrent users.

Web Access

Used when you have the requirement to allow remote people to access documents.

Searchable CD

Allows you to burn a CD, that is searchable, of selected documents that can be distributed to people that don't have access to the networked system.

Additional Scanner Licenses

An additional license is required for each scanner other then the first one.

Additional Processor License

Required if your server has more than one processor.

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File Types

BMP - A native file format of Windows for storing images called “bitmaps.”

GIF - Graphics Interchange Format.

JPEG - Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG or JPG). An image compression format used for storing color photographs and images.

Thumbnails - Small versions of an image used for quick overviews or to get a general idea of what an image looks like.

TIFF - Tagged Image File Format. A non-proprietary raster image format, in wide use since 1981, which allows for several different types of compression. TIFFs may be either single or multi-page files. A single-page TIFF is a single image of one page of a document. A multi-page TIFF is a large single file consisting of multiple document pages. Document imaging systems that store documents as single-page TIFFs offer significant network performance benefits over multi-page TIFF systems.

TIFF Group IV (compression) - A two-dimensional compression format for storing black and white images. Typically compresses at a 20-to-1 ratio for standard business documents.

ZIP - A common file compression format that allows quick and easy storage for transport.

Compression Ratio - The ratio of the file sizes of a compressed file to an uncompressed file, e.g., with a 20:1 compression ratio, an uncompressed file of 1MB is compressed to 50KB.

De-skewing - The process of straightening skewed (off-center) images. De-skewing is one of the image enhancements that can improve OCR accuracy. Documents often become skewed when they are scanned or faxed.

De-speckling - Removing isolated speckles from an image file. Speckles often develop when a document is scanned or faxed.

Dithering - The process of converting grays to different densities of black dots, usually for the purposes of printing or storing color or grayscale images as black and white images.

Pixel - Picture Element. A single dot in an image. It can be black and white, grayscale or color. The OCR process coverts pixels on a scanned image into an associated searchable text file.

Scale-to-Gray - An option to display a black and white image file in an enhanced mode, making it easier to view. A scale-to-gray display uses gray shading to fill in gaps or jumps (known as aliasing) that occur when displaying an image file on a computer screen. Also known as grayscale.

CD-R - Short for CD-Recordable. This is a CD which can be written (or recorded) only once. It can be copied to distribute a large amount of data. CD-Rs can be read on any CD-ROM drive whether on a standalone computer or network system. This makes interchange between systems easier.

CD-ROM - Compact Disc Read Only Memory. Written on a large scale and not on a standard computer CD burner (CD writer), they are an optical disk storage media popular for storing computer files as well as digitally-recorded music.

Erasable Optical Drive - A type of optical drive that uses erasable optical discs.

Jukebox - A mass storage device that holds optical disks and loads them into a drive.

Magneto-Optical Drive - A drive that combines laser and magnetic technology to create high-capacity erasable storage.

ASCII - American Standard Computer Information Interchange. Used to define computer text that was built on a set of 255 alphanumeric and control characters. ASCII has been a standard, non-proprietary text format since 1963.

Batch Processing - Technique used to input a large amount of information in a single step, as opposed to individual processes.

Client-Server Architecture vs. File-Sharing - Two common application software architectures found on computer networks. With file-sharing applications, all searches occur on the workstation, while the document database resides on the server. With client-server architecture, CPU intensive processes (such as searching and indexing) are completed on the server, while image viewing and OCR occur on the client. File-sharing applications are easier to develop, but they tend to generate tremendous network data traffic in document imaging applications. They also expose the database to corruption through workstation interruptions. Client-server applications are harder to develop, but dramatically reduce network data traffic and insulate the database from workstation interruptions.

Fuzzy Logic - A full-text search procedure that looks for exact matches as well as similarities to the search criteria, in order to compensate for spelling or OCR errors.

Gigabyte - One billion bytes. Also expressed as one thousand megabytes. In terms of image storage capacity, one gigabyte equals approximately 20,000 81/2" x 11" pages scanned at 300 dpi, stored as TIFF Group IV images.

MAPI - Mail Application Program Interface. This Windows software standard has become a popular e-mail interface and is used by MS Exchange, GroupWise, and other e-mail packages.

MFP or MFD - Multifunction Printer, Multifunctional Peripheral or Multifunctional Device. A device that performs any combination of scanning, printing, faxing, or copy.

Near-Line - Documents stored on optical disks or compact disks that are housed in the jukebox or CD changer and can be retrieved without human intervention.

Off-Line - Archival documents stored on optical disks or compact disks that are not connected or installed in the computer, but instead require human intervention to be accessed.

On-Line - Documents stored on the hard drive or magnetic disk of a computer that are available immediately.

SQL - Structured Query Language. The popular standard for running database searches (queries) and reports.

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