Mass Conversion Time Saver
June 13th, 2008 by Jodi Chaney
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One of our departments was recently faced with the task of finding an alternate means of storage for a very large volume of information housed on the main server. Although we knew Laserfiche was the answer to the storage dilemma, we were still faced with the task of converting thousands of PDF documents to Laserfiche format with minimal staff interaction.
We discovered that files can be quickly imported into Laserfiche by making a few simple changes to the user options for handling new documents. When the “Always show Document Metadata dialog” box within the New Document Options window is deselected, the user is not prompted for action each time a document is processed, which saves valuable staff and processing time (path: Tools/Options/New Documents).
After making the appropriate changes to the user options, we simply pulled the PDF files from the main server to the desired Laserfiche location (copy and paste). The files were reselected, OCRed and indexed (process: select all files/choose “Snapshot” from the “Action” menu/click “OK”). Once the OCR and indexing functions were complete, the files were once again selected and the electronic documents removed to reveal fully OCRed and indexed Laserfiche images/TIFs (process: select all files/choose “Delete Electronic Files” from the “Action” menu).
June 15th, 2008 at 10:53 am
How long did the process of indexing and OCRing take you? Was this done overnight?
June 27th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
What did you guys do for template fields? Did you just use the OCR index, or did you use something else to index the files so that you can find them later?
July 8th, 2008 at 7:00 am
Hi Adam, sorry for the delayed response. The OCR/indexing process is performed during normal work hours, specifically during lunch and at times the operator does not require the use of the computer. Performing this function during work hours allows the operator to monitor OCR errors, identify problem documents and skip over if necessary to allow the process to continue.
July 8th, 2008 at 8:11 am
Mike, we use the OCR index option and have also set a template field to automatically populate the document name. We are able to locate documents by “text” and “field” options. Destruction dates are typically assigned to the template field at the folder level. If documents can’t be grouped into a folder with a common destruction date (contracts, capital assets, etc.), users must assign retention at the document level, as it is a required field.
July 8th, 2008 at 8:25 am
Adam, I failed to include statistics in my last response. We converted over 2,750 PDF files (insurance certificates) to Laserfiche format in less than one week. That is with one person converting for at least 4 hours per day.