Jim Wieser, Product Director
5 min read
Automated scanning workflows help companies digitize large amounts of files quickly and efficiently. This process would otherwise take a lot of time and effort if done manually. Today, many physical files still exist, and businesses are increasingly interested in converting them into digital documents.
According to Harvard Business Review, around 89% of companies have started some form of digitalization or electronic documents project. This highlights the fact that automated scan workflows to capture documents are essential in today's rapidly evolving business landscape.
Automated scanning helps capture documents effortlessly. Automated document scanning comes in one-touch workflows within office multi-function devices. The workflow activates the capture, process, and delivery stages of traditional scanning in one tap. The data capture process allows for digital document storage in cloud repositories.
In this article, we will explore how cloud-enabled scanning helps improve productivity within your organization. Keep reading to learn how cloud document management can enhance the efficiency of your document capture processes with automation.
Unraveling the Document Capture Knot
Automated workflows can radically improve an organization's productivity and efficiency. Traditional scanning methods often require manual data entry. Modern digital scanning solutions, on the other hand, allow for automated scan workflows. These workflows significantly reduce the time needed to extract and process large amounts of documentation.
Features such as scan-to, OCR technology, and cloud repository destinations help organizations with their document management structure. By using multi-brand scanning, IT teams can focus on important business tasks. They can leave otherwise manual scanning and document management to automated solutions, which allows for better task prioritization.
📖 Read on → What is Multi-Brand Scanning? Untangling the Scan Process
A Simple Mix of Capture, Process, & Deliver
The notion of having an automated software solution to name and tag office documents is supported by 82% of the common workforce. Let's take a look at the benefits of automated document scanning workflows:
1) Uncomplicated Scan and Capture
You can take the complexity out of scanning with document capture features that make scanning fast and simple. Documents are automatically and accurately captured and processed, data extracted, and final files delivered to authorized predefined destinations.
2) Cloud-Enabled Scanning
You can easily combine capture and print activities within a united cloud platform. One such platform is SAFEQ Cloud. This multi-vendor tool helps IT teams work more efficiently. It allows them to print and scan documents from one converged platform, saving time and money.
3) Empowered IT Teams
Free your IT teams from the back-and-forth of manual capture procedures with streamlined workflows, including reliable indexing and keyword search. Users can enjoy easy document editing directly from the cloud and reliable delivery to email, server, cloud, or other repositories. Cloud based document capture solutions facilitate the digital infrastructure needed to adequately implement automated workflows that alleviate the burden on IT teams.
4) Edit Digitized Files Directly
Optical Character Recognition, OCR technology, allows software to capture scanned text and convert it to digital. This allows you to edit files immediately without needing to encode a single word manually from paper.
5) Simplified Capture Process
Automated document scanning workflows significantly reduce the possibility of human error. It also simplifies the process of digitizing large volumes of files. For instance, under a traditional scanning setup, an office worker will have to:
- Scan a document manually
- Return to their workstation
- Save and rename the file
- Email it or save it to their computer or a storage device
It's easy to get distracted during these steps, allowing for errors or missing documents. Automated scan workflows automate the entire process with predefined templates, ensuring accuracy with just one click.
In addition to simplifying the document capture process, automated scan workflows allow you to predefine parameters for naming conventions and output quality. This means a more consistent, unified system that keeps scanned documents organized within the document repository.
Users no longer need to remember the destination path, file name, or required DPI quality. The workflow automatically defines everything for them. By having consistent scan parameters every time, organizations effectively lower the risk of errors and inconsistencies in keeping files.
User experience remains consistent, and employees don't require different portals or systems for various scan and print functions. With SAFEQ Cloud, for example, your workflows integrate fully with your multifunction device.
Users can access these devices as usual and use the same menu system regardless of location.
6) Enhanced Capture Results
More often than not, document capture can result in low-quality images. This can render scans useless, especially if elements are blurred out and difficult to read. Automated scan workflow processing optimizes the scan procedure to ensure that the document is at its highest quality output.
For instance, if someone feeds a document to a scanner at the wrong angle, the workflow will automatically correct its orientation. During processing, any disruptions to the image, like fingerprints or dust on the scanner glass, will also be automatically removed.
Users can append and prepend pages, and merge documents as needed. A user can also remove blank pages. They can even leverage advanced compression to reduce the document size by up to 30 times smaller than its uncompressed version—without sacrificing image quality and clarity.
Saving scanned documents into uniform formats is also not a problem with automated document scanning solutions. You can choose to output the document in formats such as PDF, Excel, or MS Word to enable it to become searchable. This is because ensuring consistency and searchability by using keywords can save users time when looking for documents.
7) Simple, Swift, and Secure Delivery
In the delivery part of scanning, saving a file can introduce the possibility of errors. Errors typically include accidentally saving files in the wrong location, sending them to the wrong email, or using an incorrect storage device.
Delivery mistakes like this can take valuable time from any employee's work day and pose risks to security and confidentiality. Automating scanned document delivery reduces the risk of human error and greatly improves business productivity. With SAFEQ, for example, delivery is guaranteed to go smoothly because the location is predefined within your scan workflow templates.
The user simply selects a predefined workflow, scans the desired document, and the workflow automatically manages and processes it for them. The result is an accurately scanned, high-quality document, stored in the right location or sent to the correct recipient every time.
The Role of Cloud in Making Scanning Simple & Efficient
Cloud document management solutions are a great way to improve an organization's productivity and keep necessary documents securely accessible via the cloud. Multi-brand cloud scanning solutions are brand-agnostic and enabled for cloud software.
Choosing brand-agnostic software is essential because it gives businesses the liberty to select devices freely. Opting for devices users are comfortable with ensures high productivity and digital collaboration.
This type of setup requires printing software that can handle a multi-brand hardware ecosystem with ease. Brand-agnostic automated scanning solutions, in particular, can bridge this gap. With multi-brand scanning, you can rely on consistent document capture across varying devices in addition to online storage and automated scan workflows.
SAFEQ Cloud streamlines your scanning and printing infrastructure by eliminating print servers and incorporating cloud technologies into your workflow. Equipped with pure cloud terminals, devices can connect directly to SAFEQ Cloud, and users can print and scan with a secure cloud connection. Through this integration, users can quickly and securely scan and print documents without needing additional infrastructure.
Even those that are still reliant on legacy hardware can leverage an edge device to enable hybrid cloud deployment through the OMNI Bridge. This device lets you install and connect to the cloud in a few simple steps!
SAFEQ Cloud is equipped with OCR technology, which allows the software to recognize text directly from scanned documents and convert them into editable digital formats! There is no need to manually type from paper to digital, the OCR engine does it for you.
As for searchability, SAFEQ allows you to include keywords and tags in your metadata to make sure that your documents are easy to search for and retrieve, no matter how big your document archive gets.
FAQs on Automated Scan Workflows
Q1) What is the Primary Purpose of Scanning?
Scanning documents from paper to digital provides an easier way to save, store, and preserve critical business data. It saves businesses time and money, increases their knowledge base, and allows previously inaccessible files to become searchable through a company database.
Q2) What is Automated Document Scanning?
Automated document scanning is the process of implementing predefined document scan workflows into multi-function devices so employees don't need to scan documents manually. This eliminates the risk of human errors and significantly reduces scan time.
Final Points
Most organizations have already started digitizing analog files globally. When it comes to scanning, automated document capture workflows provide an edge that traditional scanning methods simply cannot keep up with.
By introducing an intuitive, time-saving, and secure scan workflow into your workplace, you are guaranteed to reap the benefits of having organized, easily accessible, and high-quality digital files at your fingertips anytime.
Check out the article below to learn more about the cloud's benefits and how it can help transform your print and scan functions.
