Imaging News — July 2006
| Feature Article: | Guidelines for Integrating Document Imaging Components |
| Announcements | Record Monthly and Quarterly Revenue Results Announced (Read the Release) |
| Next Generation of Web Viewer Offers Page Import, Reordering, and Deletion (Read the Release) |
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| FlexSnap: Applet SE - Our New Web Viewer for $2,495 (Read the Release) |
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| New FlexSnap Flash Demo Available | |
| Product Spotlight: | FlexSnap Web Viewer |
| RasterMaster Imaging SDK | |
| Events | DMS, Sept. 19-21, Cologne, Germany |
| Momentum, Sept. 18-21, Anaheim, CA |
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| Momentum, Oct. 23-26, Rome, Italy |
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| President's Corner: | When Doing It Yourself Isn't the Best Answer |
| Tech Tip: | Freeing the Buffer Allocation When Extracting Text |
Guidelines for Integrating Document Imaging Components
The productivity benefits of adding or upgrading a document imaging system can be substantial. However, companies often do not realize the complexity of integrating document imaging into their applications or processes. This can lead to wasted engineering effort, delayed roll-out dates, re-engineering of other applications, or project abandonment before completion. Working with an imaging vendor from the beginning of the process to assess the following points and set clear objectives will help to ensure that you avoid common pitfalls and let you achieve the full benefits of document imaging.
- Business Needs – You know your business and what you need to accomplish to be profitable. Your first step in selecting a document imaging solution should be a conversation with an imaging expert to prioritize the capabilities and set the requirements your imaging component needs to help you achieve your objectives.
- Review documents and workflows – Analysis of your current workflow processes by an imaging professional can show you how to improve these processes when implementing imaging capabilities. Important points are identifying areas that can be improved, steps that will need to be added, existing steps that will no longer be necessary, and areas that may require training. You can then map out new workflow processes in advance to prepare end-users for implementation.
- Formats – Consult with an imaging professional to list all of the proprietary (MS Office) and non-proprietary (PDF, TIFF) formats that your organization uses; this may include specialized formats used in a single department. Then determine the formats for documents or images that will be created during your workflow processes; selecting non-proprietary formats with recognized standards when possible.
Compare your final list with your vendors’ supported formats to determine if they offer universal viewing, the capability to display multiple formats including proprietary formats in a single viewing product.
- Architecture – Choosing a platform for your document imaging system often means extending the current platform that is dominant in your organization. However, you should work with an imaging professional to determine the best platform to meet your current and future development needs. Once your platform is chosen, examine the underlying architecture of any third-party software that you plan to integrate to ensure your document imaging component will meet any standards or security requirements set by your company.
- Legacy Systems – The applications and systems that you already have installed, especially any kind of document repository or management system, must be considered when integrating a document imaging component. Determining how these applications will connect and work together should be done in collaboration with your imaging software vendor.
- Support Services – Budget for a maintenance program. This will give you access to the imaging software vendor’s support resources for faster implementation and integration of your applications. Look to what resources they have to guide your engineers or any third party contractors through installation and set-up. Your engineers or contractors may not be familiar with integrating this type of component and you could end up with imaging applications that behave unreliably or take unnecessarily long to implement. Also keep in mind that software development is an ongoing process. Many imaging software providers offer services for developing specific features that may become important as you grow your imaging system.
Contact Snowbound Software to speak with an imaging expert who will help you plan for integrating document imaging into your applications or systems. For more information on analysis, selection and implementation of electronic document management systems, read the new Recommended Practices guidelines published by AIIM (in the Standards Program section).
Product Spotlight
FlexSnap is Snowbound's universal document and image viewer. It enables you to view, convert, manipulate, annotate, and print files through a standard Web browser or custom application. Our FlexSnap document and image viewer is available in a variety of configurations to meet your specific requirements.
Learn more about FlexSnap Web Viewers.
RasterMaster is Snowbound's flagship imaging SDK. It is flexible enough to meet the needs of all your imaging related development projects. Its extensive array of features and functions satisfy your current imaging requirements and future imaging needs including: scanning, viewing, conversion, manipulation, annotation, printing, and saving.
Request an evaluation of RasterMaster Imaging SDK.
President's Corner
When Doing It Yourself Isn’t the Best Answer
Snowbound Software began by offering high-powered development tools for engineers who wanted to embed imaging technology into their applications. Justifiably these companies had already made the decision that their core competency was their application and not imaging technology. Display and conversion of various image formats such as TIFF, JPEG, MO:DCA, AFP, and PCL was better left to an expert — like Snowbound. When tabulating the cost of in-house development (if they could find the expertise) and comparing that to investing in and partnering with Snowbound, with our 'in the trenches' tested technology, the decision was a no-brainer.
Because we build developer-to-developer relationships, we speak the right language and we understand an engineer's requirements. Many times we’ve added new capabilities at a customer’s request — helping them meet their needs and helping us create a more powerful, more useful product.
So what’s different today? Well, time-to-market and cost concerns seem more pressing. Everyone is in crisis mode. The digital age has arrived! People are truly using ECM, DCM, DAM and other systems because they are cost effective and an absolute requirement for staying competitive. There is more demand for our products, our support and our enhancements – and people can’t wait. (Some people don’t even have time to read the manual.) We have a new department for that — Professional Services. We’ve organized and expanded what we’ve always provided, a professional team assigned to your project from specification to implementation. A group of imaging experts that can distill your requirements (often better than you can yourself), recommend the right product and, if needed, seamlessly integrate it with your system.
If you want to support your system yourself, what then? Simply contract us to create the integration layers for you to own. Then, with the purchase of our imaging tools, you can get a quick start and retain full control of your application.
We can implement our imaging solutions for you, saving you time and money to better focus on your core business. We’ve solved imaging problems for hundreds of companies world-wide — this is what we do, let us be your imaging team.
Simon Wieczner, CEO