DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Looking for a recommendation for Archival storage with OCR ability

I'm on the Technology committee for my Realtors Association. And we've been tasked with finding a solution for our growing records dilemma. We can currently scan them and store them digitally, but it does not give us the ability to search the documents in the event that we need to reference something.

For instance, we have a board of directors meeting recently discussing the rules for our MLS regarding agent photo's in the listings. Most say this was discussed before and is not allowed. Great! When was this done so we can reference the rule and move on. Oh, a few years ago is the answer. *facepalm*

What software or systems do you use to store your old documents that gives you the ability to search them? I am/have looked at NeatDesk and Omnipage Ultimate. I'm hoping there is something else that I can look at besides these two.

There is a lot of solutions, but it depends on your usage and your price range.

For instance, we use DocMan by PoH Systems. It cost me 20k + not including the scanner, but we send digitally (via our Point-of-sale system) and scan in the neighborhood of 1000 documents a day. The scans get linked to the digital copies via a barcode printed on all orders, invoices and purchase orders.

Because of the linking, we don't OCR the scan copies for anything other than the linking barcode, since the digital copy is searchable and indexed automatically. But we could if we wanted to.

For light usage, I have heard good and bad about Neatdesk. I think it depends on the persons experience, and needs. As with anything technological, you get the most out of it by understanding HOW to make it work for you, in your circumstance.

I have a similar situation in my business (temp services)

When a customer calls me and asks for a particular type of person, I need to be able to search through 10's of thousands of resumes in my database. So if you look at the resumes as documents (which they are) then your stuff isn't any different than mine.

What you want is a document Retrieval package that ties into an OCR program.

My solution isn't designed for the real estate business. its more designed for recruiting firms.

But, the process is the same. I use OpenCATS. Or you can just look up http://www.catsone.com (candidate Applicant Tracking system)

I just looked at this and it might work for you.. you can talk to them to see if it's adaptable. I know it's solid.

You can also look at this, it might work:
http://www.rapidlegal.com/whatwedo/research.aspx

It's designed for the legal industry but might work for you

Another is this one

http://www.docuvantage.com/document-management-basic-tutorials/document-retrieval

Seems a bit more generic.

Anyway, they are all basically the same, you scan a document, OCR it, store it and then at some point the system refreshes and the document can be found by using a boolean search string.

For me, I might use something like this if I was searching for a .net programmer with Ruby on rails in the 216 area code:

".net and Programmer and Ruby and 216"

I might get a person that lives in Apartment 216 in kansas somewhere but those are easy to pull out LOL

It's all about using word search. And some of the programs out there have the ability to populate a series of fields that may help you (opencats has that) Some of them are customizable so you can set them up anyway you want.

The trick is to find one that does what you need it to do and is within your budget.

OpenCATS for instance is the free version. So all I had to do is download it and it's resident on my desktop and I have a 2 TB external hard drive for my data storage and a back up off site. Works well for me going on 7 years now.

Oh,, as for scanning, I have an Brother MFC 8480 DN with built in software, but for what your looking for, you might need a way more heavy weight set up..

Hope I helped...

Look up OnBase or Filenet. But that might depend on your budget as they are frequently used by corporations, no idea what the starting level of money commitment is. OnBase (Hyland) is a Cleveland area business and is pretty much the best on the market.

This might be an affordable fix for you...

Link

There's a boatload of such software out there. What parameters and/or limits? What did you NOT like about the two you mentioned?

Haven't seen many of these systems in use, although OmniPage has been around a very long time and should be fairly robust.

Most of the ones I've looked at can export items to another database or a spreadsheet for customization.

Most high-end scanners usually come with something fairly workable, if all your documents are pristine 8.5 x 11 a less-expensive scanner should work, at least for a while. For different sizes, folded or crumpled papers, and/or higher speed, the Fujitsu scanners, "ScanSnap" IIRC, seem pretty good. Fast, good scan software, handles bad paper well, jams cleared easily. Got three of these in use at different customers and all are quite pleased. I know the software suite had OCR and database capabilities but these were not needed so I have not tested these. They run about $500-800.

I'll second the Fujitsu scanners if heavy usage is necessary. We have a 10 year old Fujitsu M4097 that has been a workhorse. I am just now looking at finding it's replacement just for precaution, and the new ones have even better scan ability for our shipper copies which tend to be in rough shape and barely readable physical copy.

Thanks for the ideas folks. I'll check these out.

We already have a Konica Minolta commercial copier/scanner/fax. Real heavy duty machine that handles pretty much all of our scanning needs. The real need is the searching/OCR. We can title the documents whatever we want, but it's the details in the body that we need.

As for our budget, we can't go up to the $20k number. LOL. But we have resources to not buy something that's cheap and won't really do the job.

Investigate what software came with the current unit, or, is available at a discount to owners of that unit.

Very often, the software packaged with and built for a dedicated scanner, is equal to or even superior than a standalone software package purchased separately at a similar price point. To some extent, you are paying extra for the ability to work with multiple different scanners, when you only need it to work with whatever unit you have.

You may be better off buying a $700 scanner and using the software that comes with it, than paying $700 for a similar stand-alone package.

A few phone calls or e-mails should get you some demo versions to test, do not rely on the salesman to tell you what it will do. See it done.