One of the many challenges in initiating a paperless working environment is how to convert physical documents into formats acceptable to a document management system. DMS applications only accept electronic information for storage. Thus, contents must be in conformity with the requirements for them to be fit for storage. Scanning is the process of converting physical documents to formats supported by DMS.
Ensuring Scanned Documents Are Searchable and Updatable
The only major concern when scanning documents is how to make scanned documents available for update and search features of the DMS. Scanned documents are usually in image format before they are converted into PDF files for easy storage on the system. Optical Scan Recognition (OCR) is the process of scanning documents into machine-readable formats that allows users to update the context. OCR is a more complex process than ordinary scanning. Through OCR, documents can be searched and indexed through the keywords present in their context.
Leveraging SharePoint for Document Scanning
Attaching recommended webparts on SharePoint servers will allow users of SharePoint to effectively convert scanned documents into electronic formats. Some third party webparts are able to communicate with network scanners and embed metadata on the scanned document. Webparts like PaperPort 10 and Scanning Enabler 2007 are just two of the most popular third party applications that can be installed on a server which enables network scanning.
Outsourcing SharePoint Scanning
Organizations may also prefer to outsource SharePoint scanning requirements to reliable third party affiliates to perform the conversion. Most of these companies prepare images of physical documents along with the necessary tags.