Almost every inquiry we receive regarding a potential scanning project includes a discussion and focus on the scan resolution (commonly referred to as Dots Per Inch, DPI), file type (PDF or TIFF), logistics of pickup and drop off, prep and re-assembly. Very few of the discussions initially focus on the indexing or categorization and organization of the files. It is mostly an afterthought by the potential customer, as if the entire project is all about the conversion and not about how they can benefit from having the documents easily accessible.
Over the years we have determined that the value of our services is not really in the quality of the scans or how well we re-assemble. We know we do those things very well and those project elements are critical to a successful conversion. But the real value in what Millennia Group provides is the organization and rationalization of the information so that users can find what they need quickly and have confidence that they have the full picture.
Let me describe a scenario that is fairly typical. I have used employee files in the example, but the concept is the same for all types of files and records. Let's assume a company has 2,000 employees and their employee files consist of personnel records, benefits documents, I-9's and all the other documents typically found in the employees folder or folders. Many companies will look at these files and start scanning the documents because it seems simple to have a temp just scan each employee folder as one PDF file and save it to a network drive. So that one PDF for that one employee has all the documents in it including the I-9. Let's say that file is for Mary Adams, so it is saved as maryadams.pdf. Seems pretty straight forward.
Looks can be deceiving. First of all, Mary gets married and is now Mary Reynolds. Hopefully someone will remember to manually go and rename the PDF to maryreynolds.pdf. Secondly, if there is an audit of the I-9's, they will have to go dig out the paper files because the auditors should not have access to all the other documents in the PDF like the background check or the medical information. How about the fact that managers really should only have access to the employees in their region, not easy to do on a shared folder on the network. How about the annual review PDF's that are stored in a different location on the network? Should those be merged into the other PDF for Mary or should users just know to go look somewhere else? How about terminated employees, are their files moved to a different location in the shared folder so that the retention schedule can be activated? Would anyone ever like to audit the files of all employees in a particular office? Can't be done if they are named the way we named the PDFs.
These are just some of the reasons that organization and indexing are so important in every scanning project. This effort is what really justifies the cost of scanning - cost savings from more accessible and complete information.
Please visit us at www.mgdocs.com
Monday, November 15, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Making Good Decisions
As a parent I know that I have said "make good decisions" to my children and I hope that they do as they go through life. That thought almost becomes more basic, more black and white in the business world. We have spreadsheets that we create to help us make good decisions. We do research on Google and other websites to find out information. We use credit reporting agencies, background checks and we read research reports from industry associations. There is an overwhelming amount of information out there.
So how does this relate to document imaging and document management? For businesses that have been around for a while many decisions are made based on prior experience. The vast majority of that prior experience is trapped in paper documents and in the heads of employees who are still around to remember. One of those known archives can be preserved theoretically forever, while the other lasts until age 65 or the next layoff. Protect your corporate knowledge and history by scanning those business documents.
An amazing amount of highly useful history and data resides in the paper documents that are the "prior experience" of any company. Document imaging, done correctly, can put that experience within instant reach of your employees and new decision makers. It is not someone elses experience that you have read about on google, it is actual experience for your company, real data based on your exact products or services. Don't think of document imaging as just a way to get compliant for business continuity purposes, or a way to go green, think of it as a way to go Black, as in not in the Red. Empower your employees with a tool that will lead to better decisions - convert your critical business documents to digital image.
Please visit us at www.mgdocs.com
So how does this relate to document imaging and document management? For businesses that have been around for a while many decisions are made based on prior experience. The vast majority of that prior experience is trapped in paper documents and in the heads of employees who are still around to remember. One of those known archives can be preserved theoretically forever, while the other lasts until age 65 or the next layoff. Protect your corporate knowledge and history by scanning those business documents.
An amazing amount of highly useful history and data resides in the paper documents that are the "prior experience" of any company. Document imaging, done correctly, can put that experience within instant reach of your employees and new decision makers. It is not someone elses experience that you have read about on google, it is actual experience for your company, real data based on your exact products or services. Don't think of document imaging as just a way to get compliant for business continuity purposes, or a way to go green, think of it as a way to go Black, as in not in the Red. Empower your employees with a tool that will lead to better decisions - convert your critical business documents to digital image.
Please visit us at www.mgdocs.com
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
When is a Million not a Million?
Most of our customers and prospects look at a wall of file cabinets or room full of boxes and immediately think "there must be a million pages here". They may be right, but they may be wrong. The correct answer or as close as you can get to the correct answer is extremely important in terms of the total cost of your imaging project and justifying your project.
If the cost to scan, prep, index and re-assemble (I don't like just saying the "cost to scan", since scanning is far more complicated than a single step) is $0.10 per page it makes a big difference if you have 1,000,000 pages or 100,000 pages. There is a huge difference between a budget of $100,000 and $10,000. As an example of how important page count is to the total project budget lets see what the budget is if we increase the cost per page by 50%.
If the project includes 100,000 pages and the cost per page increases by 50% to $0.15 per page, the budget increases from $10,000 to $15,000. $5,000 is a lot of money, but that difference is not usually a show stopper. So if a prospect call us and says "I need a quote to scan 100,000 pages", we can misjudge the complexity of the project by 50% and not really jeopardize the budget or shock the prospect.
If the prospect had said, "I think we must have 1,000,000 pages to scan", then it really doesn't matter what the price per page is, the nominal amount of the budget increases so dramatically that it does become a show stopper. Of course 1,000,000 pages at $0.10 is $100,000, much different than $10,000. Even if we are off on the price by 50%, $150,000 is really not in a different league than $100,000.
This is why page count is so important. Take a close look at the documents in the file cabinets and in the boxes. Maybe there are documents that really don't need to be scanned, which may significantly reduce page count. Take some test counts of the pages in each box or each folder and try to accurately extrapolate out the total number of actual pages that will be scanned. You might also be able to split the project into smaller parts to spread the budget out over a longer period of time.
Price per page is important and there are many variables that go into the cost of any project. However, an accurate estimate of the total page count will typically have the largest impact on total project cost.
Please visit us at www.mgdocs.com
If the cost to scan, prep, index and re-assemble (I don't like just saying the "cost to scan", since scanning is far more complicated than a single step) is $0.10 per page it makes a big difference if you have 1,000,000 pages or 100,000 pages. There is a huge difference between a budget of $100,000 and $10,000. As an example of how important page count is to the total project budget lets see what the budget is if we increase the cost per page by 50%.
If the project includes 100,000 pages and the cost per page increases by 50% to $0.15 per page, the budget increases from $10,000 to $15,000. $5,000 is a lot of money, but that difference is not usually a show stopper. So if a prospect call us and says "I need a quote to scan 100,000 pages", we can misjudge the complexity of the project by 50% and not really jeopardize the budget or shock the prospect.
If the prospect had said, "I think we must have 1,000,000 pages to scan", then it really doesn't matter what the price per page is, the nominal amount of the budget increases so dramatically that it does become a show stopper. Of course 1,000,000 pages at $0.10 is $100,000, much different than $10,000. Even if we are off on the price by 50%, $150,000 is really not in a different league than $100,000.
This is why page count is so important. Take a close look at the documents in the file cabinets and in the boxes. Maybe there are documents that really don't need to be scanned, which may significantly reduce page count. Take some test counts of the pages in each box or each folder and try to accurately extrapolate out the total number of actual pages that will be scanned. You might also be able to split the project into smaller parts to spread the budget out over a longer period of time.
Price per page is important and there are many variables that go into the cost of any project. However, an accurate estimate of the total page count will typically have the largest impact on total project cost.
Please visit us at www.mgdocs.com
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Compliance and Audit - Imaging Helps?
Two business areas that can benefit, or suffer, from imaging are compliance and audits. Here is why - unless your imaging process is tightly controlled, the risk of mis-information is equal to or greater than a paper based system. What could be some control points. Centralized scanning could be. This might create a bit more consistency in how documents are classified and saved vs leaving that task up to every individual user in the company. There will undoubtedly be spelling errors, mis-interpretations, mistakes and duplicated efforts, some of which might go away with centralized operations. A review step can also help, but that adds a layer of management and cost on the process. Structured file names. Can work, but round things don't always fit into square holes nicely. Workflow rules. That is a great way to ensure consistency and accuracy. A component of Workflow is source data as in matching invoices to the source accounting entry in the accounting system or matching the contract to the customer in the CRM. More to come.
Please Visit us at www.mgdocs.com
Please Visit us at www.mgdocs.com
Friday, May 7, 2010
Cost Benefit Balance
Who doesn't smile when they order a turkey sandwich for $5 and it comes piled high with carved turkey, a pickle, a bag of chips and a drink - That is a positive cost benefit relationship. But that same order might cost $20 - That is a negative cost benefit relationship for most of us I presume.
Is there any way to ensure the positive outcome each and every time for each and every customer (User)? You can plan as best you can, but there is probably no way to please all people all the time. You may serve great turkey, the best pickle and all the other good stuff they wanted but the mustard you provide is way to spicey.
How does this relate to document imaging project planning? In the end, there is going to be a need to identify the really critical areas that the users focus on and demand for their daily work. Take a deep look at need versus want to get these answers. How often do I need to see these documents? Exactly which documents are important to which users? Are documents for in-active accounts important? Maybe for only the first 6 months (only scan active accounts and in-active accounts that are less than 6 months old). Does each folder only have 10 pages in it? Consider scanning it as one - 10 page document instead of the more costly 10 - one page documents (each named and dated which takes time and hence money).
Most of the cost of an imaging project is invested in the categorization or indexing of the documents so they can be retrieved later with simple searches. There may be 20 different relative items for a single document, but maybe 98% of the time only 4 or 5 would be used to find it. The cost of capturing all 20 would be far greater than the 4 or 5 yet not provide the overwhelming majority of users with satisfaction.
These are just some of the ways to look at imaging projects. The process to arrive at these answers is well worth the effort and will help ensure that you get the best possible Positive cost benefit relationship.
Please visit us at www.mgdocs.com
Is there any way to ensure the positive outcome each and every time for each and every customer (User)? You can plan as best you can, but there is probably no way to please all people all the time. You may serve great turkey, the best pickle and all the other good stuff they wanted but the mustard you provide is way to spicey.
How does this relate to document imaging project planning? In the end, there is going to be a need to identify the really critical areas that the users focus on and demand for their daily work. Take a deep look at need versus want to get these answers. How often do I need to see these documents? Exactly which documents are important to which users? Are documents for in-active accounts important? Maybe for only the first 6 months (only scan active accounts and in-active accounts that are less than 6 months old). Does each folder only have 10 pages in it? Consider scanning it as one - 10 page document instead of the more costly 10 - one page documents (each named and dated which takes time and hence money).
Most of the cost of an imaging project is invested in the categorization or indexing of the documents so they can be retrieved later with simple searches. There may be 20 different relative items for a single document, but maybe 98% of the time only 4 or 5 would be used to find it. The cost of capturing all 20 would be far greater than the 4 or 5 yet not provide the overwhelming majority of users with satisfaction.
These are just some of the ways to look at imaging projects. The process to arrive at these answers is well worth the effort and will help ensure that you get the best possible Positive cost benefit relationship.
Please visit us at www.mgdocs.com
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Balancing Cost with Business Requirements
So a prospective client says, "I want to have these documents scanned and I want it done this way and this is our budget. When can you start." The reality is that we almost never get the budget number.
Unfortunately, Millennia Group doesn't operate that way, shame on us. We want to ask a few questions, peel back a few layers and understand the goals of the project. Not because we want to increase the cost, quite the contrary. Our goal is to have a successful project with a happy, very happy client and if at all possible do the project for less money. But, as we all know, low price does not equate to high value.
Typically to get to high value means balancing the cost with the business requirements. Not to be arrogant, but we have some pretty good ideas that can lead to a better end result and not increase the budget. We can't get to that point though unless the client is open to a little discussion and discovery.
I will continue this thought in future short posts centered on how to balance cost and requirements.
Please visit us at www.mgdocs.com
Unfortunately, Millennia Group doesn't operate that way, shame on us. We want to ask a few questions, peel back a few layers and understand the goals of the project. Not because we want to increase the cost, quite the contrary. Our goal is to have a successful project with a happy, very happy client and if at all possible do the project for less money. But, as we all know, low price does not equate to high value.
Typically to get to high value means balancing the cost with the business requirements. Not to be arrogant, but we have some pretty good ideas that can lead to a better end result and not increase the budget. We can't get to that point though unless the client is open to a little discussion and discovery.
I will continue this thought in future short posts centered on how to balance cost and requirements.
Please visit us at www.mgdocs.com
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
What will an Image Warehouse do for me?
Sorry for the long delay, end of year planning and close-out always take up more time than I think.
I am not at the end of this topic and have the all important answer to the question - What will an Image Warehouse do for me?
As you will recall, an Image Warehouse is a separate repository of your scanned image files complete with the meta data. The meta data must contain the key fields that allow you to match the image files to the corresponding data contained in your other line of business ("LOB") applications. For instance, the meta data in the Image repository database contains the Patient ID, which is of course also in the EMR system. Therefore, you do not need to push the image files into the EMR storage framework, you can simply create a link to the Image Warehouse.
The advantages of this architecture include:
1. Availability of the image files outside the firewall (for sharing with transaction partners).
2. Availability of the image files to users who don't have rights to the costly LOB application licenses.
3. Image capture can be tailored to the user environment, not restricted to the limited imging features of the LOB application.
4. Availability of linking the image files to other LOB applications, providing better customer service or audit capabilities.
5. Having a single image repository for multiple departments is easier to manage.
The Image Warehouse provides a single version of the truth when data and images are tied together through meta data.
Please visit us at www.mgdocs.com
I am not at the end of this topic and have the all important answer to the question - What will an Image Warehouse do for me?
As you will recall, an Image Warehouse is a separate repository of your scanned image files complete with the meta data. The meta data must contain the key fields that allow you to match the image files to the corresponding data contained in your other line of business ("LOB") applications. For instance, the meta data in the Image repository database contains the Patient ID, which is of course also in the EMR system. Therefore, you do not need to push the image files into the EMR storage framework, you can simply create a link to the Image Warehouse.
The advantages of this architecture include:
1. Availability of the image files outside the firewall (for sharing with transaction partners).
2. Availability of the image files to users who don't have rights to the costly LOB application licenses.
3. Image capture can be tailored to the user environment, not restricted to the limited imging features of the LOB application.
4. Availability of linking the image files to other LOB applications, providing better customer service or audit capabilities.
5. Having a single image repository for multiple departments is easier to manage.
The Image Warehouse provides a single version of the truth when data and images are tied together through meta data.
Please visit us at www.mgdocs.com
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