Document processing - dokNET

The intelligent (not merely electronic) document processing will be a strategically important application in the near future both for economic companies and governmental organisations in order to adapt to the increasing flow of information that characterises our times.

Nowadays, besides better-known problems such as computer viruses, one of the most important tasks of IT managers at economic companies and organisations is to find a solution to the processing of the huge and ever growing quantity of unstructured information. Vast quantities of paper are produced in official, governmental, or business operations every day. The various types of documents are inevitable products of companies and organisations because almost all stages of their operation have to be recorded in writing, whether they are contracts or just related to events in the life of the company. The bigger the company, the more attention is necessary to process the documents related to its operations. The documents have to be organised because unsorted piles of paper or lost documents may cause a lot of unnecessary problems and work.

Electronic document processing means not only that ordinary (printed, audio, video, etc.) documents are digitalised and stored in that form, but also that they are re-organised. According to several surveys, nowadays less than 20% of the available information is stored in some structured way (in databases or organised spreadsheets). More than 80% of the information is stored without organisation. The structuring of this huge amount of unorganised data will be achieved by electronic document processing.

Economic companies and organisations have their own rules and unwritten traditions of document processing depending on their size and operation methods. Many of them replaced their old registers with electronic ones in recent years. The first steps of document processing, reception and registration, are usually the same; differences may occur between companies and organisations only in the data fields that have to be filled. The important thing is to put the filled data fields in a database where searching and organisation have many ways. Intelligent Document Processing reaches beyond the simple electronic register. Here we have such options as controlling processes, monitoring deadlines, automatic management of replacements, etc. This way we can create new values.

By means of the dokNET intelligent document processing system developed by our company, we offer an option for solving document processing problems – be it for public organisations, small, medium or large companies.

The key to the successful introduction of dokNET is to find an optimal balance between unification and customisation. The obligatory features of the document processing regulations of economic companies and organisations are set in the relevant laws, decrees and prescriptions. Besides the data and processes defined here, we also have to specify the data necessary to the efficient document processing of the particular company or organisation in order to implement them into the Intelligent Document Processing system.
During the planning of the system it is recommended to use “closed set of values” by which the system requires the user to categorise the content of the particular data field as an element of the relevant set of values. Of course, we can choose “Other” as well, but our experience shows that users choose “Other” much more often than necessary, which makes further data processing more difficult. It is recommended to preserve the right to expand the elements of the “closed set of values” to a user with higher rights (e.g. the system administrator). Thus the system can be modified in a flexible way according to the changing conditions, but only to the necessary extent.

In practice, economic companies and organisations have to transform documents from digital to ordinary (printed) form more than once. In one case, the document stored on the ordinary device (paper, videotape, etc.) has to be digitalised by some equipment (typically a scanner). In the other case, the digital document can be printed on paper. Currently, in some fields of life (e.g. at courts) ordinary printed documents cannot be discarded, but in most cases digital information sharing also works. A basic solution on behalf of the economic companies and organisations may be mixed communication, that is, they use printed or digital documents for communicating with the world according to the demands of their target audience. However, within a company or an organisation it is recommended to provide and use electronic document and information processing exclusively. In an economic company or organisation document processing is the mapping of the operational methods in a way. Before switching to electronic document processing, it is recommended to make a comprehensive analysis of the document processing traditions and regulations. Often very surprising results and increase in efficiency can be achieved if the modifications of regulations and structure are based on the analysis.

The document processing systems have to be used in a very heterogeneous IT environment. At economic companies and organisations several computers are used that have different efficiency and operation systems. The system developed by our company is “web-based”; therefore, it can be used on any computer on which a Microsoft-based web browser is installed. With this option the database layer and the application is put on a computer with appropriate efficiency, depending on the amount of documents processed by the particular company or organisation. Thus, the system can serve several hundred, or with an appropriate server several thousand, clients.