Captovation: University of Idaho Case Study

Captovation Capture Overview

Our Customers

“Without these functions and features
that eCapture offers out-of-the-box, the implementation
in Accounts Payable would have been either at a
reduced level of functionality, or would have
required expensive custom code.”

Eben Sutton
Administrative Systems Architect
University of Idaho Finance & Administration.

eCapture's Ease of Use and Robust Features Benefit Several Departments
at the University of Idaho

The University of Idaho (UI) (www.uidaho.edu) is the state’s comprehensive land-grant institution with primary responsibility statewide for doctoral degrees, research programs, and professional public service. As the state’s premier institution of higher education, the UI has a nationally recognized program of general education and ranks nationally as a research university.

Today the University of Idaho is home to more than 10,000 students from every state and more than 70 different countries. There are more than 800 faculty members in teaching and research. In its 100-plus-years, the UI has granted more than 76,000 degrees.

Finding an effective method to manage paper has become a high priority for large universities. The University of Idaho was no different; it implemented a document imaging system from Optika (www.optika.com) and are using document imaging in six different departments.

By implementing the document imaging system, the University of Idaho was looking to achieve two major goals: reduce the overwhelming paper burden and better serve students and employees. For example, students needed questions regarding their student loans answered promptly, and employees in the Student Loans department needed a more efficient way to locate certain documents amongst thousands of files.

With the initial implementations of their document imaging system, the University of Idaho made the decision to utilize custom-built scanning solutions for its capture purposes. However, the University of Idaho soon learned that its decision to use custom scanning solutions for implementations across the different departments might not have been appropriate. Instead, it needed an out-of-the-box solution that would allow the University to rapidly deploy imaging solutions with minimal amounts of training and almost no custom programming. “Although the custom products were appropriate for the specific implementations involved, we did not feel that we could sustain the implementation rate we desired by continuing to purchase custom solutions on an implementation-by-implementation basis,” said Eben Sutton, Administrative Systems Architect in University of Idaho Finance & Administration.

After testing an Optika specific version of eCapture that Captovation developed, the University of Idaho concluded that the program had everything they needed in a capture solution. They then consulted their business partner, Integra Information Technologies (www.integrainfotech.com) who is a systems integrator as well as an Optika reseller, to help them implement Optika’s solutions with eCapture.

The University of Idaho had become frustrated with the process of moving (archiving) document images from scanning and indexing workstations to its document management system. The old system was resource intensive, and functionally limited. By using one of eCapture’s tools, ecCommit Server, the University of Idaho was able to circumvent these issues. The ecCommit Server has allowed the UI to move the burden of file commit from the client to a server, allowing for the deployment of low-end workstations as scanning clients.

As a production-level scanning and indexing solution, eCapture has benefited the departments that have implemented imaging in many ways. The Accounts Payable department is taking advantage of eCapture’s built-in image processing capabilities, which includes deskew, despeckle, black border removal, etc. This department is also performing bar code recognition on certain documents, and for some of their applications they need to recognize a bar code as a patch code – another feature that eCapture offers. Documents that are processed in this department, such as invoices, mainly originate outside the University. These documents vary widely in format, content, and orientation; eCapture’s scan module (ecScan) handles the differences well and works with Kofax (www.kofax.com) scan engines to consistently produce quality images. The University attaches bar codes to identify the invoices as they proceed through the payment process; eCapture’s ability to search for bar codes in all 365 degrees of rotation has made this process much easier. “Without these functions and features that eCapture offers out-of-the-box, the implementation in Accounts Payable would have been either at a reduced level of functionality, or would have required expensive custom code,” added Sutton.

The University of Idaho’s Student Loans department, on the other hand, needed a scanning solution that would allow them to “hot” configure scanning stations, and copy scanning profiles from one station to another. At certain times, scanning and indexing profiles needed to be changed on the fly. eCapture’s unique architecture has made this possible, allowing for changes to be made to field attributes as necessary after the initial implementation.

The University of Idaho is now able to fully realize the benefits of having the same capture system for their employees to use across the different departments. One capture system, coupled with eCapture’s friendly user-interface, has decreased overall training time. Before eCapture, employees in the central Records Center needed to learn a different custom scanning application for all of the departments that implemented imaging. Additionally, the University’s imaging support staff was limited. Having a common scanning platform to support instead of numerous custom applications has helped to reduce overall support and maintenance issues.

The University of Idaho has since upgraded their document imaging system to the newest version of Optika solutions – Acorde™. Because of eCapture’s tight integration with Acorde, upgrading to the new system has been overall an easy process. “We have found that eCapture and Acorde work well together without experiencing any issues whatsoever,” said Sutton. “Essentially the whole installation process was as easy as installing any other Windows™ software.”

In calendar year 2000, the University of Idaho used eCapture to process around 120,000 documents. Across the six departments, they estimate that this number will increase to more than 300,000 documents in calendar year 2001. “eCapture’s broad range of features, ease of use, and functionality have helped to greatly improve the business processes of the various departments that have implemented document imaging at the University of Idaho,” concluded Sutton.