By Jamie Bsales, Associate Editor, July 24, 2009
eCopy, Inc. is continuing its quest to help close the workflow divide in the workplace—where digital documents follow one path and paper documents follow another, often much slower, route—with its latest software solution. eCopy PaperWorks is a desktop document imaging solution that helps users scan paper documents, merge them with other digital files, modify the documents and connect them to back-end repositories and line-of-business applications.
PaperWorks replaces the company’s eCopy Desktop offering. It augments the eCopy ShareScan Suite and ShareScan Essentials network scan-capture and routing solutions, which integrate with many leading MFPs and enable users to easily scan paper documents and integrate them into more than 100 leading business applications, such as enterprise content management (ECM) software, document management repositories, fax software, collaboration platforms and more. While PaperWorks can be used as an adjunct to ShareScan (and is included in both ShareScan bundles), ShareScan is not required to take advantage of the desktop software’s features.
“ShareScan handles distributed front-office capture and connects to business and enterprise applications,” explained Tim Durant, vice president, Business Development Worldwide for eCopy. “PaperWorks handles the document processing piece of the puzzle: working with documents to scan, merge, modify and connect.”
PaperWorks is a desktop document imaging application that falls on the software continuum between simple scan-capture solutions (such as Sharp’s Sharpdesk) and full-blown document management applications (such as Xerox DocuShare Express). Rather than just scanning a file and dumping it to a folder, where it then has to be opened with another application, PaperWorks allows users to work extensively with digital applications. They can use the PaperWorks interface to capture paper documents from any desktop scanner or network MFP; combine already-existing electronic files (such as Microsoft Office files and e-mail) with scanned documents, faxes and more; view, edit, mark up and manipulate files; and create secure, searchable PDFs of the new documents. And thanks to eCopy’s expertise in connecting to back-end applications such as Microsoft SharePoint, users can deliver and retrieve files via PaperWorks to workflow, document management, communication and other business applications.
Features new to PaperWorks that were not found in eCopy Desktop include the ability to deliver documents to, and retrieve documents from, business applications such as Microsoft SharePoint, EMC Documentum, iManage WorkSite and others without having to leave PaperWorks; the ability to use Windows Terminal Services and Citrix support to view, edit, and save documents from any client; and the ability to merge documents directly from an MFP or desktop scanner and a variety of storage locations (such as a local drive, SharePoint site and network drive).
When a user opens a document in PaperWorks, the OCR (optical character recognition) engine can convert the file into editable text. Users can assemble various files from various sources into a single document, view pages as thumbnail images and rearrange pages via simple drag-and-drop actions. Documents can be saved in a range of file formats, including password-protected PDF, searchable PDF, TIFF and JPG.
“PaperWorks is ideal for insurance claims and legal and medical documents, where multiple different types of files need to become one document,” said Durant. In addition, newly created documents can then be saved back into the document repository of a company’s back-end applications. “PaperWorks offers true integration with those applications,” he stressed. “It is not just dumping them to a folder.”
Another competitive advantage PaperWorks offers is the SDK (software development kit) eCopy offers to third-party software developers and system integrators. As with ShareScan, developers will be able to leverage the PaperWorks platform to add customized functionality not found in the main product.
PaperWorks will be available from eCopy’s channel partners, which in North America includes most of the major MFP manufacturers including Canon, Konica Minolta, Océ, Ricoh, Sharp, Toshiba and Xerox. The solution is also sold by value-added resellers such as Cranel in North America and Avnet in Europe. As with ShareScan, channel partners are trained on the solution and certified by eCopy. A bundle of five PaperWorks licenses carries a list price of $1,224; 10 licenses are $2,449; and 20 licenses are $4,897 (volume discounts are available). Those prices include three years of product maintenance and support. A fully functional trial version of the software can be downloaded from http://www.ecopy.com/eval/.
This article was originally posted on Buyers Laboratory.
