Well, here’s a surprise. I’ve been wondering when a new version would arrive and we’d discovered it while looking for other updates. We’re getting a DocuShare Roadmap overview soon to determine what to prepare for regarding changes coming down the road. We won’t be allowed to talk about most of it, but it’s always good to know. If you have any particular concerns we could still provide guidance based on that knowledge. I expect them to announce dropping support for version 6.6.1, so if you haven’t upgraded to 7.x by now, please do. We’ll be glad to help.
Here’s more information and download links on the releases for Windows and Linux.
Naturally, DocuShare will stay abreast of technology and security changes while adding features that customers are asking for. There are also updates for the DocuSign integration add-on and for the Enhanced Document Viewer with annotations and redaction (optional add-on) so that it can be installed on the same server for new installations.
Onboarding clients or suppliers using DocuShare
With just about every system there are documents that need to be distributed read, signed, received, and filed. DocuShare has a lot of functionality that you can use to centralize the documentation that maybe getting used from an HR System or a sales order process across two or more other systems that are interfacing directly with your employees, customers, clients, or suppliers. The purpose of this article is to introduce you to some of the tools that come with DocuShare or are available as options to provide a centrally managed system for onboarding and also for off-boarding.
Initiation may begin with the website that gathers data and drops information into a folder that is watched by DocuShare which is ingested into a collection that triggers certain actions. These actions may be as simple as an email notification to a user or group provoking them to respond. It could also kick off a document routing process complete with escalation options in case somebody doesn’t respond in a reasonable amount of time. Escalation could mean sending a reminder via email or through the document routing interface in DocuShare or it could mean notifying another, perhaps a manager, that a process is being overlooked. The intent of this is to make sure that someone takes action with the proper response. Document routing works really well because you can have up to four phases to go through including request for approval or disapproval, allowing others to review and make changes, acknowledge receipt via notification, and a simple FYI notification. This allows opportunities for comments or questions, as well. Repeatable processes can be saved as a routing slip and called by collection notifications of new content or through a more complex Content Rule.
If you have Content Rules Manager on your DocuShare system then select a collection and click on the triple dots to the right and select content rule. Just walk through this and explore all of your options. If you don’t have content rules then look to the user guide in The Help system and search for using content rules. All of your options will be spelled out there. If you’d like to see a demonstration then contact us and we will show you how it works. DocuShare’s Content Rules Manager provides a lot of capability as you’ll see in the graphic that follows. This allows you to specify a trigger to initiate various activities including importing, exporting, emailing, and triggering routing slips among other actions. Content Rules can also be set up to have an event driven cascading effect. As one rule changes the contents of a collection or the metadata on a document it can trigger another rule to perform another set of actions on it. Among these actions is the new Copy Template function built into DocuShare 7.5.
The Copy Template function allows you to set up a collection containing all of the resources that are normally required for an onboarding process. These are introductory letters, surveys, contracts, links to other resources, and more. Permissions can be pre-assigned prior to the copy process. Anything that you can put into a DocuShare collection can be part of the template that you can establish as part of your procedure and resources. The Content Rule can be triggered by something as simple as an email message or a document dropped into a collection, not necessarily the collection you want to replicate. An example of this would be a profile collection which you would copy into your main accounts collection properly renamed for your client. This would then notify a user or group of the new client so that they can look at the documents and begin participating in the onboarding process. Triggering all of this could be as simple as receiving email using the DocuShare Email Agent.
The DocuShare Email Agent is a great way to let people who are not users of your system to send a message and/or attachment into DocuShare. You would only need to share with them the email address of your DocuShare server along with some verbiage to append to the end of the subject line that tells it where to go. If such verbiage isn’t provided the email will go to the person assigned to monitor the Email Agent’s activities and this one itself may trigger an immediate action that you’ve assigned to it.
Another feature that you may like is DocuShare’s integration with DocuSign. This allows you to select the document and send it to a recipient for signature. You’ll have notification of when it has been signed and returned into DocuShare where it belongs.
So, the catalyst for the onboarding automated processes could be email, a document a user drops into a folder, something imported into DocuShare using content intake from another system. The results could be copying a template collection with its resources to a specific area, initiating document routing, sending email, exporting information to another system. There are several triggers and numerous actions that can be taken that save a great deal of time in onboarding processes.
If you have several systems that do onboarding you may want to use DocuShare to centrally manage some or all of the activity due to its versatility in managing documents and other content. It’s also generally less expensive to buy licenses for one system than several. If you find that you’d like to build a connector for tighter integration then consider using our CFAxess command console and write a script to interact with other systems. The DocuShare script can be called from other programs or scripts and automate many processes and including adding users and making them members of groups and setting permissions to various top-level collections so they can have the appropriate level of access to specific content.
DocuShare Enterprise has many of these features already within it. If you have a standard DocuShare server then you can add these as modules at an additional cost or upgrade to Enterprise. If you have an interest in doing this then please contact us and we’ll tell you what your options are according to your objectives and send you pricing. It’s great when you can get your systems to do all that tedious work done quickly and easily.
If you require the ability to OCR and/or capture data from image files, PDFs, scanned ID, or other documents to feed other systems, create spreadsheets, or automate the onboarding process, look to us for expertise with ABBYY’s industry leading line of products such as FineReader Server, FlexiCapture (basic and advanced for invoices), and Vantage. We have integrated these products with DocuShare using custom scripts or our versatile DAVupDoc auto-filing product. This is often referred to as Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) which is also used heavily within AR/AP departments to streamline invoice processing, invoice/PO matching, eliminate manual and inefficient tasks, costly errors, overcharges, lost, misplaced or late payments. It’s part of the whole Digital Transformation platform for automating processes going from documents to data and back again.
ABBYY recently wrote, “Gartner predicts that by 2023, 85 percent of organizations will be using document-centric identity proofing as part of their onboarding processes. These organizations need an identity proofing and affirmation solution that’s both secure for their business and easy for their customers to use.”
If you’re interested in automating some to all of your onboarding processes be sure to call or write for more in-depth information on my overview or for any perceived gaps that you’d like to discuss. Here’s a current DocuShare brochure for your review.
ABBYY Webinar – Proof of Identity
A crucial element in customer onboarding
Since 2020, more consumers have turned to the web to conduct business than ever before, making identity proofing to prevent fraud increasingly critical. Gartner predicts that by 2023, 85 percent of organizations will be using document-centric identity proofing as part of their onboarding processes. These businesses need an identity proofing and affirmation solution that’s both secure and easy for customers to use.
Join ABBYY for a special webinar on November 10, where you’ll learn:
- How to offer customers easy onboarding via their preferred digital channels
- How to reduce fraud and risk while improving overall outcomes in your onboarding process
- How to achieve customer satisfaction through automated onboarding processes
November 10, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. PT | 1:00 p.m. ET
Register now
Major Improvements Released with FlexiCapture 12 Release 4 Update 2
We are pleased to announce a significant update to FlexiCapture for our customers.
With the U2 update we have included new OCR technology that greatly improves recognition results against documents with complex backgrounds and introduced a new recognition mode (“Accurate”) which improves OCR results for many document types.
- ICR has been expanded to support handwritten patterns in addition to improved support for hand-printed text.
- API to download reports from Administration and Monitoring Console
- Single Sign-On with Multi-Factor Authentication on desktop stations
- Authorization for SharePoint Online
Additionally, a number of updates to enterprise features for user management, reporting, and admin control are included. Reference ABBYY’s FlexiCapture R4 U2 Release Notes for additional details.
Use Process Mining to Automate Wisely, Not to Automate Everything
While process automation tools have been available for many years, identifying the right processes to automate is still a challenge. Manually mapping out how processes actually work and, more importantly, how they should work requires extensive engagement with process owners and subject matter experts. At the end of the day, the results may not even be accurate, as they are based on human perceptions.
Download: Timeline – Use Process Mining to Automate Wisely, Not to Automate Everything
What’s new in FineReader PDF 16?
- New ribbon-style user interface
- New “Organize Pages” tool for PDF documents
- Native x64 application
- Improved OCR core of the latest generation
- Simplified license management and improved deployment for organizations, including deployment in Microsoft Azure
- Creation of searchable PDFs from vector SVG format
For more details on FineReader PDF 16 improvements, see the Comparison Chart brochure.
Find the full, detailed list of features in our Full Feature List brochure.
Editors’ Note: I’m using a larger font as I’m tired of having to zoom in on tiny type. I’m sure you can zoom out to compensate for my tired eyes.
Whether you’re looking for a new scanner or document management tools to make your business more efficient, be sure to shop with us for really good prices and the best side-by-side scanner comparison page anywhere. You’ll find this and our unique application enablers for DocuShare and ABBYY products on our CriteriaFirst site.
If you find this is a good source of information, then forward our newsletter or links to others that could benefit. They can add themselves to our list on the Newsletters page or write to us at support@criteriafirst.com and ask to be added and tell us what you’d like to know more about.