Enterprise Scanning at Motability

Motability had an ageing legacy scanning system creaking at the seams with reports of increased downtime and errors. The system was expensive to run and maintain, relying on a volume based pricing model and propriety system knowledge that did not fit with Motability’s enterprise scanning vision, resource profile or Microsoft strategy. Some months the resource was available to perform scanning tasks but there were no scanning credits left in the contract while at other times monthly credits were not being used with scanning resource being deployed elsewhere.

A further constraint of the legacy system was its lack of efficient integration options with line of business solutions, Microsoft SharePoint and ECM preventing IT from rolling scanning and imaging out to new areas in the organization.

A number of departments in Motability had paper intensive processes without the benefit of scanning and electronic document management. These departments had to deal with the storage costs, risks, as well as productivity constraints brought about by paper documents.

In addition to the challenges of managing paper, Motability had to deal with compliance requirements related to gift aid records as well as information kept on customer assessments for grants. This information needed to be available for audit purposes. Security was also a key challenge for Motability with HR document management requiring encryption and password protection.

Scanning and releasing documents was a time consuming and error prone activity. The scanners were slow and could only perform single side scanning, the software clunky – requiring the manual linking of images in a folder to line of business systems and SharePoint.

Dynamyx proposed and architected a solution spanning the Grants, Fundraising and HR departments. Planning is underway to adopt the solution in the Finance and other departments. The solution consists of Fujitsu workgroup scanners, KnowledgeLake capture and imaging servers as well as Microsoft SharePoint.

The Fujitsu 6130 Workgroup Scanner was selected because of its small desk footprint, barcode recognition and double-sided scanning capabilities. The Grants department has the ability to scan 10-15 different grant document types into the solution. Once scanned the document is indexed based on a unique identifier. After being indexed in KnowledgeLake the document is released into SharePoint.

Example documents processed by the grants department include the grant application forms plus supporting documentation, such as proof of benefit, income support and doctors letters.

Fundraising deals primarily with gift aid returns, raffle returns and the processing of donations. Campaign responses are routed from the mailroom to the fundraising department where staff scans the slips. Two dimensional barcodes are pre-printed on the slips – the scanner uses optical character recognition functionality to read the barcode and KnowledgeLake then queries the database and auto index the slip based on all the “to” field information stored in the database.

“Less human interaction means fewer errors, with the 2D barcodes we are now expecting even fewer errors‟ – Phillip Hesse, Network Administrator, Motability

Once indexed the slip information is released to KnowledgeLake capture server. Capture server release the slip into SharePoint and retrieves a web-link (URL) and subsequently updates the relevant record in the fundraising database with that location identifier.

Lower solution maintenance, roll-out and training overhead - same solution set leveraged to address scanning and imaging across departments

• Solution reliable, scalable and extendable – proven solution with an open architecture to allow for further development and compatibility, integration options with line of business applications, Microsoft SharePoint and CRM
• Fewer errors and delays – there used to be errors and delays caused by manual indexing and line of business linking steps as well as slow scanning equipment performance
• Reduced risks and costs associated with paper processing – documents are now available in an easy to access, secure, backed-up and version controlled central SharePoint repository
• Improved the ease of compliance reporting – straight forward storage and retrieval of gift aid records and supporting documentation for grants
• Leveraged infrastructure already in place – the solution is compatible with legacy multi functional devices and built around SharePoint enabling easy and fast release, access and search for documents on top of SharePoint’s document management functionality
• Strong user adoption - the KnowledgeLake user interface is easier to use and more user- friendly in comparison to the legacy solution
• Improved speed of scanning - Fujitsu scanners enable faster, double sided scanning when compared to the legacy multi functional devices
• Completeness of solution - functionality is available in the solution to support specific departmental use-cases for example encrypted PDF documents for HR, barcode recognition for raffle returns and batch scanning for grant applications
• Solution priced for scalability and enterprise adoption – the scanning backlog was removed as there are no scanning volume limitations/incremental costs
• Reduced paper storage requirement – paper can now be stored cost effectively off-site or recycled instead of ending up in filing cabinets

"We can scan a batch in 5 minutes now where it used to take 30 minutes, it [the solution] is user- friendly, where we used to need to attach images manually, it is now automated" – Denise South, Database Administrator, Motability