Articles Tagged with: Retail

What to Look for in a Paper Scanning Company

In today’s digital age, businesses across various industries are recognizing the importance of transitioning from physical paper documents to efficient and streamlined digital workflows. Paper scanning plays a crucial role in this transformation, allowing companies to unlock the benefits of enhanced accessibility, improved data management, and increased operational efficiency.

However, selecting the right paper scanning company is a critical decision that can significantly impact the success of your digitalization efforts.

To ensure a seamless transition and achieve optimal results, businesses must carefully evaluate potential scanning partners. In this blog post, we will explore the key considerations that companies should prioritize when choosing a paper scanning company.

By understanding these factors, you can make an informed decision that aligns with your specific needs and sets the foundation for a successful digital transformation.

Paper Scanning Expertise and Experience

The first and foremost criterion for selecting a scanning company is their expertise and experience in the field. Evaluate their track record, industry reputation, and the number of years they have been providing paper scanning services. Look for a company that has a proven track record of handling projects similar to yours and possesses a deep understanding of your industry’s unique requirements.

Comprehensive Range of Services, Not Just Scanning

Consider the range of services offered by the paper scanning company. Besides basic scanning, do they provide additional services such as document preparation, indexing, data extraction, and secure disposal? Opting for a company that offers end-to-end solutions can save you time, effort, and potential complications in coordinating multiple vendors.

Quality Assurance

Accuracy and reliability are paramount when it comes to paper scanning. Inquire about the company’s quality assurance processes, including their scanning techniques, image enhancement capabilities, and quality control measures. Ask if they adhere to industry standards, such as ISO certifications, to ensure the highest level of quality and consistency in the digitization process.

Security and Confidentiality

Confidentiality is of utmost importance when entrusting your sensitive documents to an external scanning company. Inquire about their security protocols, data encryption practices, and employee background checks. A reputable paper scanning company should have robust security measures in place to protect your data throughout the entire scanning process.

Scalability and Flexibility

Consider the scalability and flexibility offered by the scanning company. Will they be able to handle your current volume of documents efficiently, as well as accommodate future growth? Additionally, evaluate their ability to adapt to your specific requirements, such as handling various document sizes, formats, or specialized documents like legal or medical records.

Pricing and Cost-effectiveness

While cost should not be the sole determining factor, it is essential to evaluate the pricing structure and overall cost-effectiveness of the paper scanning services. Obtain detailed quotes and compare them against the quality of service and expertise provided. A reputable company will offer transparent pricing, ensuring you understand the costs involved upfront.

Conclusion

Choosing the right paper scanning company is a crucial step toward a successful digital transformation journey. By considering these factors when making their decision, businesses can make an informed decision that aligns with their unique requirements.

Remember, this partnership is not just about scanning documents; it’s about finding a trusted partner that can handle your sensitive data with the utmost care and deliver accurate and reliable results. Take the time to evaluate different options, ask for references, and thoroughly assess the capabilities and reputation of potential paper scanning companies.

With the right partner by your side, you can embark on your digital transformation confidently and unlock the countless benefits of a streamlined and efficient digital document management system.

Consentia has been providing reliable and secure paper scanning services for decades, including document preparation, indexing, and data extraction. With roots in the data transformation business stretching back 50 years, digitization services like paper scanning are our forte.

Client files are kept totally secure and confidential, up to and including their eventual disposal or return to the client. Our trusted scanning experts perform multiple quality assurance checks on every file to ensure our scans are as accurate as possible, and our dynamic and innovative processes allow for rapid scaling and flexibility so clients only ever pay what they need to.

Contact one of our digitization experts today to learn more about our paper scanning services. We provide maximum transparency and offer free guidance and consultation for any project.

June 16, 2023

Can Scanned Documents Be Edited?

We create physical documents for many purposes, and it’s important that scanned documents can fulfill the same roles after scanning as the original physical documents did. Whether a file can be edited or not has a huge effect on its suitability for various roles: a legal contract or agreement can’t be reliable if it can be edited easily or secretly, but a draft document needs to be editable before it can be fully useful.

Get Document Scanning & Editing Services Now!

Luckily, many programs, tools, and functions allow digital documents to fulfill many roles, including making a file editable or non-editable. In this post, we’ll explain how to make your scanned documents editable or non-editable, as well as how to make them editable for only certain people, as well as explore some other functions of editable scanned documents. But first, it’s important to consider your goal…

Contents:

How Do I Make Scanned Documents Editable?
How do I Make Scanned Documents Non-editable?
What if I Only Want Some People to be Able to Edit My Document?

Why make scanned documents editable?

Whether physical sheets of paper or scanned digital documents, every document has a purpose, and sometimes that purpose involves further editing. For example, imagine you have a sheet of handwritten notes, a document draft, or a whiteboard sketch of a new plan or idea you developed with colleagues during a brainstorming session. Scanning these documents into editable formats yields two main advantages:

Leverage the general advantages of digital formats without losing the ability to add to them in the future (e.g. searchability, ease of storage and access)
Make further edits and additions that aren’t possible with physical files, like adding hyperlinks, dynamic annotations, and AI assistance, among many others.

Jump to: How to make Scanned Documents Editable

Why make scanned documents non-editable?

Some documents, whether digital or physical, serve the purpose of being permanent or semi-permanent archival records; written evidence of an event (i.e. transaction records like invoices and receipts) or an agreement (e.g. contracts, waivers).

To fulfill their role as reliable documentary evidence, these records must remain unchanged and unedited from their original state (unless the relevant parties agree to make a change, in which case such a change is usually recorded in the document itself).

If scanning a document meant always meant that it became editable, digital formats would not be appropriate for secure, reliable record-keeping. Fortunately, however, options are available for secure and reliable digital documents. In fact, digital documents can even be more reliable than physical documents with the right functions.

Jump to: How to make Scanned Documents Non-Editable

How do I make Scanned Documents Editable?

Regardless of how they’re scanned, you can use various programs and tools to make your scanned documents editable. In order to edit a scanned document, it will need to be in an editable format like PDF.

How did you scan your document?
- With a scanning machine: It should already be saved as a PDF file on whichever computer is connected to the scanner. If your scans are not being saved as PDFs, go into the scanner program settings to make sure that scans are being saved in the right format.
- By taking a picture of it: Many ERM programs allow you to scan documents by taking a photo with your phone camera. These images will likely be saved in an image format like .jpeg or .png, so you’ll need to convert them to PDF before you can edit them. However, if you use the ERM program itself to take the picture, it may automatically save it as a PDF.

How to convert a file to PDF
- Using Windows:
  - Open the file and go to “File” → “Save as”
  - Change the file format to PDF and click save.
- Using Mac OS:
  - Open the file and go to “File” → “Print”
  - Click the PDF button or open the pop-up menu with the down arrow and choose “Save as PDF”
- Batch conversions with Acrobat: if you have adobe acrobat installed, it should allow you to batch convert multiple PDFs at once from your file browser.
  - Select the files you want to edit.
  - Right-click and select “Convert to PDF using Adobe Acrobat.”

Still not editable? By default, most PDFs should be editable when they’re first created, but sometimes they will default to “Read-only” mode
- What program are you using? Some programs only allow you to view PDFs, not edit them. Make sure the program you’re using has PDF editing features.
Change the settings: most programs which allow PDF editing have settings you can use to allow edits as long as you have the right permissions.
Example: Adobe Acrobat
- In Acrobat, select “Tools” and navigate to “Protect,” then “Encrypt,” and then click “Remove Security”

Outsourced Scanning

If you have many documents to scan, we can help.

Consentia has been providing reliable and secure document scanning services for decades. Save yourself the work of scanning your documents into digital formats so you can focus on your core business instead.

Our scanning experts can provide your digital copies in whichever digital format you prefer, editable or uneditable, and provide free consultation and guidance throughout the process.

Get in touch with our scanning experts today to learn more, or read more about the benefits of outsourced scanning here.

The Role of OCR

Scanned files are only editable because of Optical Character Recognition software (OCR). This tool is already built into most PDF editing and scanning programs and automatically identifies individual letters from an image and encodes them in the document so that the computer can recognize them as such. Without OCR, the text in documents scanned as images would not be recognized by the computer, and there would be no way to interact with it digitally.

Click here to read more about how OCR enhances scanning.

How do I make scanned documents non-editable?

There are several ways to discourage editing PDFs or making them more difficult to edit, and some ways to prevent access altogether.

However, there is no completely secure way to make a document “read-only” or readable but not editable. This section will explore ways to keep your files secure and when to use each.

Read-only Files

Mainstream computer operating systems like Windows and MacOS allow you to designate a file as “read-only,” preventing any further edits or changes until reversed. Here’s how you can do it on either OS:

Windows:
- Right-click on the PDF file in your file browser
- Select “Properties”
- Click “Read-only” → “OK”
Mac OS
- Select the PDF file
- Click on “File” → “Get Info”
- Set access rights under the “Sharing & Permissions” tab

While this is the simplest and easiest way to make your files uneditable, it can be reversed by anyone with the same or higher permissions than your own in the system.

PDF Editing Program Permissions

Many PDF editing programs include read-only, and permissions restrictions that are tied to the user accounts required to use the programs, and these can be more secure than your OS read-only settings, depending on your system.

One of the most common PDF editing programs is Adobe Acrobat, which requires users to sign in with an Adobe account to prove that they’ve paid for the software. When you restrict editing with Acrobat, the change is registered to your Adobe account, so it can only be reversed by your account. Without your Adobe account information, others won’t be able to make the file editable again, regardless of the OS permissions.

However, this solution can be unreliable. Different PDF editors use different settings and permissions to restrict editing, so restricting access in one program may not carry over to another. For example, if you restrict access in Acrobat and then send the file to someone using a different PDF software, the restrictions you put in place may not even register on their end, allowing them to make whatever changes they want, possibly without even making them aware that the document is meant to be read-only.

Password Protection

Most PDF editing programs also allow you to lock a file behind a password specific to that file. This prevents anyone without the password from editing or reproducing the file but also prevents people from reading it, so it’s not really a read-only solution.

Password protection allows you to distribute access to a file by distributing its password to the people who need it, not anyone else. However, by tying your files to specific passwords, this option ties the security of your file to the quality of your password management. If you keep track of your file passwords securely and share them responsibly, you can maintain a secure distribution of access.

Additional Document Security

While these options have pros and cons, none are perfect solutions for document security. Here are a few additional things you can do to keep your digital documents secure.

1 – Maintain Strong Cybersecurity. All of the solutions discussed thus far have been about controlling access and editing permissions to files within the same network or organization. Strong cybersecurity measures ensure that this is all you have to worry about because they keep bad actors outside your network from getting in.

2- Use Comprehensive Metadata. Metadata is information about your information. Most digital document formats already include metadata like the date created, date modified, file type, file size, etc. If your document management system automatically maintains metadata about who makes changes to a document and when no one can make unauthorized changes without it being noticed.

3 – Keep Master Copies. The main purpose of making a file read-only is so that you can communicate or collect information (e.g. contracts or forms) without risking the original text being tampered with. If someone you send the file to can alter the document’s text without you noticing, there could be serious consequences, especially with legal documents.

That’s why keeping a copy of the document on your own system is important: you have it for reference should any dispute arise. Fortunately, any time you send a digital file to someone, you’re already sending them a copy; changes they make on their end won’t show up on your own.

However, sharing a file is a different story. With cloud storage and remote access now so common, it’s become common to “share” files with people rather than send them. Using the “share” feature for files in cloud storage locations like Google Drive or Microsoft’s OneDrive gives the recipient remote access to that specific file rather than sending them a copy.

If the file you share with them is the “master” or reference copy, they now have the ability to alter it however they want. This is very helpful when you’re collaborating on a document with colleagues, but can be a big risk when sending files to others outside your organization.

If your master copy of a document is kept in a cloud storage location, make sure you only ever send a downloaded copy of it to people outside your organization.

What if I want only some people to be able to edit a document?

Some documents need to be editable, but not by everyone. For example, you probably don’t want everyone in your organization to be able to edit your company policies, formal proposals, or draft contracts, but you need to make sure that the people responsible for creating and revising those documents are able to edit them. This is where document permissions and password protection come into play.

If your organization uses an Electronic Records Management system (ERM), it should include settings and features that allow you to restrict access to certain files and folders to different users within the organization. Contact your organization’s ERM administrator for assistance if you want to restrict access to a certain file. If you are the ERM administrator, contact the ERM provider’s support team or consult their product guides to find the settings you’re looking for.

If your organization does not use a sophisticated ERM and instead just uses a PDF editing program like Adobe Acrobat, you can either restrict access to a document to select users in the program’s settings or add a password to the file that needs to be entered before it can be opened. Click here to learn more about password protection.

June 9, 2023

Where are Scanned Documents?

Have you ever wondered where digital documents go once scanned or how digital storage works? Then you’re in the right place. In this brief explainer, we’ll explore how digital documents work, the options for digital storage, and how to get the most out of your digital documents.

How Do Scanned Documents Work?

Here’s a brief explanation of our scanning process which explains how digital documents are created, stored, and moved. Curious about the benefits of digital? Click here to learn why you should scan your documents.

Step 1) Scanning Documents

When we scan one of your documents, the scanning equipment creates a digital image which is an accurate copy of the page. To create the image, the scanning equipment arranges magnetic charges on a storage device, which computers can read as code. You can think of a digital file as a packet of instructions your computer uses to recreate the content. So a digital image file, like the one created by the scanner, is a packet of instructions for recreating the image of your document on your monitor.

Step 2) Local Storage

As the machine scans your document, the digital file is created on a hard drive on one of our computers. It will remain there while we do quality assurance (QA) and apply Optical Character Recognition software (OCR). Whenever it needs to be moved from one drive or computer to another, the computers read the data in the first location and rewrite it onto the new storage device.

Step 2.1) Quality Assurance: Our dedicated quality assurance personnel then compare the digital image to the original physical page to ensure the copy is accurate.
Step 2.2) Optical Character Recognition: If requested, we then apply Optical Character Recognition software (OCR) to identify and encode any text on the page. Without OCR, the text in your digital document is just another part of the picture that the computer can’t tell apart from the blank space around it. By encoding the text, OCR makes each letter recognizable to the computer so that you can search, highlight, or copy it, just like a digital document.

Step 3) Returning Scanned Documents to You

After we’ve completed QA and OCR, we transfer the files back to you in one of the following ways:

Removable Storage: we can move the digital files onto one or a number of portable storage device(s) and give it to you. You can then connect it to your own computer to move the files over.

Secure File Transfer: using Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP), we can securely return the files to you through the Internet.

Cloud Storage: If your organization already uses a cloud storage service (e.g. GoogleDrive, Dropbox, Mega, OneDrive) or has its own cloud storage system, we can simply upload the scanned documents to a folder in your drive. If you don’t already use a cloud storage service, we can help you set one up and upload the files there, or we can build a customized cloud storage platform for you to access at your leisure.

Though we offer all three of these options, we recommend cloud storage for a number of reasons. Here are the top three:

Allows you to access your files from anywhere, whether you’re at home, in the office, or travelling for business.

Allows you to access your files as soon as we scan them, rather than having to wait until we’ve finished scanning all of them

Excellent security and reliability enabled by advanced centralized servers.

Click here to learn more about cloud storage, including how it works and why it’s beneficial.

What are My Options for Storing Scanned Documents?

Storage Location

In general, you have two options: local storage or cloud storage. We strongly recommend cloud storage for a number of reasons; click here to learn more

Local Storage: Keeping your files on your own computer(s).
Cloud storage: Keeping your files on a secure, centralized storage server you can access through the internet.
- Subscription Service: you can upload your files to a storage provider’s secure servers for a nominal monthly or annual fee.
- Custom Cloud Storage: we can help you set up a custom cloud storage platform tailored to your organization’s specific needs.

Storage Hardware

It’s also important to understand the hardware involved in digital storage. There are two types of storage devices: Hard Disc Drives (HDDs) and Solid State Drives (SSDs). A hard disc drive uses magnetic charges on small spinning discs to read and write data, whereas a solid state drive has no moving parts and reads and writes data using magnetic charges alone.

The important differences between HDDs and SSDs are cost and speed. HDDs are cheaper but less efficient, taking longer to move or copy files. SSDs are much faster than HDDs but are also far more expensive for the same capacity.

Regarding local storage, HDDs are a cost-effective way to store files you don’t need to access or move very often, whereas files you move or access frequently are best stored on faster, lower-capacity SSDs.

Some cloud storage providers let you choose whether to keep your cloud files on HDDs or SSDs, charging a higher rate for SSDs. Your provider may even offer hybrid storage, in which some folders are stored on SSDs and others on HDDs.

Best Practices for Organizing Scanned Documents

Here are some simple best practices to remember when organizing your digital files that will help you leverage the most value out of the advantages of digital formats.

1) Maximize your Metadata

Metadata is information about your information (data about your data; e.g. date and time created, size, author, etc.). Ensure your system is set up to create metadata about each file created within it or added to it from other sources. Most kinds of metadata will already be automated, such as the date and time it was created or modified, but other kinds will need to be programmed into the system, especially any information specifically important to your industry or operation. Your system should have a metadata variable for every piece of information about your file that would be important to know. Though there are better and worse variables to include in a metadata system, more is generally better.

2) Optimize your Metadata

Automatic metadata is one of the biggest advantages of digital formats, but it isn’t valuable unless it’s accurate. The value of metadata is that it makes your documents easier to navigate, organize, and access, so having no metadata for your documents means you’re not getting the full value of digital technology. However, having inaccurate or outdated metadata is the opposite of that value. Make sure your files’ metadata is accurate when they’re created and that it remains accurate over time with regular updates.

3) Organize Efficiently

Whether you’re using digital or physical files, this is always a good rule. Make sure that the layers your files are sorted into make intuitive sense, such that broader categories contain smaller categories; important characteristics take precedence over less important ones. If you’re organizing a newly created collection of digital copies of physical documents, retaining the way in which the originals were organized is often a good idea.

Get the Most Out of Your Information

Have a scanning project in mind? Consentia has been a top scanning and digitization provider in Alberta for decades, and we’d love to help drive your digital transformation. Contact our scanning experts today if you have any questions, or click here to request a quote or consultation.

June 2, 2023

Cloud Storage 101: Why Use the Cloud?

In today’s digital era, businesses and individuals increasingly turn to cloud storage as a convenient and flexible solution for their data management needs. Cloud storage offers many benefits, such as easy access, scalability, and data redundancy.

In this blog, we will delve into the advantages and potential risks of cloud storage. We will explore how cloud storage can enhance data management, streamline workflows, and improve collaboration. Additionally, we will address some potential risks associated with security, privacy, and reliance on third-party service providers and explore how these risks are mitigated. By understanding the benefits and risks, you can make informed decisions when considering cloud storage solutions for your organization or personal use.

How does Cloud Storage work?

The “cloud” in cloud storage is a collection of remote storage locations and servers accessible through a secure internet connection. Instead of storing files on your computer’s hard drives, cloud storage works by storing your files on a remote server and then accessing them through a secure internet connection.

Your organization could create and maintain its own cloud server if it has the resources to do so. However, many organizations pay for cloud storage through one of the major cloud storage services, such as Google Drive, IDrive, Microsoft OneDrive, or Dropbox. In exchange for a monthly fee, these services will store your files on their servers for you, saving space on your individual computers and making it easier to share and collaborate.

Advantages of Cloud Storage

Better Security

Unless your organization is large enough to build and maintain its own secure file repository, your digital security probably won’t be as good as a cloud storage provider’s security would be. Major providers use huge, centralized server banks that they have the resources to protect with the best physical and digital security measures available. Having a good reputation for security and reliability is a huge part of their business model, so they have a vested interest in keeping your information secure from outside attacks.

Better Preservation

Though they’re really just made out of a collection of magnetic charges, digital files can actually be much more securely preserved than physical documents. This is because of how easy it is to duplicate digital files. While you could create and store your files’ duplicates (or backups) on your own hard drives, this can take up a huge amount of storage space.

Whether your organization pays for cloud storage through a service provider or maintains its own centralized cloud storage, having access to all the additional space cloud servers offer makes storing copies of the same digital file in multiple locations easier. Syncing features also allow teams to stay updated with each other’s changes while maintaining multiple redundant copies on each team member’s computer. If anything happens to one copy in one location, other copies can be used as a backup.

Better Collaboration

By storing a central master copy of a file on a cloud server, your team can collaborate on it live, seeing each other’s changes in real-time. Without live collaboration, each person’s edits must be made one at a time and then copied via email to each other, each newest copy becoming the new official draft.

This process can be very time-consuming and inconvenient, especially if the rest of the team needs to wait a long time for the person with the most current version of the file to pass it on. With live collaboration, your team members can each make the edits they need to make when it’s convenient for them.

Collaborating via cloud storage also allows access to a powerful suite of collaboration tools and features, like highlights and comments, edit suggestions, and edit tracking. Combined with a good internet connection, this centralization makes remote work easy and effective, improving the flexibility and resilience of your teams and your organization more broadly.

More Storage Space

This one is pretty obvious, but one of the major benefits of cloud storage through one of the big providers is simply that there is always more space available.

As your organization continues to do business, especially if you grow rapidly, you will eventually run out of digital storage and need to scale up. If your organization maintains its own digital storage system, scaling up can mean adding new hardware and software to handle the increased demands. These additions aren’t just expensive; they can sometimes take a while to set up, potentially delaying your scale-up.

However, scaling up your digital storage space is as simple as ticking a box and sometimes paying a slightly increased monthly fee when using a cloud storage provider.

Less to Worry About

Keeping all of your digital files stored on your own hardware means you’ll have to maintain that hardware, which takes up valuable time and energy for you or your employees. Cloud storage providers make keeping your files secure, organized, and available much easier, so you have more time to focus on your core business.

Better Cost-Efficiency

Unless your organization has the resources to match the security, capacity, and reliability of the major cloud storage providers, getting all of these features for a nominal monthly fee is well worth it.

Why should I trust cloud storage? What are the risks?

Though the idea of storing your important digital documents on another organization’s servers may feel uncomfortable, it’s actually a very low-risk option. To explain why, here are some of the possible risks involved in cloud storage and how they’re mitigated:

What if the storage provider gets hacked?

While it’s important to take cybersecurity risks seriously, cloud storage providers typically have the resources to protect your data with some of the best digital security measures available. These large companies’ business model is based on offering secure, reliable storage, so they go to great lengths to ensure that something like this never happens. Additionally, unless your organization is very large, the cloud storage provider likely has better security measures than your organization could afford to implement.

What if I lose internet access?

One of the only drawbacks of cloud storage is that means accessing your files will depend on the strength and reliability of your internet connection. Fortunately, internet connections have been getting faster and more reliable for years. At the same time, outages have been getting shorter and less frequent. Depending on where you work and where your organization is based, you should be able to access reliable, high-speed internet for a nominal fee.

If you have certain files that you can’t risk losing access to, even temporarily, these can be kept on one of your organization’s computers while backups and other documents are kept in the cloud. If you work in a place with unreliable internet access, cloud storage can still be a valuable tool for storing files that don’t need to be accessed regularly.

What if the storage provider’s servers get damaged?

While this is always possible, the storage provider’s servers being damaged by human error or natural disasters are both unlikely. The facilities where these servers are housed are usually protected by the best weatherproofing and internal climate controls that money can buy, and they typically aren’t built in areas prone to natural disasters.

More importantly, even if one of their server locations was somehow destroyed or damaged, most storage providers keep backup copies of every file in different locations around the world. While the damaged server is being repaired, you can still access your file backups from the other server as if nothing has changed. Once the damaged server is back up and running, your files will be backed up again.

Will the storage provider try to read or sell my organization’s data?

This is not likely for a few reasons. Firstly, there are regulations in most countries preventing the improper use of other people’s data, and accessing or selling the data you upload for the purposes of storage without your explicit consent would almost certainly qualify as improper use in any jurisdiction.

Second, storage providers make their money on their reputation for reliability and security, and files which are not kept secure from unauthorized access or use simply are not secure, whether the one’s accessing it are malicious third parties or the storage providers themselves.

Finally, while your data is obviously extremely important to you, it’s probably not that interesting to a storage provider. Compared with the hefty fines and substantial reputational damage from selling your data without permission, the meagre profit they’d make from doing so simply isn’t worth it.

What is hybrid storage? How does it work?

Hybrid storage involves the use of both HDDs and SSDs. An HDD (or Hard Disc Drive) has been the standard type of digital storage device for decades. They contain multiple spinning discs which are used to read and write data.

On the other hand, an SSD (or Solid State Drive) has no moving parts and uses magnetic charges to read and write data much faster than HDDs. However, that speed comes with increased cost, and although they’re slower, HDDs are still fast enough to work just fine for most purposes.

When you’re looking for a storage solution, what’s more important to you? Speed? Or storage space? If you want speed, you should look for a storage provider that uses SSDs, and if you want more space for the same cost, you should find a provider using HDDs.

But what if you need fast loading speeds for only some of your files but don’t want to pay the steep SSD premium for your entire collection? This is when you need a hybrid solution.

When building your own storage hardware system, you need to buy enough SSDs to store all the files you want to load quickly and then enough HDDs to store everything else. When setting up a hybrid storage solution with a cloud storage provider, all you have to do is let them know how much fast storage you’ll need and how much can be normal storage.

At some point in the future, you may want to increase or decrease the fast storage you can access. If you built and maintain your own in-house storage system, there’s no point in reducing your fast storage, even if you don’t need it all, because you already bought the SSDs. Increasing your fast storage would mean buying more, which is an expensive upfront cost.

However, if you use a cloud storage provider, they will almost always have more storage than you need, so you just have to ask them to increase it when you need more or decrease it when you want to cut back. Because the cost of cloud storage is ongoing, not upfront, you only pay what you need to.

Cloud Storage with Consentia

If you’re looking to leverage the benefits of digital systems and cloud storage for your physical files, then you need to digitize them first. As digitization experts, we can help you seamlessly transition your information into the digital world and help you manage your new digital documents once they’re created. For large collections, we can even build secure, customized cloud storage solutions for your organization.

Get in touch with us today to learn more! Our specialists would be happy to answer any questions you may have and provide a full consultation, and see how we can help you elevate your organization by enhancing your information management.

Man using a scanner to digitize a document with OCR

May 26, 2023

How OCR Enhances Document Scanning

One of the greatest advantages of digital formats is the ability to search through your documents for specific words or numbers. While it may not seem that important, the ability to hit CTRL+F and instantly find a name or title or serial number in a file that may be hundreds of pages long is a huge time-saver.

However, when you take a photo or a raw document scan rather than creating it digitally, all you have is an image of the text. You may be able to read the text clearly, but the computer you’re looking at it on only processes image pixels.

That’s where Optical Character Recognition comes in.

OCR is a technology that enables the conversion of scanned or photographed documents into editable and searchable text. It is a key component of document digitization and plays a crucial role in transforming physical documents into machine-readable data. Here’s how OCR technology works and why it’s beneficial:

How Optical Character Recognition Works

Document Scanning: The process begins with document scanning. Physical documents like paper files are scanned using specialized document scanners or cameras.
Image Processing: The scanned document images are then processed to enhance their quality and prepare them for OCR. This may involve removing noise, adjusting brightness and contrast, and straightening skewed or tilted images to optimize OCR accuracy.
Text Recognition: The OCR software analyzes the processed document images and identifies patterns, shapes, and contours that resemble characters. It recognizes and interprets these characters as individual letters, numbers, symbols, and words. The software employs sophisticated algorithms and pattern recognition techniques to accurately identify and segment text elements.
Character Conversion: After the text is recognized, OCR software converts the identified characters into machine-readable formats, such as ASCII or Unicode. This conversion enables the extracted text to be manipulated, edited, and searched using computer-based applications.
Document Output: Once the OCR process is complete, the output is a searchable and editable digital document. The original scanned image is typically retained alongside the recognized text to provide visual reference if needed. The recognized text can be saved in various file formats, such as PDF, DOC, or TXT, allowing users to edit, store, and retrieve the digitized document efficiently.

Benefits of OCR Technology

Improved Searchability: OCR technology enables the conversion of scanned documents into searchable text. This allows users to quickly search for specific words, phrases, or information within a document or a collection of documents. It significantly enhances information retrieval capabilities and saves time spent manually searching through physical or digital documents.
Enhanced Data Extraction: OCR facilitates the extraction of data from scanned documents, such as invoices, forms, or receipts. It automates the extraction process by recognizing and capturing key data fields, such as customer names, addresses, invoice numbers, and amounts. This reduces manual data entry errors, improves accuracy, and increases operational efficiency.
Editability: By converting scanned documents into editable text, OCR enables users to make modifications, corrections, or additions to the content. This is particularly useful when updating or repurposing documents, creating new versions, or extracting specific sections for further analysis or presentation.
Improved Accessibility: OCR technology improves accessibility for individuals with visual impairments or reading difficulties. By converting text into digital formats, OCR allows the use of screen readers and text-to-speech technologies, making documents accessible to a wider audience.
Better Preservation: OCR aids in preserving and managing large volumes of historical or archival documents. By digitizing and making them searchable, OCR ensures the long-term accessibility and preservation of valuable documents while minimizing physical storage requirements.

Without OCR, scanned documents are just images, but with it, they become truly digital documents which can leverage all the benefits of digital formats, like searchability, easy editability, and format flexibility.

In order to help you get the most out of your documents, we offer OCR on all of our scanning projects, no matter how big or small. After your files are digitized using our top-of-the-line scanning equipment, our dedicated quality assurance team will make all the necessary adjustments to ensure OCR compatibility. When our OCR tools are finished with your documents, you’ll be able to search any section instantly, making it easier to find important information quickly.

Get in touch with our scanning experts today to learn more about how document scanning and OCR can enhance your document management, saving you time and money with lightning-fast searchability and far more efficient document storage.

May 12, 2023

How Digitization Improves Customer Experience

In today’s digital age, customers have come to expect seamless and personalized experiences across all touchpoints with a business, whether it’s online or offline. As a result, businesses are increasingly turning to digitization to improve the customer experience and stay competitive in an ever-evolving market.

From online ordering and self-service kiosks to personalized marketing and customer service chatbots, digitization is transforming the way businesses interact with their customers. By leveraging technology to streamline processes and provide more tailored experiences, businesses can better meet the needs and expectations of their customers.

In this blog post, we will explore the ways in which digitization is driving improvements in the customer experience. We will look at real-world examples of businesses that have successfully leveraged digital technologies to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty, as well as the potential benefits and challenges of digitization in customer experience management.

Efficiency

Digitization is a key tool for businesses to create a more efficient and effective customer experience. By automating routine tasks, digitization frees up employees to focus on providing more personalized interactions with customers. For example, businesses can use automated chatbots to handle simple customer inquiries, leaving customer service representatives free to handle more complex issues.

Personal Experience

In addition to improving efficiency, digitization can also help businesses provide a more personalized experience for their customers. For example, businesses can use data analytics to track customer behavior and preferences, enabling them to offer personalized recommendations and promotions. By leveraging customer data, businesses can create a more tailored experience that is more likely to meet the needs and preferences of individual customers.

Example: Hospitality

Another area where digitization is transforming the customer experience is in the hospitality industry. Hotels, restaurants, and other hospitality businesses are using technology to create a more streamlined and personalized experience for guests. For example, hotels can use digital room keys that are accessed through guests’ smartphones, eliminating the need for physical keycards. Hotels can also use mobile apps to allow guests to order room service, schedule housekeeping, and request amenities directly from their smartphones.

Example: Financial Services

The financial services industry is rapidly evolving to embrace digitization, which is transforming the customer experience in a number of ways. For example, customers can now open bank accounts, apply for loans, and manage their finances entirely online without the need for in-person visits to a bank branch. This provides customers with greater convenience and flexibility, allowing them to manage their finances on their own schedule and from anywhere with an internet connection.

Digitization is also allowing financial institutions to provide more personalized and tailored experiences for their customers. For example, data analytics tools can be used to analyze customer behaviour and preferences, enabling banks to offer personalized recommendations and promotions to individual customers. Additionally, financial institutions can use chatbots and other automated tools to handle routine customer inquiries and provide faster, more efficient service.

In addition, digitization is transforming the investment management industry. Customers can now use robo-advisors and other digital investment platforms to manage their investments, providing them with greater control and flexibility over their portfolios. These platforms can also offer personalized investment advice based on customer preferences and risk tolerance.

Finally, digitization is also transforming the insurance industry. Insurance companies are using data analytics to improve risk assessment and pricing, which can lead to more personalized and tailored insurance policies for customers. Insurance companies can also use mobile apps and other digital tools to provide customers with self-service options, enabling them to manage their policies and file claims more easily and efficiently.

Not Everything Should be Digitized

Of course, there are also potential challenges to digitization in customer experience management. Businesses need to be careful not to rely too heavily on technology at the expense of human interaction. While automation and self-service options can be helpful, customers still value the ability to interact with knowledgeable and attentive employees when needed. Businesses also need to ensure that they are collecting and using customer data ethically and transparently, respecting customers’ privacy and providing them with clear opt-in and opt-out options.

In conclusion, digitization is playing an increasingly important role in improving the customer experience. By leveraging technology to streamline processes, provide more personalized experiences, and create more engaging interactions with customers, businesses can build stronger relationships with their customers and stay ahead of the competition. However, businesses must also be mindful of the potential challenges and risks associated with digitization and strive to strike a balance between automation and human interaction.

It’s clear that digitization has the potential to revolutionize the customer experience in a number of industries, from finance to hospitality. However, none of these advantages are possible with paper files. Therefore, it’s essential for businesses to transition their information into the digital world by digitizing their paper files.

If your business is still relying on paper files, it’s time to make the switch to digital. Whether through paper scanning or data entry, digitization can provide you with the tools you need to enhance the customer experience, improve efficiency, and stay ahead of the competition.

Don’t wait any longer to make the transition to digital. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you convert your paper files to digital ones and unlock the many benefits of digitization.

April 14, 2023

Paper Scanning Explained in 5 Simple Steps

Are you looking for a reliable and efficient way to digitize your paper files? Our paper scanning process is the perfect solution for those who need to convert physical documents into digital format. With this service, we can quickly and accurately scan all types of documents, from large-format maps to small receipts.

The benefits are numerous: not only will you save time on tedious data entry tasks, but you’ll also be able to store important information more securely in an easily accessible format. In the following paragraphs, we’ll explain our five-step process so that you can understand the process from beginning to end.

Step 1: Get in Touch

The first step in digitizing your files is to give us a call and tell us what you need. Our experienced team will help guide you through the process from start to finish – answering any questions you may have or filling in any details you want to know.

We’re proud to provide complete transparency and consultation in this initial consultation and then throughout the entire process of digitizing with us. Even if you’re not sure whether your files need to be digitized or where to begin, we’d be happy to provide some insight.

Step 2: Transportation

Once you’ve decided to digitize your files, we’ll arrange for secure transportation of your documents to our service bureau. When dealing with sensitive data, it’s important to make sure you’re using a reliable and trustworthy transporter that can handle the task. Click here to learn more about mitigating security risks in transportation.

That’s why we have an in-house courier who can retrieve your documents for scanning. Our team members are experienced in handling sensitive material, so you can be sure that your files will be kept safe and secure throughout the entire process. Plus, our courier is efficient and reliable, so you won’t ever have to worry about delays or lost items.

Step 3: Double-Check

When the files arrive at our office, our staff will check them against the inventory to ensure they all made it safely. This verification process ensures that each document is exactly what was requested and nothing is missing. We understand how important these documents are, which is why we take this extra step to make sure everything is correct before scanning begins.

Step 4: Time for Paper Scanning

With the files verified and everything accounted for, we can then move on to scanning them into digital format. Our team of scanning experts uses a wide array of advanced equipment to quickly and accurately scan each file according to your specifications – whether they’re text documents, photographs, or any other type of image – no matter its size or complexity.

As the paper files are scanned, our team will index the digital copies in the same way the physical files were organized. This ensures that the digital versions will only ever come back to you organized in the same way you sent them off, or better.

After scanning and indexing, we take special care to double-check some or all of your files to ensure that the digital scans were accurate throughout the process. When file images are blurry or obscured, we’ll create replacements at no extra cost. We guarantee and consistently deliver a 98% accuracy rate or better.

Step 5: File Return

Finally, after all the files have been scanned, we’ll send the digital copies to you using Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) or via delivery of a secure removable storage device. Our talented IT team can also set up and maintain a secure, custom-built file hosting portal where you can organize and retrieve your digital copies with ease.

As for the physical copies, we can either return them to you or have them shredded. Even though it can seem scary to dispose of the originals, with secure, distributed digital storage of your new copies, you probably won’t need the old paper files anymore. In fact, depending on the type of file, you may be required to destroy the original paper document, now that the digital copy is the official legal copy.

Conclusion

Whether you’re experienced with digitization services or just trying them out for the first time; whether you know exactly what you need from us or don’t know where to begin, we’re excited to help you bring your information into the digital world.

Get in touch with us today for a completely free and transparent consultation!

March 31, 2023

Ensuring Confidentiality in Digitization

Every step in the digitization process involves risks that need to be addressed to protect valuable data from unauthorized access or damage. It is essential that confidentiality be taken seriously when designing a secure system, as even small lapses can have serious consequences.

In this article, we will explore some critical challenges to maintaining confidentiality associated with the digitization process, as well as how we overcome these challenges to offer reliably secure digitization.

What is “Confidentiality?”

Confidentiality is a state of information in which access to it is controlled and only accessible by the right people. To be “confidential,” a file, document, record, or simple piece of knowledge must be known only by or accessible only to those who have permission to know. Something which is common knowledge or readily accessible information cannot be considered confidential.

Thus, importance and secrecy are essential contexts for confidentiality because it’s not worthwhile to ensure the confidentiality of information which is utterly unimportant. If sharing a particular piece of information would have no undesirable consequences, then why go through the trouble of controlling access to it?

Some obvious examples are information related to banking, official identification, or political or corporate secrets. All of these kinds of information are extremely important to many people, and an information leak or loss of confidentiality would have serious consequences for the relevant individuals and groups.

However, information doesn’t need to be broadly important to many people to be worth keeping confidential. All that matters, all that’s required to warrant confidentiality, is some undesired consequence from sharing it.

An individual’s medical record is most likely only important to them and their doctor(s); with a few exceptions, the rest of the world has little to no interest in any one person’s medical history. However, it’s still very important to keep it confidential for the sake of protecting that person’s privacy and their ability to feel comfortable trusting their healthcare service.

Confidentiality in Digitization

When sensitive files need to be digitized, maintaining confidentiality is crucial. After all, information only needs to leak once to no longer be confidential, so it’s important that confidentiality is protected at every step in any process that involves sensitive information.

Essentially, the challenge of maintaining confidentiality can be reduced to the following questions:

Who is authorized to access your files? How can you trust them not to leak, copy, or otherwise steal the information contained within?
How do you stop people who aren’t authorized from accessing your files?

Another way to think of both of these questions is access. If you ensure that the people you allow access to the files are trustworthy and that you can control who has access to the files, then you have achieved information security and can guarantee confidentiality.

Protecting Against Unauthorized Access

Our Solutions for Physical Security

To ensure that our clients’ files are physically secured against unauthorized access, our service bureau is located several stories up in a secure building which features 24/7 on-site security. Employees have to pass through both a keycard lock and a regularly rotated pin number lock to get in.

Visitors are required to sign in upon arrival, are monitored by an employee throughout their visit, and must sign out when departing.

Our Solutions for Digital Security

Cybersecurity risks are not worth gambling on, which is why we keep our entire service bureau network on an isolated (“air-gapped”) intranet. The computers and other equipment used in the digitization process are never connected to the wider internet in any capacity, and all external USB ports are disabled.

Employees are not allowed to store client files on personal devices at any time for any reason, and such personal devices are not allowed to access the isolated network.

Files are only moved from this network via secure removable storage by a few trusted individuals when necessary, such as when being transferred to clients.

In addition to these safeguards, we maintain an active and talented I.T. team to monitor and ensure cybersecurity, including providing training and warnings about phishing attacks to the rest of our team.

Who is Authorized and Why?

In some processes or systems, information can be handled without needing to increase the number of people who have access to it. For example, securely transporting a lockbox of paper files from one place to another does not require allowing transportation personnel access. That information can remain completely sealed throughout.

When digitizing, however, quality assurance personnel need to be able to access the files to perform quality assurance checks and screen for errors. This means that it’s not enough to merely control access to the information, you also need to control…

…which individuals have access (i.e. what kind of individual).
…in which circumstances authorized individuals are granted access.

Our Solutions: Trusted Personnel & Secure Service Bureau

We take great care in selecting and vetting potential records clerks before hiring, ensuring that each successful candidate understands the gravity of the security and confidentiality concerns at play in their new role, including signing non-disclosure agreements and passing a criminal records check.

Even after ensuring that only trustworthy individuals are allowed access to the files we process, we ensure that files never leave our service bureau during processing for any reason. Our personnel have access only to the specific files they’re tasked with processing and are prohibited from using any devices with cameras or other recording equipment while in the service bureau.

Curious?

Consentia has been providing fully customizable digitization solutions to clients in Alberta for decades. In addition to all of the security measures discussed above, we can provide guidance and full transparency throughout the process.

Thinking of getting started on your own digitization project? Contact us with any questions or to set up a free consultation with our specialists, and take the first step toward securely enhancing your information system.

Click here to read more about our past work, our solutions, or our security measures.

March 24, 2023

Information Security and Transportation

In the digital age, we are increasingly turning to digitization for an efficient and convenient way to process information, but it comes with its own set of security and privacy challenges.

Every step in the digitization process involves risks that need to be addressed to protect valuable data from unauthorized access or malicious damage. It is essential that these measures be taken seriously when designing a secure system, as even small lapses can have serious consequences.

In this article, we’ll explore the privacy and security challenges involved in transporting files for digitization. If your files need to be moved from one location to another to be digitized, you and your digitization partner need to find a transportation solution that keeps your files physically safe and confidential throughout the journey.

Why not use a third-party courier?

Depending on the distance they need to travel, one solution could be to ship them via a reputable freight carrier, but this opens them up to physical and confidentiality risks.

While no reputable third-party courier is going to be intentionally reckless with your files, your shipment is one of many they’re transporting that day, and their employees are unlikely to treat it with the same level of care and sensitivity that yours or your digitization partner would.

Are you willing to take the risk that the box might get thrown, dropped, damaged, or lost in the chaos of their complex shipping schedule? The risk may be small, but it would be better not to take it at all.

Additionally, if you’re transporting sensitive confidential files, transporting them through a third-party courier exposes you to the huge security risk that one of their employees could open and read the contents.

For many confidentiality contracts, it’s not enough to minimize the risk by using highly reputable couriers who are unlikely to violate trust, you need to make it impossible for them to do so.

Distance is a problem in itself.

One way to minimize the risk of loss, damage, or security breach during transit is to minimize the amount of time your files have to spend in transit. The further your files have to go, the longer they’ll be at risk.

Of course, the closest option isn’t always the best option, and there’s no point in giving your files the maximum amount of protection during transit if the people who receive them on the other end aren’t going to handle them safely. You do have some flexibility in terms of distance.

On the other hand, while the distance to transport is not the sole deciding factor in choosing a digitization partner, it is still an extremely important one, and sending your files vast distances to be processed by the best option in the country is similarly irresponsible.

No matter how well your files are going to be treated on the other end, it’s not going to matter if they get lost or damaged on the way over.

Depending on the options available to you given your circumstances, it’s generally a good idea to choose a digitization partner who is close enough to your location that the files can be transported within one day’s travel without having to wait in shipping warehouses or risk getting thrown onto a cargo plane.

Our solution: Secure In-house courier.

Consentia employs its own in-house courier to come to retrieve your files from your location, whether you’re located 5 minutes or 5 hours away from us. Our trusted, vetted personnel will make sure that each file is inventoried and secured before leaving your facility.

When transporting especially sensitive or confidential files, we can use lockboxes to keep them safe from physical damage and security breaches throughout the journey.

For digitization services that prioritize security at every step of the process, Get a digitization quote contact us today! Our digitization solutions are tailored to meet your specific needs, including secure, stress-free transportation from your site to ours.

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