Imaging - are you ready?

If your organization is thinking about, or has attempted an imaging program, this presentation should be helpful to ensure the program’s success. It wasn’t long

ago that less than 50% of imaging initiatives were successful. While those numbers are better today, at TAB we continue to see failed or stalled attempts to

move from paper to electronic images every day. And we want to help!

The Benefits of Imaging

Faster and more efficient RM processes:

– Indexing– Retrieving– Storing– Sharing– Maintaining

So how do you get started?

Designing an Imaging Project

Designing the Project: In-House vs Outsourcing

Deciding where the conversion will occur is critical. You can outsource the project to a professional records management company, do it onsite with your own staff, or combine the two. So how do you decide?

Doing it in-house means investing in an imaging system and conversion software, and it’s likely you’ll need additional personnel and space to operate the system you choose.

However if your organization is converting large groups of historical documents then you may want to consider outsourcing to a company specializing in document conversions.

Outsourcing will eliminate the costs of purchasing equipment, and training or hiring personnel to image documents.

Back-file vs Day-Forward

Deciding between in-house and outsourcing is more difficult if both back-file and day-forward conversions are required. Your organization may want to use a document conversion company to execute the back-file conversion while an imaging system is implemented onsite to handle day-forward production.

Are you scanning in process or post process?

Designing the Scan Process

• Steps to take:– Document

Preparation– Scan– QA– Indexing– OCR– Release/Import– File Reassembly

How you design and implement your imaging project is also determined by the tools you acquire.

Will you be using a scanning tool embedded in the storage application, or purchasing production scanning software?

What type and size scanner will you purchase?

How is process design effected by the limitations and opportunities afforded by your tools

program to ensure that tools are used effectively?

Implementing an Imaging Project

an approach to transitioning

individuals, teams, and organizations

to a desired future state

Change Management

”“

One of the most important challenges is to get staff on-board with imaging!

Start with a Kick-off meeting!

• Introduce the Change

• Provide Project Overview and Timelines

• Provide Progress Reporting

• Show Output and Advantages

• Allow for Input

Make the conversion process painless by keeping documents accessible during the conversion process. Develop a simple retrieval method during conversion and communicate it to the end users during your kick off meeting.

Keeping Files Accessible

Keeping staff informed of progress, as well as any problems or issues that arise throughout the duration of the project is essential. Many people will have questions

and concerns, and you should anticipate these and provide the necessary information as soon as possible. Good communication between personnel and key

stake-holders in the project is key for the success of your document conversion.

Keep Everyone Informed

Train Users

Retrieval

Output

Day-Forward

Develop a training program for key stakeholders that addresses locating documents, their use and using them effectively in their work

space. Day-forward strategies that support processes should be addressed teaching how to continue to convert ongoing documents.

Running Parallel Systems

Do you have staff that would find a technology change challenging?

Often organizations have determined that maintaining their paper systems is an effective way to manage late adopters to come onboard with the

changes. In real life we have encountered conversions that were abandoned completely because critical corporate stakeholders at executive levels

refused to support an image only environment.

Final Step: Review and Adapt

• Transition from post-process to in-process scanning

• Reevaluate document types

• Complete any necessary software updates

• Reset security and access

Thank you!For more tips on how to design and

implement an imaging project at your organization, visit www.tab.com/imaging.