Here's how an imaging system can benefit our customers.

Do you have an estimate of how much time is wasted in retrieving your documents? Studies have shown that professionals spend up to two hours a day retrieving the files. 

When many documents are needed, it's easy to get overloaded. Reducing the time wasted searching for documents is one of the main reasons many offices have installed imaging systems. 

By putting a document imaging and management system on your computer, you or the people in your office can find and view any document in seconds. Of course, the search tools need to be powerful enough for the computer to know how to find the document you need. 

Laserfiche document imaging software provides the most powerful search engine in the imaging industry with three separate ways to instantly find the document you need. 

If you know what folder a document is stored in, you can select the folder and pull up the document you need, just like with traditional filing systems. 

If you're not sure which folder a document is located in, but you know how it's been categorized and filed, then you might be able to search on index fields such as author name or contract number or the document name. 

Or, if you're not sure what folder a document is in, you're not sure how it's been categorized, and you don't even know the document name, you can still find the document you need. Laserfiche comes with a built-in full-text search engine that can search for any word or phrase in any document. 

For example, if you need to find a resolution mentioning a Christmas tree recycling program, but can't remember when it was passed, you can use Laserfiche to find the document you need. You would simply type a phrase like "tree recycling" into the search engine. Laserfiche will bring back a list of all documents containing the word or phrase you need. Lines of context are shown for every document, so you can quickly determine which document you need by seeing how the phrase is being used.

When you find the document you want, Laserfiche will take you to the exact page you need, and will highlight the words you've been searching for. 

Best of all, the whole process takes only a couple of seconds from start to finish. 

Technical notes: 
The Laserfiche search engine offers full Boolean logic in constructing phrases and search strings. It also offers "proximity searches" so that occurences of one word within a certain range of another word can be found. To help compensate for spelling errors or OCR mistakes, a "fuzzy logic" search option is available. This will find variations on the spelling of the words being sought. A fuzzy logic search for the name "Jon" would also find "John" or "Ron." The amount of "fuzziness" is easily adjustable. 

      Our documents keep getting lost or misfiled.

Few things in an office environment can get as frustrating as knowing exactly where a document is supposed to be filed, and discovering that it's missing. Of coure no one ever recalls having seen it, or knows where it is, and so hunting for that document can get exasperating. 

Because nobody ever removes a file when they look at a document stored in an imaging system, a document imaging and management system is an ideal central repository for your records. Even if 50 people a day need to refer to a document, they can all view the pages simultaneously, without having to worry about loss or damage to the document. 

And if by some chance a person authorized to move documents places a document in the wrong folder, all is not lost. By using search tools like those provided by a Laserfiche document imaging system, the documents can still be found. 

      I'm having trouble managing all my documents. 

Many people don't realize the amount of effort that goes into managing a large records repository. In addition to the careful attention to detail required to make sure that documents are categorized and filed correctly, a lot of time and legwork goes into tracking down files, moving storage boxes, making photocopies and destroying documents whose retention period has expired. With huge amounts of documents and a limited staff, it's easy to get overburdened. 

Document imaging and management systems help alleviate this burden by allowing many of these tasks to be done easily and quickly while sitting at the computer. 

For example, with a Laserfiche document imaging and management system, records can be placed into folders with a few clicks of the mouse. Files can be seen while sitting at your desk, and copies can be printed with the click of a button. Documents whose retention period has expired can be quickly found and deleted. 

Best of all, the sheer number of demands on a file room can be drastically reduced. Since everyone in an office with a computer can view the documents they need, (assuming they have appropriate security rights, of course) they can find and view documents while sitting at their own desks without ever needing to make a single trip to a shelf or filing cabinet. 

Technical note: 
Depending on the rationale behind the retention schedules, it may be necessary to make sure that all backups of destroyed documents are also destroyed. Laserfiche allows great control over the location of the document images and data. It's very simple to make sure that all records due to be destroyed on July 2001 are stored on a single data volume. This way, when the expiration date comes, not only can that volume be completely deleted, it is then possible to track down all backup tapes of the data volume and make sure they are destroyed too. 

      I'm running out of storage space!

As more paper documents are filed away, additional shelf space or filing cabinets are needed. Eventually, storage space starts running low. Documents can be destroyed or moved off-site, but determining which documents won't be needed again is a difficult task. Knowing Murphy's Law, you can be pretty sure that any documents that are taken away will be needed urgently the next day. 

Document imaging systems help to solve storage space problems. With the ability to store millions of pages on a single computer server, very little storage space is required. For example, a single CD can hold roughly 12,000 pages--the same as a filing cabinet! 

Once the paper copies of a document are scanned, they can either be thrown away or moved safely to an off-site warehouse. If a copy of a document is needed, it can be printed or faxed from the imaging system with the click of a button. 

      Our records aren't safe if disaster strikes.

Disaster preparedness involves the ability to recover from incidents such as fires, floods, earthquakes or hurricanes. The vital records that comprise the information, knowledge and lifeblood of an organization need to be kept secure. Often, the best way to be prepared is to keep duplicates of your records stored securely in an off-site location. 

Laserfiche document imaging software makes it easy to store duplicates in a safe location. Laserfiche's portable volumes feature lets you transfer your image files to a CD, along with the relevant index data. Each CD holds roughly 12,000 pages and, like a music CD, is lightweight and easily placed in a safe or mailed to off-site storage. That way, even if the entire computer system is destroyed, your database can be rebuilt from scratch from just the CDs. 

Technical note: 
Regularly scheduled backups should still be performed, even if duplicates of the documents are stored off-site. 

      Documents aren't readily available in the office.

You may be familiar with people who decide that it's "too much trouble" to find the documents they need and who then procrastinate or don't do important projects. A document imaging system that's available on everyone's computer and is easy to use can remove that obstacle to getting documents.

A lot of work has been put into the Laserfiche document imaging system to make sure that it is practical and useable. After 12 years in the document imaging business, we know that if an imaging system is a chore to use, people won't use it, and won't tell their friends and colleagues about their system. 

We offer a system that is intuitive in design and fast over a network to make sure that whenever anyone needs a document, they can have it in seconds. 

      I need to distribute lots of documents to others.

Photocopying, printing, publishing and collating documents is a time-consuming and expensive process. If any of the documents change, it's even more trouble to make sure that everyone receives and uses the updated copy. But that's the reality of distributing paper documents. 

With a document imaging system that allows easy CD publishing like Laserfiche Plus, this process suddenly becomes much easier. By placing copies of your documents on a CD, along with a free Laserfiche document viewer, you can distribute documents to other offices with ease. 

If you only need to distribute documents within the office, a networked document imaging system, like Laserfiche Client - Server, will make copies of documents available on every desktop without any effort at all. 

If you have a corporate intranet, or wish to make documents available over the Internet, then Laserfiche WebLink can help. Laserfiche WebLink is the only document imaging solution that lets you publish millions of records to the web, without needing any file conversions or HTML coding, and without requiring special client software or the latest operating system. 

      I need to take my documents on the road.

When taking paper documents on the road, the weight and bulk of the files quickly adds up. And, no one in the office will be able to refer to the documents when they're out of the office. 

With a document imaging system like Laserfiche, you can transfer your folders to a laptop using Laserfiche Notebook, or create a CD with Laserfiche Plus and read the documents on any computer. Since roughly 12,000 documents can be placed on a single CD, it suddenly becomes feasible to bring every document you might need with you. And everyone in the office can still access the documents. 

      My micrographics system has lots of problems! 

Microfilm and microfiche systems involve smelly chemicals, are expensive to maintain and troublesome to use. When the equipment breaks down, it's time-consuming and a hassle to get repairs done. Although they provide a familiar way to archive documents, few people enjoy using them to retrieve a page. 

A document imaging system like Laserfiche can provide a secure repository for your records. Computers aren't going to disappear, and Laserfiche uses non-proprietary equipment and file formats. This means that as computer technology advances, the files will always be readable and your Laserfiche system will only get better and faster.