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EDMS Solution

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 Electronic Document Management Systems are a group of hardware and software technologies which address the paper,  microform, communications problems faced by modern organizations. The main components of EDMS consist of
bulletDocument Imaging
bulletGroupware
bulletElectronic mail
bulletElectronic forms
bulletWorkflow

Document Imaging consists of these basic steps

  1. Scanning of paper documents into electronic form (usually a TIFF image - same format as FAX)
  2. Indexing the document according to business rules.
  3. Storage on to mass storage media. (hard disk or optical media)
  4. Retrieval of the document as needed.

The benifits are numerous...

bulletLow cost. Storage and retrieval cost of a  document is about 3¢.
bulletAvailability. Multiple  users can access archives   simultaneously.
bulletRemote access.  The entire archive is available to remote users via dial up connnections or via the Internet.
bulletSpace savings. Based on current technology an entire warehouse of paper can be stored in a small optical juke box the size of a filing cabinet. One Gigabyte of storage space holds roughly 2 filing cabinets full of paper images (b&w) Even the low end optical juke box, the size of an average tower computer,  stores   80 Gigabytes or 160 filing cabinets of paper imges.
bulletBack Ups. 100% exact copies of an entire archive can be made to optical disks and sent off site for safekeeping for disaster contingencies.
bulletFAXing. Images can be faxed directly out of the archive in response to user requests from anywhere.
bulletMultiple documents types. In addition to images of paper documents the storage system can archive other types of documents such as computer files, graphic images, audio or video clips etc.

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Each situation is different and competent legal advise from an attorney specializing in EDMS  is a must.

In general, 45 states have adopted 2 rules of evidence -

bulletUniform Photographic Copies of Business and Public Records as evidence act (UPA)
bulletUniform Rules of Evidence (URE)

Groupware is software which is designed for groups of people to work together. The examples of groupware are Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange etc. They typically include e-mail, scheduling and calendar functions as a base line and   custom applications can be developed for specific needs.

Electronic forms are onscreen representations of paper based forms which  can be filled on the computer and routed on the network. Most groupware products include forms packages. Electronic forms reduce paperwork, increase accuracy (data validation can be built in) and reduce storage requirements due to their inherent small size compare to images.

Workflow is a system in which work can be transported from one person to another over a network according to a set of rules. In addition roles(job descriptions)  can be defined and users assigned to these roles. The workflow system will track all instances of work perfomed and keep statistics about them enabling managers to identify bottlenecks in the business processes.
 

 

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Last modified: October 18, 2004