Web based document management Simple, Yet Sophisticated Workflow HTML Forms. Business Process Automation A guide to capture tools for VisualVault

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1 Web based document management Simple, Yet Sophisticated Workflow HTML Forms Business Process Automation A guide to capture tools for VisualVault

2 Business Process Automation Document management systems generally include workflow for simple approval and release processes when controlling new or revised content. Organizations gain value from ensuring a single controlled source for their compliance or corporate records. Extending beyond document management to electronic capture, routing and sharing is a value base proposition. The web architecture of VisualVault including a unique web services based API enriches the opportunity for integrating capture tools and customized variants of document capture. The benefit of workflow automation is pure bottom line efficiencies. Any process that can be streamlined or converted from paper to electronic has non-value added costs. Elimination of these costs and providing greater overview for process administrators is the basis for return on investment. This document will provide examples of use. In turn, the desire to educate and stimulate ideas for your organization is the objective. Process efficiencies that lead to greater productivity and customer satisfaction should be considered. Content Ecosystem An organization will acquire information from 5 primary sources: Electronic transmission, including forms, EDI and data transfers Fax Hard copy with electronic conversion (scan) Business analytics of internal data The Gartner Group reported in a 2005 study that organizations that effectively manage files and digital assets could reduce their operational costs in half. The challenge for most organizations is to determine a corporate wide strategy that outlines the steps required to achieve these savings. Additionally, solutions must provide the following benefits: Protect the information Keep useful information available and accessible Reduce the risk and cost of application upgrades Reduce the cost of regulatory compliance Match service levels and cost to information value Lower the cost of archiving and preservation

3 VisualVault V-Product Family Auersoft has introduced a family of products that can easily facilitate capturing and business process automation of documents. With one of our tools, documents or new content can be captured electronically and then metadata can be associated automatically based on OCR technology. Once documents are uploaded into our core product they then can be processed with the native workflow engine of VisualVault. This permits an insightful and elegant solution between document sources and electronic workflow processing. Figure 1: The Auersoft V-Product family of capture tools. The Auersoft V-Products provide the following basic functions: Source monitoring for new content (fax, scan, ftp site, accounts) Recognition and interpretation of matching index files 3 rd Party product integration for more sophisticated processing (OCR, Zone OCR, file type conversion, or custom algorithms for data manipulation) Transfer to VisualVault Repository (source can be anywhere in the world based upon web services and security management)

4 Auto-Foldering in hierarchical folders if required Automatic workflow processing if enabled Security rights, retention rules and index data are preserved VisualVault is rising in prominence due to a combination of key differentiators. The first factor is that Administrators of VisualVault, or key business process owners can easily configure or modify workflows that support the business processes. Workflow can also be established to support serial, parallel, approval, conditional approval and queue processing. Workflows tasks can be assigned to users, groups (including job title) or outside processes (for example a.net assembly). Workflow can be applied to a single document, folders, Electronic forms or to other dedicated processes. The combination of V-Product document capture, interpretation of metadata and folder-enable conditional workflows based upon metadata values provides the greatest range of process management. Figure 2: A schematic of VisualVault conditional workflow capability. Here are a few examples of our products and how they are being used. V-Scan An education products provider (EPP) in CA, utilizes V-Scan to organize and retain supplier quality documents. Their suppliers provide safety and compliance documents, which are scanned, indexed and stored in VisualVault. As EPP kits individual items for sale or promotion, the safety data must also be

5 combined to represent the individual kits. Search and association capabilities saves 1000 s of direct labor hours. A debt consolidation company in AZ utilizes V-Scan to create packets of information for each of their new and existing clients. Hard copy records of credit card receipts and other debtor statements are received and collated into a John Doe package. Each time a new John Doe applies for their service, the V-Scan product works in conjunction with Kofax Ascent Capture to acquire metadata from the separator sheet and to generate folders automatically in VisualVault to upload the content. This process saves 1000 s of direct labor hours annually, and this business is growing at 50% CAGR. A clinical study outsourcing service (CSOS) in MD utilizes V-scan to enable outsourced heart studies. Using the web interface of VisualVault as a client portal, companies procure services to perform independent drug efficacy trials. Patients for each study group can be located in various countries to ensure a broad demographic. The output of electrocardiogram machines contains the image of the heart beat as a PDF plus a file which provides patient and key values interpreted from the heart beat pattern. This data is further massaged to collect key indicators, and that data is added as additional pages to the original PDF. V- scan enabled ECG machines acquire, process, and upload content to the centrally managed portal. Using the VisualVault web services API, the patient data and key indicators are passed to a VisualVault HTML form, to which the matching PDF is attached, and the form is routed to clinicians and technicians for data analysis. The clients can log into the portal and observe the study status and actual data. V-Invoice The V-Invoice product works in conjunction with a 3 rd party OCR tool to automate the entire processing of invoices. The key features of this process are: 100% Web-based OCR capture of key invoice metadata Validation station at scanner to check data integrity Connects to any Scanning Device Auto-Foldering based upon your chosen document storage hierarchy (Year, Month, Supplier Name) Establish Conditional Workflow for routing invoices per the defined business rules Fast, efficient and dramatic ROI compared to paper-based processes

6 The V-Invoice process utilizes the web services API of VisualVault. A scanner can be running anywhere and if internet enabled, the data/files will be transferred to a central repository. If additional index field data is captured, the product will auto create the index field in VisualVault so that no data is lost. Figure 3: A schematic representation of the V-Invoice process. Once the document and index file containing metadata are generated, the system will check in the document and record metadata into a VisualVault repository In general, the conditional workflow is set-up with the same approach as described above. One of the unique attributes of VisualVault is the ability to set-up auto-foldering rules. Invoices are received on an on-going basis and the organization will want to retain the documents in a categorized manner. The choice of category hierarchy is configurable by the admin user. In this example the image is retained as a.tif image and the description index field value is auto created by concatenating key metadata. All metadata is searchable in VisualVault, and quick search functionality is provided by typing in an alpha-numeric sequence in the white space in the upper right screen.

7 Advanced search will allow much more granular definition of the search parameters. The file can be viewed by selecting the file icon anywhere in the application, whether on a grid, the document library or on the document ID card. Figure 10: A view of the scanned invoice and comparison to the Index Field values on the associated VisualVault document ID card. The auto-foldering capability will copy folder properties that are defined in the parent folder. Properties inherited during the folder creation are: Document ID naming conventions Index Fields Approval Workflows Retention Rules Security Model (access rights and associated roles) In this manner, it is easy to create a sustainable process that saves hours of non-value added time for the organization. V-Fax Several Auersoft clients use V-Fax in combination with fax services such as MyFax or efax. Instead of routing new faxes to their accounts and dealing with file clutter, they automatically map the faxes into a VisualVault folder. Using conditional evaluation on metadata, process routing can be specific to the content received.

8 V- A Homeland Security agency uses V- for collating contractor correspondence and technical communications. Using an address, such as [email protected], the original and attachments are separated and placed into an in-box folder. Files are matched to a Contract Deliverables Requirement List (CRDL) and move to their respective folders. Once the main deliverable workflow is initiated for subject matter expert review, the additional files are associated in a single view for the recipients of the workflow. This process retains all files, maintains an audit trail and gives the administrators and executives workflow oversight screens to measure progress and prioritize activities and tasks. Summary: The capture and content specific routing can be easily established in VisualVault in combination with the V-Products and/or 3 rd party components. Examples were shown that provide rapid ROI and demonstrate ease of use. In many cases administrative users with business analyst skills can configure and easily maintain the process and workflows. The content ecosystem of your company can be quickly and efficiently automated using the affordable tools provided by Auersoft.