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Document Imaging Technology >> Image Management

4/29/2005

By Jennifer Jones

Countering the Piecemeal Approach When it comes to DI adoption, many institutions face a messy reality: piecemeal DI applications peppered across offices and departments with little to no coordination. Says Britt, "At Tulane, we did not have a single solution. We had departmental solutions in our Payroll, Accounts Receivable, and Registrar's offices. Then we had some limited applications in our Document and Visual Communications organizations. Finally, our copy centers and some of our other departments were just relying on multifunction scanners and e-mail to take care of their needs."

And at the University of Maryland, scattered DI empires permeated the campus before officials there recently brought on Mindwrap to deploy a DI system in the school's Admissions department. "We are very decentralized, and many of our departments-our Financial Aid office, for instance-had built DI systems for different reasons," recounts Rich Diaz, manager of UMD's Digital Imaging Group. "Some have just been using the technology to empty file cabinets, and are not using any workflow procedures," he continues. "But our Admissions office has emerged as an example of how business processes can benefit from document imaging, since their whole process has been put into workflow. Now, once applications are received and scanned, they are imported into workflow processes, which start by separating international and domestic applications," says Diaz, who adds that international applications are automatically routed for requisite scrutiny. "Then, indexing capabilities allow simplified routing of information between admissions employees charged with certain tasks involved in student admissions."

Along with the decentralized nature of many colleges and universities, the affordability of rudimentary DI solutions also led to the development of disparate systems scattered among departments, some industry experts agree. "The top three big guys-Xerox, IBM, and HP-are offering solutions based on server capabilities, software, and middleware, to glue it all together. These are solutions targeted mostly toward university administrative offices. Other companies are just selling [cheaper, more basic] software and solutions geared toward departments or smaller universities," says Gartner's Grant. Despite the pervasiveness of DI fiefdoms, there is now a decided trend toward a more centralized, enterprise-wide approach. And there is evidence of consolidation on an even grander scale, since Xerox has lately had interest from a coalition of community colleges looking to pursue a shared DI infrastructure.

In the End…
Even the pursuit of enterprise-wide DI still hinges on internal marketing-selling top administrators on the technology-and that comes down to the obvious. "For many, document imaging is really a straightforward exercise in moving paper documents into digital format. Almost everyone understands that," says Tulane's Britt. "And for us, living in a city this far below sea level, any move to get paper off the first two floors of a building is probably a good idea."

DI Tips from the Trenches

BEFORE YOU TAKE ON that broad-scale document imaging project, heed this sage advice:



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