Software Development Firm Since 1994
E-mail has become a core communication medium in the business world and is well on its way to replacing letters and faxes. It’s no wonder then, that finding the ultimate professional and systematic filing method for handling electronic correspondence has become so important. Contracts, proposals, letters, and more, all delivered within seconds to one or multiple recipients; and higher security methods using encryption and password authentication has replaced any need for document handling/time, printing, faxing, or postage expenses. But what are we all going to do with so many electronic messages? Less than 20% of companies have tackled the issue of properly storing e-mail. Even fewer have implemented their own e-mail policies. Yet the need to organize e-mail--to store them and file them in a logical and efficient way--is becoming more and more important.
Problem
Email is overwhelmingly increasing daily, creating a nightmare for both IT and the end user. As limiting mailbox sizes are being exceeded and end users being forced to delete important and/or irreplaceable information, frustrations are skyrocketing within mid- to enterprise-level organizations. Legal compliance is either being ignored or broken, and ignoring it is putting information and individuals at risk. Most organizations have not written policy for email management and, instead, have possibly implemented a short-term solution by saving attachments within each PC or network. Placing attachments on the network applies a strain on space, and limitations on management, security, share ability, quick retrieval, and many other complications can create serious issues.
Compliance Requirements
Electronic information is becoming more and more comparative
legally to paper-based information. This means, for example, that contracts are
being signed via e-mail or that e-mail is being used as evidence in court. This
equalization process of electronic data is being driven by a series of laws, regulations,
and requirements. In the USA, the most widely publicized regulation is the Sarbanes-Oxley
Act (SOX or SOA), which was devised to enhance the transparency, legality, and accountability
of financial data provided by publicly traded companies.
Worldwide there are many
other regulatory standards including HIPAA, AO, GDPdU, and Basel II, just to name
a few. All of these laws and requirements have had a direct impact on how e-mail
needs to be managed. For example, depending on the country, if an e-mail includes
an electronic signature that meets signature law requirements, then it must be viewed
as a legally binding original document that must be centrally administered and stored
for long-term access. Information sent by e-mail that may be relevant for tax purposes
must (according to the GDPdU) be stored in a digital format that provides immediate
as well as long-term access to a tax agency (usually 6 to 10 years). No company
or organization will be able to avoid meeting these compliance issues, so finding
the correct solution is imperative.
Eliminating Risk, Lost Information, Frustration, and Unnecessary Expenses
Without companywide e-mail guidelines, e-mail will continue to be considered an employee’s personal mail. When business-related information is lost, damaged, stolen, and manipulated, your company is at risk of legal ramifications or unprofessional embarrassment. What if an employee is on vacation is deceased, or his/her employment is terminated? Accidents can also happen by erasing information or malicious intent to disrupt your company’s integrity or processes. In order to provide quality service with limited to no legal exposure and extended response times, a consistent approach to archiving all business information, including electronic mail must be implemented.
Solution
Either a per-user isolated solution or a company-wide mandatory solution can be implemented. Each e-mail account user can be responsible for individual saving/import emails and their attachments, or a more systematic and automated turn-key solution can be developed. Just as documents and files are automated or individually scanned and/or saved to IMS, any email or attachment may also be managed. Automated information could have data inputted within one or multiple profiles/index fields.
Take hold of the power of mobility, flexibility, and security anywhere in the world. There are endless reasons and uses for accessing your information when away from the office, and by using our IMS web viewer, your office will have no limitations.
Security Manager allows for levels of confidentiality from a single department to corporate-wide LAN & WAN networks. The first step to preventing a user from viewing information is to disable all profiles irrelevant to the particular user’s department and/or departments’ profiles. Security Manager takes security one step further by preventing a user from actually viewing particular information within one profile. For instance, one of our clients’ HR departments maintains close to 100 types of forms and documents. About 35% of these files are accessible to management. This office previously kept two separate filing cabinets under lock and key, allowing management to only access one of the filing cabinets; the other filing cabinet included information from the management file and confidential information to only be viewed by the HR department. There would be two ways to control security in this scenario: (1) either two separate profiles can be created, one for HR and the other for both HR & management, or (2) one profile can be made accessible by both HR and management with specific files requiring password authentication.
Redaction is another method of security. Permission may be given to specific individuals to have the right to add redactions or remove them. Redaction allows for either black or white-out over information on a document, or to completely white-out an entire page.
In organizations that require extra levels of security for confidential documents that are potentially viewable by many different users, audit allows for the who, what, when, where, and how. Audit tracks every user’s actions being performed on the documents and when these actions are being performed. Audit keeps total control and accountability within a user group and organization, and provides authentication of all information stored within IMS for internal and legal matters.
Large and small amounts of digital files or images may be imported. This feature becomes most helpful when large amounts of digital files have been accumulating on the server or have become an overwhelming web of information. If the naming convention is repetitive, it is possible to have the index fields within IMS automatically populated to prevent human error and manual data input.
Another value to the import feature is that processes are automated using Zone OCR, Bar Codes, and other data extracted from data streams. Information at any time, without the need of human intervention, can be automatically imported into IMS, and the index fields can be automatically populated.
Disasters can strike at any time and damage or destroy an organization’s documents. To help recover from a disaster; it may be worth keeping secure backups of documents with the aid of a document imaging system. This feature allows for a complete database or sections to be backed up to multiple forms of media, including CD, DVD, TAPE or WORM, and hard drive.
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) allows for the user to run a search within the entire database or a narrow search within just a profile or other queries. Look for specific words to save endless hours or days researching through thousands of documents, or find a misplaced document within the database.
· More than one way to search. IMS understands that different users want different kinds of search methods. Recognizing this and the importance of offering a flexible desktop search product, IMS: provides you with multiple query methods:
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o Menu-Assisted Query enables the user to quickly build accurate queries with push-button operators.
o Natural Language Query allows users to quickly search by asking a question in plain English.
o Command Based Query uses the IMS Query Syntax, which provides for phrase matching, Boolean and proximity operators and metadata search to create detailed and sophisticated searches that produce results in a single go.
o The 'Browse Taxonomy' function bases its search logic on conceptual categories that you create in your index. Concepts are structured like a table of contents in a Concept Taxonomy.
o Web Style Query relies on standard Internet search syntax to enable users to search their documents in the same way they search the Internet.
o Provides users with the ease of entering a query directly into a taskbar window, thus offering ubiquitous search functionality and saving you a step in your pursuit of information.
o Gives users the ability to perform 'sounds like' or 'starts with' searches for instances when the spelling of certain terms are not known. Simply type each letter and it gradually refines the list of available terms that potentially match your query.
o The 'Saved Query List' allows users to save queries and reuse them for automatically or manually running the same search again.
· Search, searched, searches, searching, etc. Find different tense forms of your search terms with stemming. For example, a search for 'read' will find 'reads', 'reader', 'readable', 'readiness', 'readily', etc.
· Fielded searching. Fielded searches within a database are limiting due to their inability to search efficiently for words and phrases as components of fields. Because IMS intimately understands words, it transcends fields and finds search matches where traditional techniques would fail.
· Advanced Operators. IMS doesn't restrict you to the basic AND and OR operators of many search engines. You can specify operators to find words that are:
o Within a paragraph of each other
o In the same paragraph
o Within a certain number of words of each other
o One word followed by the other
o In a paragraph with a certain label
o And more (see the IMS Query Syntax page for more details)
· Intelligent numbers and dates. IMS recognizes numbers and dates in documents regardless of how they are expressed. So you can enter 1/1/02 and receive results that contain "1st Jan 2002", "1 Jan 02", "01/01/2002" and so on.
· Date and number range searching. IMS can search for dates and numbers within a specified range.
· The Intelligent Agent performs searches for you. Tell the Intelligent Agent what kind of information you're looking for, and it will remain on the lookout for new data that matches your query. You are notified the minute information matching your requirements becomes available.
· Multi-lingual support. IMS searches most Asian and European languages, including: English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Cyrillic, Russian, Thai, Bahasa, Greek, Hebrew, Turkish, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese and Arabic. Multi-language indexes are available with Unicode.
· Synonym rings enable you to customize associations between terms, so that your search for a particular term will also find documents containing the synonyms you specified. For example, an investigator could search for a suspect named 'Harold Cartrock' and also find documents that contain the suspect's known aliases, whether they be 'Harry', 'Rocko' or 'Mr. Big'.
· Fuzzy logic is used to automatically adjust for many OCR scanning or typographical errors that occur when you scan in documents for searching.
Results Display
This is when you are provided with a list of results related to your query. The IMS interface makes it easy to quickly review the results and pinpoint the information you want.
· Sub-second results. You'll be amazed at how quickly IMS returns the results from your query
· Relevant results. IMS uses an algorithm to determine which results are most relevant to your query, and lists these first.
· 'Did You Mean?' feature. In instances where IMS: finds few or no relevant results for a query, it will call upon its 'Did You Mean?' feature to suggest potential alternatives. Unlike other products, IMS will never suggest an alternative that doesn't exist in a user's index.
· Results grouping/clustering. IMS: enables users to logically group the list of results according to relevance, number of hits, file format, author or one of a variety of other variables. Without the ability to sift and sort results in this manner, users aren't saving as much time as they could be with desktop search.
· Preview pane. To ensure even faster retrieval of information, the desktop search tool now offers a preview pane, thus allowing users to view the contents of a result (with hit highlighting enabled), without having to first launch the document in the IMS browser or its native format.
· Metadata and document information hinting. Hover your cursor over a result and IMS: will display all known metadata and document information in tool tip format.
· Quick View provides a 'snapshot' of each document in your result list. For each document in the list, a context extract of every occurrence of the search terms is displayed. Quick View results lists can also be printed or extracted and saved as a .txt or .csv file.
· Hit highlighting displays each search term with a highlighted background, so you can see exactly where they occur within a document.
· Security. IMS maintains the access and security configuration of your existing data, so users won't see results from document that they don't have permission to view.
· Rich SQL templates for databases. Rich SQL presents databases through a template, designed by the user, displaying the records in a manner appropriate to the knowledge contained in the database. Rich SQL also provides an HTML Editing Suite for creating and previewing Rich SQL templates. Add background pictures, define and layout fields, turn hit highlighting on and off, or change the color - the presentation is all in the hands of the user.
· Use the Column Picker to choose the fields displayed, including Document relevance, Number of hits, File name, Document title, Internal document number, Document type, Size in bytes, Number of words, Date last changed, Date indexed and First date in document.
Highlighting, sticky notes, arrows, and redaction (blocking out information in black) all can become helpful when there is a need to apply information to a document without compromising its integrity. These annotations are simply layers of information laid onto a document, so that the document may be viewed, printed, or emailed without the annotations. Different security rights can be given to each user as to whether annotations can be applied or removed.
Zone OCR Recognition works similarly to the bar code feature by allowing index fields to automatically be populated with information extracted from the document. IMS can look for up to five areas (within a document) to be OCR’ed and then extract data for populating it into the index fields automatically. These documents or forms are typically standardized, so the information being extracted is placed on the document almost in the exact location every time. If data is unrecognizable or questionable, the field(s) will be marked and will require manual attention. This feature also saves a tremendous amount of time and money, especially in a high-volume scanning operation.
Bar codes can be used to index documents by extracting fields from an external database, by filling in fields with pre-assigned values, or by associating certain documents with a particular index template. Automatically separating and indexing documents using bar codes can save a tremendous amount of time and money, especially in a high-volume scanning operation.
IMS allows for any document viewed to also be printed, faxed, or emailed. IMS is compatible with any MAPI (Mail Application Program Interface)-compliant email system. Send information within its native format.
Convenient Access via CD’s and Hard Disc
For convenient access to sections or a special query of information when away from the office/network, this information can be either burned to CD or saved to the hard disc of the computer/laptop. This may prevent the need to travel with many pages or boxes full of paper. Once information is burned to CD or saved to a hard disc on a laptop, all features for search and view function just as they do on the network, other than not being real time. If real time access to information is needed, review the IMS Web Viewer feature. Another example is if an office simply needs to transfer or ship information. Instead of shipping paper documents or even boxes of information, simply burn to a CD. The courier expense is much less and allows the recipient to view information digitally with intelligent searches, without the need of paper.
When paper documents have been obtained for review, searching for specific information within thousands of documents could take hours, days, or weeks of an individual’s time by manually reading page after page. IMS allows for scanning in thousands of documents at speeds of 500 pages per minute and faster; then running a full text OCR search to detect any pages relevant to the case. This information can be sent back to the office without the need of transporting boxes of paper.
An organization may purchase IMS and have a service bureau import all scanned and indexed files directly into IMS, or they may receive their information on CD. It puts a redistributable viewer on the archive disk so the contents can be searched and viewed in IMS on a computer without IMS installed on it. Some organizations may choose to purchase IMS, but they may use a service bureau for outsourcing the scanning and index labor. Some companies upgrade to new software packages that require minimal printing needs and handle very little paper, but they still need all the previous years of documents to be scanned; they, too, may choose to use a service bureau to scan all documents instead of having to purchase scanners and IMS to save money.
To productively scan large amounts of paper during a day or week, they may be scanned all together at one time, rather than individually during the day, while experiencing interruptions and the potential for mistakes. Once all the documents have been scanned, they may be easily grouped appropriately before assigning index fields and moving them to their appropriate profile locations. Pages can be removed or added to a document to correct any mistakes that may have occurred in the organization of a file.
IMS FLOW automatically notifies pre-determined users of specific imaging system events, which are preset by the Document Workflow Manager. Also, groups are established to maintain many users. Once a group has been created, a user can be deleted from the server or removed from the group, and new users can always be added. Not all users have to be included in every project created by the Document Workflow Manager.
The existing e-mail server is used to communicate with users, so they may either review or perform a specific task for a digital document. Return receipts and timed responses can be set by the Document Workflow Manager, and a conditioning table can be used to remind a user of their requested task. If a user receives an email request and does not respond in a timely manner, the task can be redirected to an alternate user. These features are the core of IMS FLOW, and they greatly increase productivity by automated processes; this reduces time spent hunting down documents and calling on individuals to either discover where a document is in the process or encourage an individual to complete their task.
IMS FLOW allows for documents to automatically be copied, deleted, or moved within IMS based on a predetermined set of rules. The Document Workflow Manager uses rules to create the routing protocols and conditions. IMS FLOW also allows for on-the-fly routing of documents and information through its folder structure and its system security to encounter any changes that may arise mid-stream in a project. Easy-to-understand folder structure and a simple GUI help to create these tasks quickly, and the drag and drop functionality adds simplicity. IMS FLOW is ODBC-compliant when linking IMS to third-party external database utilities; IMS audit allows for security when tracking all aspects of the process.
The IMS2-Smart feature can be used for high security environments. Simply swipe the ID card through a card reader attached to the computer to allow access to IMS.
