Converting my office to a paperLESS workspace

[dullard]

Originally posted by: Megamorph

Originally posted by: MikeyIs4Dcats
No. RAID1 is an instant mirro copy of the drive. If Drive 1 fails before you backup to your EHDD, you've lost everything since the last backup.

Well that sounds better than the external option. Why doesn't everyone use RAID1 instead of these external drives? Sounds like the way to go.

Both have their advantages. With an external drive, you can take it home and have a safe copy at all times - if someone breaks in and steals your computer or if there is a fire, etc. RAID1 will permanently lose all your data in situations like that.

To be safest, you want both.

 

[Baked]

Originally posted by: Megamorph

Originally posted by: MikeyIs4Dcats
Go the PDF route. Of course you will need paper copies of contracts and signed documents for legal purposes.

So PDF instead of OCR? I assume any version of Acrobat will work?

You should get the standard version of Adobe Acrobat. It'll allow you to manipulate PDF documents and the ability to convert any format into PDF using the print to PDF function from any program. PDF is a lot more compatible than OCR and pretty much anybody with Adobe reader can read it.

 

[MikeyIs4Dcats]

Originally posted by: Megamorph

Originally posted by: MikeyIs4Dcats
No. RAID1 is an instant mirro copy of the drive. If Drive 1 fails before you backup to your EHDD, you've lost everything since the last backup.

Well that sounds better than the external option. Why doesn't everyone use RAID1 instead of these external drives? Sounds like the way to go.

as Melty said, you would want an off-site backup as well, either by EHDD or tape drive or DVD. The downside to RAID is the costs (you need SCSI drives which are more $$$) and technical setup needed.

 

[imported_Phil]

1. Scanner
2. Scansoft Paperport

 

[randomlinh]

i would have the external backup, raid 1 setup... and preferably a remote backup somewhere... heh. I'm paranoid

and you don't need scsi for raid 1... for his purposes, IDE raid-1 would probably be sufficient. however, I would still have multiple copies not all in one place.

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: MikeyIs4Dcats

Originally posted by: Megamorph

Originally posted by: MikeyIs4Dcats
No. RAID1 is an instant mirro copy of the drive. If Drive 1 fails before you backup to your EHDD, you've lost everything since the last backup.

Well that sounds better than the external option. Why doesn't everyone use RAID1 instead of these external drives? Sounds like the way to go.

as Melty said, you would want an off-site backup as well, either by EHDD or tape drive or DVD. The downside to RAID is the costs (you need SCSI drives which are more $$$) and technical setup needed.

Er, you don't need SCSI drives for RAID.

 

[Superwormy]

Lots and lots of weekly backups.

 

[tfinch2]

Raid5 + Tape back-up FTW

You will also want a scanner with a feeder. Use MySQL/PHP to keep track of it all. I'm currently doing this for an accounting office of about 12. Take any wrong steps implementing or forget to back-up and it could be a disaster.

 

[MikeyIs4Dcats]

Originally posted by: Phil

Originally posted by: MikeyIs4Dcats

Originally posted by: Megamorph

Originally posted by: MikeyIs4Dcats
No. RAID1 is an instant mirro copy of the drive. If Drive 1 fails before you backup to your EHDD, you've lost everything since the last backup.

Well that sounds better than the external option. Why doesn't everyone use RAID1 instead of these external drives? Sounds like the way to go.

as Melty said, you would want an off-site backup as well, either by EHDD or tape drive or DVD. The downside to RAID is the costs (you need SCSI drives which are more $$$) and technical setup needed.

Er, you don't need SCSI drives for RAID.

you're right, I should have said "for reliable, fast RAID for a professional use, SCSI is highly recommended". SCSI drives are a lot more durable than IDE.

 

[MikeyIs4Dcats]

Originally posted by: Superwormy
Lots and lots of daily backups.

fixed.

or even hourly!

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: MikeyIs4Dcats
you're right, I should have said "for reliable, fast RAID for a professional use, SCSI is highly recommended". SCSI drives are a lot more durable than IDE.

I don't think he's running any enterprise systems here... the cost of scsi just wouldn't justify.. same w/ the RAID5+tape (in which I would say you'd have to use scsi.. haven't seen a fast IDE solution.. SATA might work).

 

[poopaskoopa]

We tried to go paperless, and we failed. We print whatever the fvck we want to print these days. Although, we don't have to keep a lot of the stuff we print except for receivers and vendor invoices/packing lists. We're a small, small company, so the storage & paper cost isn't really an issue, unless someone wants to argue over the $19 we spend on paper every month(and we don't recycle paper). We did begin to do things 100% electronically on some things such as CAD drawings from our customers. That part was pretty easy. We just asked our customers to send us the drawings in those formats. That did make our lives easier, but going paperless for everything else was just inconvenient.

 

[Megamorph]

Originally posted by: Phil
1. Scanner
2. Scansoft Paperport

Phil, will my Deskjet built-in scanner be sufficient? And what will Scansoft Paperport do for me?

BTW, the Deskjet scanner has a feeder.

 

[tfinch2]

Originally posted by: randomlinh

Originally posted by: MikeyIs4Dcats
you're right, I should have said "for reliable, fast RAID for a professional use, SCSI is highly recommended". SCSI drives are a lot more durable than IDE.

I don't think he's running any enterprise systems here... the cost of scsi just wouldn't justify.. same w/ the RAID5+tape (in which I would say you'd have to use scsi.. haven't seen a fast IDE solution.. SATA might work).

Enterprise or not, you get what you pay for. It's his business and the data is probably very important to him. If it wasn't, why would he even keep it?

 

[Megamorph]

Originally posted by: randomlinh
I don't think he's running any enterprise systems here... the cost of scsi just wouldn't justify.. same w/ the RAID5+tape (in which I would say you'd have to use scsi.. haven't seen a fast IDE solution.. SATA might work).

Yes, VERY small operation here. Almost like a home office.

 

[iamwiz82]

Originally posted by: tfinch2

Originally posted by: randomlinh

Originally posted by: MikeyIs4Dcats
you're right, I should have said "for reliable, fast RAID for a professional use, SCSI is highly recommended". SCSI drives are a lot more durable than IDE.

I don't think he's running any enterprise systems here... the cost of scsi just wouldn't justify.. same w/ the RAID5+tape (in which I would say you'd have to use scsi.. haven't seen a fast IDE solution.. SATA might work).

Enterprise or not, you get what you pay for. It's his business and the data is probably very important to him. If it wasn't, why would he even keep it?

Agreed. He needs to have a server with RAID and a tape backup, at the least.

How much paper do you have? Test by converting one customer over to data and see how much space they take up, then multiply it by however many customers you have.

 

[ATLien247]

The task of scanning is not the most important thing to worry about. Rather, you need to worry about how you are going to index all those electronic documents. It's no use having all those electronic documents if you can't find what you're looking for after the fact.

I'd recommend scanning in documents as PDF in conjunction with full-text indexing using OCR. As for what to use to do that, there are many different DMSs out there... most of them insanely expensive for a small business.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: Megamorph
Well that sounds better than the external option. Why doesn't everyone use RAID1 instead of these external drives? Sounds like the way to go.

RAID Mirroring is great but you need to understand that if 1 drive gets a virus or you accidently delete something, it is going to mirror those mistakes. The only insurance RAID Mirroring gets you is that if you lose a drive at any given time, you automatically have a failover device that will keep you up and running straight through. This is a must have but you also must have some sort of manual or automatic backup routine whether it be another drive that gets pulled off, dvds, or tapes. You need a plan in the case that you get a virus, what will you do to recover, how long will it take you and how much will you lose.

As far as document storing goes, I would think you'd want some sort of PDF setup. You only want OCR if you are scanning something in that you plan to modify. The PDF format makes for a good official format for archiving.

 

[mercanucaribe]

Originally posted by: tfinch2

Originally posted by: randomlinh

Originally posted by: MikeyIs4Dcats
you're right, I should have said "for reliable, fast RAID for a professional use, SCSI is highly recommended". SCSI drives are a lot more durable than IDE.

I don't think he's running any enterprise systems here... the cost of scsi just wouldn't justify.. same w/ the RAID5+tape (in which I would say you'd have to use scsi.. haven't seen a fast IDE solution.. SATA might work).

Enterprise or not, you get what you pay for. It's his business and the data is probably very important to him. If it wasn't, why would he even keep it?

Umm... isn't the reason for RAID 1 so that he doesn't lose data if a hard drive crashes?

 

[mcvickj]

Be careful with the OCR route. If your document is just straight text (like a letter) then it does a pretty good job. It can really butcher and type of formatting. You will be spending a lot of time going over what you just scanned to make sure it is correct. Since you mentioned your an insurance agent I'm guessing you have plenty of forms with special formatting.

Perhaps it would be wise to find a piece of software you want to use and see if you can get a demo copy of it. Test out a few documents and see if it is going to work for you.

 

[MikeyIs4Dcats]

Originally posted by: Megamorph

Originally posted by: randomlinh
I don't think he's running any enterprise systems here... the cost of scsi just wouldn't justify.. same w/ the RAID5+tape (in which I would say you'd have to use scsi.. haven't seen a fast IDE solution.. SATA might work).

Yes, VERY small operation here. Almost like a home office.

ask yourself this question:

Can I afford to lose everything on my hard drive?


The average home user would say yes. Can your business afford to lose everything?

 

[EagleKeeper]

Get a couple of OCR packages and test them out for quality.
Make sure that they are "trainable"

With respect to a scanner, test the one you have.
Scan in some small type documents and then print them out. Check the quality.
Make sure that you have the scanner option on high quality.

There are document indexing applciations out on the market that will allow you to create a database of your documents and find them via key words that you define.

Backup your data on a daily basis for internal use.

Also, make a seperate offsite copy either daily or weekly.

Set up the fax system to be handled by a computer. You can review the inbounds and then decide what to do.

You will not be able to go paperless, but can reduce much of the extra trash.
Signature documents will still need to be created; find out if they can be accepted legally if a copy? (which is what a scanned printout would be).

Get quality UPS systems for every computer within the office.
Consider also getting a small generator if you wish to continue operating when there is no power.

Good Luck

 

[archcommus]

Some great advice and tips in this thread.

 

[TitanDiddly]

Originally posted by: BroeBo
PDF/OCR will be your friend.

 

[crobusa]

We are looking into doing just this.. I don't have the entire answer, but here are suggestions:

Look into Ibackup.com, they will do Nightly/Semi-daily backups, so you won't looks your info.
The RAID is a great idea, both for databases and files.
SCSI brings a little higher quality, and much more speed, at a significant price difference. I'd skip it.
Paperport is an excellent program, and will do bulk OCR.
PDF looks like an exact image of the document, with the scanned text "hidden" for searching.
There are services that will do the scanning/shredding for you, if you want to outsource.

You're biggest drawback is your scanner. The HP OfficeJet 6110 that we purchased does a whopping document every minute or so, and you have to watch it for jams.
You'd be best buying a dedicated scanner that can scan 45 ppm, for about $2000. Right now, we're trying to lease one for a month or so.

Another problem is indexing. Will an entire customer be a file? (No.) I'd think and think hard how to easily get the info. Lastly you may have to deal with HIPPA, encryption, and submitting paperwork to underwriter on specific paper they use.

Good Luck