Recently we read an article on the chaos of digital document management, imploring businesses to bring back a file clerk-type position to maintain order within digital repositories and help employees find the information they need to perform their jobs.
It’s an interesting proposition: bring back a job most businesses who have gone paperless now see as obsolete, in order to be more efficient. Where we agree is in the fact that you can’t expect your document repository to do all the work. The purpose of the repository, be it an Enterprise Content Management or Document Management System, is to serve as the host for your digital files. If you’re finding that your employees can’t navigate the system and that the files are unorganized, the problem is not necessarily that you’ve chosen a bad document repository provider. The problem could very well lie within the onramp you’re using to deposit the files to their storage location.
The problem with the idea of bringing back the file clerk is that it would recreate the age-old issue of separating the employee from the information he needs to perform his job. The whole point of getting documents into an accessible digital repository is to avoid the need to jump through hoops to get to information.
So the solution to this issue businesses are facing of electronic file inefficiency isn’t a matter of creating another “keeper of the keys” position—adding another workflow step and once again subjecting businesses to the painful waiting period between requesting your information and actually having it in front of you. It’s a matter of capturing documents, tagging them with the proper metadata and transforming them into searchable, organized PDF files before they ever enter the repository.
The solution is document capture. Document capture is the missing link in the equation, not a file clerk. PSIcapture has a robust advanced feature set that provides the essential onramp to your document management system. The product provides a huge range of capture, indexing and classification options, allowing your business to customize how you’d like your files organized and what metadata you would like assigned to them. PSIcapture has the ability to publish to roughly 60 ECM and DMS programs, with the availability of scripting for any system not already included. PSIcapture also provides myriad automation options to make the process even simpler.
By the time your files make it through PSIcapture’s modules and are published through the final step, they’re more than ready for your document management system. They will already be nicely organized and tagged with the appropriate metadata to make the search process simple and painless.
It is possible to have control over your document management system and to allow your employees easy access to the information they need to perform their jobs. Don’t be disillusioned by the stories of document management implementation gone wrong. The key to success is document capture.
Have an unmanageable file system? We want to help! Find out more about PSIcapture or get in touch with one of our awesome team members.
