http://www.cohesionsoftware.co.uk/forum/ This is an XML content feed of; Cohesion Software : Last 10 Posts Mon, 21 May 2012 04:09:23 +0000 Mon, 30 Apr 2012 19:26:33 +0000 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Web Wiz Forums 9.08 30 www.cohesionsoftware.co.uk/forum/RSS_topic_feed.asp http://www.cohesionsoftware.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=66&PID=100#100 Author: tim@connectorlab.com
Subject: Saving a mail merge in SIMS
Posted: 30 Apr 2012 at 7:26pm

We are often asked if it is possible to save a mail merge to SIMS and while RECORDLINKwriter does not offer this at present there is a method available within SIMS, from Lesson Monitor. There are not so many fields available but it allows for simple letters home.

In SIMS select Tools>Setups>Attendance Setup>Define letters and select a letter or, as here, define a new one;





The template will open in Word, edit as desired and enter mail merge fields from Mailings>Insert merge field.





Save the letter (no need to Save As), close it and return to the main menu in SIMS. Go to Reports>Lesson Monitor>Letters>Print Letters and choose the relevant students. Then choose the letter template. To populate the list select one box in Chosen Code Options and then Any. Seemed to work.

Select preview in Word and then Print.



Your mail merge will open in Word as a single document with multiple pages.



You will then be offered the chance to Attach Letters to the Document Management Server. Take it but remember to check the Select All Students box. That may well be a good time to pop the kettle on if you are running a good sized batch. SIMS will save only the relevant pages of the document pertinent to a student to their student record. They area available in SIMS under Linked Documents.



For hard copy letters just print the Word document.

Hope that helps.]]> Mon, 30 Apr 2012 19:26:33 +0000 http://www.cohesionsoftware.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=66&PID=100#100 http://www.cohesionsoftware.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=65&PID=99#99 Author: tim@connectorlab.com
Subject: 5 Myths About Document Capture
Posted: 11 Oct 2011 at 2:00pm

This is another useful article from our friends at AIMM, published here with their permission. Read the blog here.

October 06, 2011

5 myths about document capture

[As is the case with our 8 things series, the opinions expressed in the 5 myths guest columns are those of the guest contributor and not necessarily mine or AIIM's. This guest post is by Bill Galusha from EMC. As usual, contra perspectives welcome.]

Myth #1: Desktop scanning works well enough for digitizing my paper documents

Reality: Digitizing your paper is really just a small piece to the solution and does provide some value, but the scope of your business problem will determine whether or not a simple desktop capture solution is going to do the job. For small organizations or businesses that are looking to do a simple back-file document conversion project, a basic capture system might satisfy their requirements. But for mid- and large-sized organizations, the requirements are often more complex and require advanced document automation, distributed capture, and connectivity with a host of business systems.

In this case, organizations need to consider an intelligent enterprise capture solution that delivers a full range of capabilities including the ability to capture documents from anywhere within the organization, automatically connect information to your business systems, and deliver both scalability and high availability for those mission critical processes.

It is time to think big and bold, and get beyond simple scan and archive. Doing so has the potential of bringing significant benefits in the form of operational cost savings, streamlined business processes, and improved productivity.

Myth #2:Intelligent document recognition sounds great, but it is too expensive to implement

Reality: Simply making a decision based purely on price is not always the best choice. In the case of intelligent document recognition, customers receive a significant return on investment, often driving value that is several multiples larger than the purchase price. As Brian Babineau stated in an Enterprise Strategy white paper, The Strategic Value of Information Capture, “The question is not whether an information capture solution will provide an ROI; it’s how big it will be.”

Depending on the business requirements – volume of paper, variety of documents and amount of data being captured, operating budget constraints, how time sensitive documents are, and importance of information – you can quickly understand if advanced capture capabilities like intelligent document classification and data extraction is something you really need.

When you have established that there is a business case for intelligent document recognition, the ROI can be significant. Take for example, an investment and asset management company an investment and asset management company, who is intelligently classifying and capturing data from 5,000 mail items (40,000 pages daily) which includes deposit documents, applications, and other financial related documents. By taking advantage of the advanced capture capabilities available to them, they require 30% less staff in their document services group, and are saving 1.1 million annually from decreased maintenance, capital, and labor costs.

Myth #3: We invested in capture years ago; we’re doing as much as we should be doing with scanning.

Reality: Remember, when you bought that old station wagon back in the 1970’s, you thought it was the best family investment you could have made at the time. If we fast forward to today, we now have the minivan and other cars geared towards families. These cars are more economical in terms of fuel efficiency, longer lasting, safer, better for the environment, more options, and so on.

Like cars, software technology does not stand still rather software is constantly advancing and getting better. A case in point are advanced document and data captures solutions that can automatically identify hundreds if not thousands of different document types and extracting data at a very high confidence resulting in lower costs and more efficient processes. Today, many businesses are choosing to reinvest in better and more advanced capture technology and replace systems that have outlived their benefits. Why replace what has worked for years? Simply put it makes your processes become more efficient, less costly, and directly impacts the services you are able to deliver.

Take a look at Canada’s largest credit union and you will find that by replacing an aging capture system, the credit union has cut document preparation and data entry by 50%. Just imagine being able to reduce data entry by half - you would be able to do more with less, or reduce your operational budget. It is no wonder why analysts like Gartner, IDC, Forester, and others see document imaging as one the safest IT investments a company can make.

Myth #4:] Paper is a problem of the past; our company is committed to electronic communication and forms

Reality: This is definitely one of the best myths that I’ve heard over the years. But the fact remains, paper is still used to support critical business operations. According to a recent AIIM Industry Watch Report, the consumption of paper and number of photocopies is still growing in 27% of organizations, and 39% of organizations are seeing a decrease somewhat. If you posed the same question to employees in an industry like government, chances are the use of paper is much higher.

There are several reasons why paper is likely to continue to remain important in businesses including the fact that much of the paper businesses receive comes from outside of the business, which means that you have little control over it. Other reasons include industries like government must support paper as an accessible way of doing business, paper often supports an electronic process, and some document driven processes remain very complex making it difficult to flip a switch and go all electronic.

While the use of paper will most certainly continue to decline over the next decade, our best recommendation to businesses is don’t try and boil the ocean when it comes to changing up your business processes. Look for ways to convert paper into digital information, and connect the content with existing and new electronic processes.

Myth #5:I’m just not scanning enough paper to be interested in enterprise capture.

Reality: This goes back the first myth in which some companies think scanning paper is “good enough” and that enterprise capture is more than they need. Maybe this is true if you are a small business where you have only a few hundred documents a day, but for any mid to large size company, basic scanning is not good enough.

In fact, enterprise capture means more than just high volume document capture. It is about supporting distributed capture, intelligently identify documents and extracting data, and connecting information to many different systems. Whereas in the past, capture was primarily used for digitizing and archiving content; today, capture plays an important role in streamlining critical business processes likes claims, new account opening, deposits, taxes, criminal case records, and many others. In these cases, processing information fast and with the least amount of resources is what most companies set their sights on.

Go cheap and settle for a much smaller ROI, and you will likely be disappointed.

-----

About the Author: Bill Galusha joined EMC in January 2007, and is a Principal Product Marketing Manager for the Captiva intelligent enterprise capture solution. Mr. Galusha has 20 years of experience in marketing and managing various software products including document capture, eForms, and business process management. Prior to joining EMC, Mr. Galusha held a variety of senior product marketing and product management positions at Cardiff Software, Mitek Systems, and Alignent Software.
]]> Tue, 11 Oct 2011 14:00:02 +0000 http://www.cohesionsoftware.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=65&PID=99#99 http://www.cohesionsoftware.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=47&PID=98#98 Author: tim@connectorlab.com
Subject: Unknown error obtaining licence from ....
Posted: 15 Sep 2011 at 7:20pm

Some additional notes on this topic in case the above fails to fix the problem.

First, its always worth checking any firewall issues.

Second, check for multiple IP addresses. We have seen a user with two network cards in the server, the second one had a funky IP address on it (which was a surprise as the network manager was aware of only one). The RLmanager service was using this to listen for licence requests. Set which IP address to listen on in RLmanager config and disable the second network card. The RLw clients now successfully obtain licences.]]> Thu, 15 Sep 2011 19:20:57 +0000 http://www.cohesionsoftware.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=47&PID=98#98 http://www.cohesionsoftware.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=64&PID=97#97 Author: tim@connectorlab.com
Subject: 5 Myths about the Paperless Office
Posted: 13 Sep 2011 at 6:38pm

5 Myths about Paperless Office That Hinder Document Management Software Adoption

This is another in a series from AIIM, reproduced with their permission. More articles from AIIM are on the Digital Landfill website.
   
[As is the case with our 8 things series, the opinions expressed in the 5 myths guest columns are those of the guest contributor and not necessarily mine or AIIM's. This guest post is by Shiraz Ahmed, CEO of ITAZ Technologies. As usual, contra perspectives welcome.]

Isn't it ironic that with advancing technology, we are quick to spend on 'cool' gadgets for personal use though they do not yield any financial return in most cases; but we are reluctant to invest in technology that is proven to yield a return in the short-to-medium term? This also holds true when it comes to moving a business to the paperless model. Let us look at five myths about paperless offices that prevent organizations from adopting electronic document management, and consequently miss out on the benefits that such technology brings.

Myth #1: Dedicated IT staff are required to maintain a DMS application.

Reality -- This is fast becoming a thing of the past. Modern software applications can be simple to install and easy to maintain. Today’s document management software is designed on a task-based model. That means software developers place themselves in your shoes and learn what organizations want from the solution. What comes out is a solution that you can deploy, use and manage by yourself.

Myth #2: Employees will resist the move.

Reality -- Well, employees will certainly be wary at first. They have been working with paper for years and are comfortable with the system. But the first time they find a document in seconds, they will begin to appreciate the system. Additionally electronic document management systems make business processes more structured. This means your staff will quickly find themselves more efficient than before. Paper-centric processes tend to take the focus off the result and shift it to the process. If there is one thing that electronic document management does, it puts the focus back to where it belongs - results.

Myth #3: Managing documents electronically is less secure than paper based processes.

Reality -- Controlling access to paper-based documents is possible only by locking filing cabinets and restricting entry to rooms that house document archives. How many filing cabinets would you unlock in a day if you needed to retrieve a couple of dozen documents? And almost every time you retrieve a document, you would need to file it back and lock the cabinet. So long as the cabinet is unlocked or open, all files and documents are together accessible to those around. Document management software replaces this cumbersome and unsecure process with document-level access control, using passwords, document encryption, assigning of permission-based roles to users etc. This almost guarantees that your documents, folders and indeed the entire document management system stay secure from unauthorized access and use.

Myth #4: ROI can be achieved only in the long term.

Reality -- As you make the switch from paper-based processes to digital processes, gains from time savings and improved efficiency can be immediate. Apart from this, your need for paper as well as related consumables, cabinets, storage space etc. will fall significantly. This will result in huge cost savings. Although putting in place a document management system means you need to invest in a scanner and document management software, you could recover it in a matter of months. Read the white paper Measuring ROI on a Document Management System to know more about this.

Myth #5: Paper use must be totally eliminated to achieve a paperless office.

Reality -- The move to a paperless office is always a gradual one. No doubt, minimizing paper consumption is one of the milestones on the road to achieving a paperless office; but the bigger gains are made through electronic document management and process automation. There will always be certain documents that are required by applicable laws to be in paper form. Electronic document management helps you reduce paper consumption significantly so that managing the few documents that are left in paper form hardly takes any effort.

Now that these myths have been dispelled, here are five steps to going paperless…

1.     Determine the size of your paper-based document archive
2.     Study the work processes in your organization
3.     Invest in and roll out document management software to match these needs
4.     Digitize your paper archive by scanning the documents
5.     Organize documents to make them easily retrievable and design workflows to expedite business processes.

Adopting the above five steps will ensure that you do not miss out on these technological advances made in the area of business management. The coolest gadget in town will now be your office laptop or PC!
-----
About the Author -- Shiraz Ahmed is the CEO of ITAZ Technologies which he founded in 1999. ITAZ develops and markets Document Management Software products which are extremely simple to use. ITAZ’s products Globodox and Sohodox have enabled organizations in over 50 countries to reap the benefits of document management without incurring large investments.


]]> Tue, 13 Sep 2011 18:38:10 +0000 http://www.cohesionsoftware.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=64&PID=97#97 http://www.cohesionsoftware.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=63&PID=96#96 Author: tim@connectorlab.com
Subject: SIMS SUMMER RELEASE 7.140
Posted: 26 Jul 2011 at 1:25pm

We are currently developing a fix for RECORDLINK to handle the move to .Net 4 and we'll let you know as soon as its ready.

My apologies for the delay

Tim]]> Tue, 26 Jul 2011 13:25:59 +0000 http://www.cohesionsoftware.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=63&PID=96#96 http://www.cohesionsoftware.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=62&PID=95#95 Author: tim@connectorlab.com
Subject: FREE RECORDLINKeXport licences for policy sharing
Posted: 20 Jun 2011 at 12:07pm

We work with many schools working towards a paperless, or at least less-paper environment and are aware of the amount of work required to write policy and process documents.

We are therefore pleased to offer free annual licences of RECORDLINKeXport software to schools who are willing to share their own internal documentation on this forum.

Such documentation may be named or anonymous and is published with the implicit knowledge that it is free to download and use without liability.

Please email me for further details.]]> Mon, 20 Jun 2011 12:07:32 +0000 http://www.cohesionsoftware.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=62&PID=95#95 http://www.cohesionsoftware.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=60&PID=93#93 Author: tim@connectorlab.com
Subject: RECORDLINKeXport launched today
Posted: 24 May 2011 at 3:09pm

Today we are very excited to announce the launch of RECORDLINKeXport, the new and easy way to export documents from Student and Staff records in SIMS to a password protected file for archiving, sharing and case work.

Please see the product page for more information.

RRP primary annual licence, unlimited seats, is £85 + VAT.

RRP secondary annual licence, unlimited seats, is £145 + VAT.

Forum members will recieve 50% off annual licences until the end of July.]]> Tue, 24 May 2011 15:09:35 +0000 http://www.cohesionsoftware.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=60&PID=93#93 http://www.cohesionsoftware.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11&PID=91#91 Author: tim@connectorlab.com
Subject: No toolbars? Try installing .NET Prog support
Posted: 08 Oct 2010 at 9:41am

After the .net interop files the other possibility is that the toolbar has been disabled in Excel/Word due to it failing to load at some point – again this is separate for each part of Office. There is a registry value for each of them located at (something like):

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\[Application Name]\Addins\RECORDLINKwriter.xxx

Where [Application Name] is either Outlook, Excel or Word and it is called LoadBehavior – the value should be 3 if the add in is to be loaded at startup. If it is any other value, then change it to 3 – close all Office apps and try loading again.

If the problem is identified as the first problem (missing Interoperability components) then you should also check the second registry values since they would fail to load and normally get marked as not loaded at startup.

Again, this only applies to Office 2003.]]> Fri, 08 Oct 2010 09:41:19 +0000 http://www.cohesionsoftware.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11&PID=91#91 http://www.cohesionsoftware.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=58&PID=90#90 Author: tim@connectorlab.com
Subject: Choosing a scanner
Posted: 28 Sep 2010 at 12:28pm

This is another article from AIIM, the global enterprise content management association, and reproduced with their kind permission. You can find the orginal article here and more details about AIIM on their website.

September 28, 2010

8 Ways to Choose the Proper Scanner for your Needs

1 -- Scan Speed and Duty Cycle

When determining the scanner for your organizations strategy, you want to make sure that you have one that will complete the project in the specified time frame. You will want to determine the amount of documents you are looking to capture and the timeframe you are looking to complete the project in. In a lot of cases, organizations will purchase a less expensive scanner that is not designed to handle the throughput required by the project. Exceeding a scanners duty cycle places additional stress on the scanner and often results in equipment failure that may void any warranties or maintenance agreements.

2 -- Flatbed or Auto Feeder?

When selecting your scanner, determine the type of documents you will be scanning. If they are books or extremely delicate or odd shape documents, you may want to consider a flatbed scanner for these needs. This is a very slow option as you have to stop and restart the scanner for each scan along with having to change the documents. Auto feeders are a better option and will allow you to stack your documents and scan them without intervention.
Most scanners do not require you to stop between batches. This continuous feed feature is something that you will want to make sure the scanner has for maximum productivity.
[For those interested in more information on this topic, AIIM will be doing a series of local seminars on 8 Factors to Consider in Creating an Effective Information Management Strategy -- How Your Organization Can Improve Efficiency, Increase Productivity and Reduce Risk. The seminar is free, and registration information can be found at this link -- http://www.aiim.org/ecmseminar]
For production projects, you want to make sure your auto feeder can handle large batches. Typical production scanners have 300 - 500 page plus feeders. Most high production scanners feed from the left side which allows for the use of paper joggers to get the documents in a large batch aligned for proper feeding. Without proper alignment the number of double feeds and jams is likely to increase due to smaller documents not being fed properly.

3 -- Resolution

Resolution is one of the keys to getting the best image quality. Most scanners have the option to capture images at 100DPI - 600DPI in bi-tonal (black and white/ grayscale). For color, 150 DPI is typically used as it’s the best compromise between image quality and file size. Also remember, the higher the resolution, the larger your file size and also the slower the speed of the scanner. The manufactures typically give the scanner speed rated at 200 DPI landscape so be sure to ask what the rated speed is at higher DPI’s.

4 -- Ability to Sort Documents

When dealing with large batches with separator sheets, batch or patch code sheets and exception documents due to odd size (such as checks, receipts, etc), you may want to have the scanner automatically sort these for you. For this feature to work, the scanner must have at least two output trays. This will save time and money when it comes to physically separating these types of documents from your batch after scanning. Some software companies will automatically remove the electronic image but the issue is still removing the paper documents from the batch. A scanner with multiple output trays typically will provide you with more control over your conversion process and reduce your cost of labor.

5 -- Image Enhancement Features
For a clean electronic image, there must be image enhancement built into the scanner or offered via software. When scanning documents, especially Bill of Ladings and other difficult to read documents, the image can be blurry, speckled or just impossible to read. Most scanners, especially those that were designed with OCR (Optical Character Recognition) in mind, have built in image enhancement features that will clean the image and make it more legible. There are also add-on software components that will do the same.

Another feature to consider is color dropout. This allows for you to select a color for the scanner to drop out of the electronic image. This is often used in cases of highlighters. If scanned without this feature, the highlighted area will appear as a dark box. This box will cover up the text and making it non legible. Most scanners only do red, blue or green dropout but more sophisticated scanners have the ability to drop out any color you like by using color palette selections similar to those used in photo enhancement software solutions.

6 -- Imprinter and Imprint Checking

Organizations often want to have the ability to verify whether a document was scanned. To do so, an option would be for the scanner to have an imprinter. The imprinter allows you to print characters on the scanned document which provide verification. The characters can be text or numbers such as a project name and date.

In some cases, a file that has already been scanned and imprinted may accidentally be placed in the next batch to be scanned. If this happens, some scanners have imprint checking. This feature allows the scanner to detect there are imprinted characters on the document and reject them (preferably to an exceptions hopper). This then allows the scanner operator to determine whether it is ok for this image to remain in the file or deleted.

7 -- Consumables and Maintenance
Consumables and maintenance can become the most expensive part of a solution if you do not do the proper research on the scanner and the manufacture. Find out what the average life of scanner consumables, what is considered a consumable and how to replace them. Most scanners only list rollers and bulbs as consumables. There are manufactures which include bulbs as part of the warranty and/or maintenance agreement. In some cases, belts and other items that wear out are considered a consumable and these may be costly.

Maintenance and warranties are another area to consider. A typical scanner warranty should be 90 to 120 days and includes on-site repairs that cover all parts and labor. Find out how much annual scanner maintenance is and be sure to get quotations on preventative maintenance calls also. These will help to keep the scanner at rated speed and also be able to spot something that may be going bad. Consider it like a tune up for a car.

8 -- Multi-Stream Color, Bi-tonal and…?

Most scanners come with the ability to scan in color, gray scale, black and white and color. If you need to have color, you will need to verify that the scanner does so. A great feature to look for is the capability to do dual or tri-stream output. The dual stream feature allows you to capture and export a high resolution color and a bi-tonal image in one pass from the scanner. The tri-stream feature allows the user to configure three different outputs. For instance, with a single scan you can capture an image with color dropout to send to your forms processer, a bi-tonal image to full-page OCR and a full color image that can be stored for archival purposes, in both simplex and duplex modes.

Conclusion

There are many different options for scanners that need to be considered based on your application and size of project. It is recommended you work with a reputable Value Added Reseller that can provide you with assistance in this area as well as the full solution. Stay away from internet resellers and order takers as you will get a good price up front but end up paying in the long run.

Get case studies, white papers, news and information, research and more at AIIM's Capture and Imaging Community.

---

John Kaiser has over 18 years experience in the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Document Capture industry and is currently the Channel Sales Manager for Imaging 411. Prior to joining Imaging 411 Inc, Mr. Kaiser was the Northeast Regional Manager for ABBYY USA Software House, Inc, a leading provider of document conversion, data capture and linguistic software. For nearly 13 years, Mr. Kaiser held various challenging Sales and Management positions at Cranel Imaging, a major distributor for document imaging products and scanner maintenance services within the ECM industry. John also has worked in a reseller capacity, providing highly productive solutions to major accounts throughout the U.S. John is a CDIA+ as well as an AIIM Practitioner.
     


]]> Tue, 28 Sep 2010 12:28:15 +0000 http://www.cohesionsoftware.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=58&PID=90#90 http://www.cohesionsoftware.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=57&PID=89#89 Author: tim@connectorlab.com
Subject: Error after upgrade of the SIMS SQL server
Posted: 22 Sep 2010 at 12:17pm

If the SIMS SQL server is upgraded the connector will fail to establish a connection.

The connect.ini file on the ScanStation server should be changed to reflect the new server name.

Go to C/Progam files/SIMS/SIMS .net, open the connect.ini file and change the server name.

As ever, this can't be a re-direct.

Tim]]> Wed, 22 Sep 2010 12:17:26 +0000 http://www.cohesionsoftware.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=57&PID=89#89