A popular Highland Martin web concept, we hate to duplicate information. Feel free to check out Captaris' website for all sorts of white papers, online demos and other marketing information. Looking for the boiled down version? Hold tight, here we go!

Captaris Alchemy
Is available in a small business version that runs on a standard user workstation. No server components, no fuss, no muss. Install it, create a filing cabinet and start scanning. For mid-size to enterprise departmental uses, Alchemy comes in two server flavors, Standard and Advanced. For the price difference we always recommend Advanced server because it comes with Library Services (check in and out), Role based security, and a host of other features that just make sense most of the time.

Getting Documents in the System
ISIS & Twain scanners can be driven right from the Alchemy application. MFP (think multi-function copiers) can use eCopy with own eCopy to Alchemy Connector, or they can scan the images to a directory and you can use the MFP Application for Alchemy to index and file. Drag and drop files right from your desktop into Alchemy. You know that huge network drive with files dating back to the 1980's (maybe you call it The G Drive, or the Office File Server), drag the whole drive into Alchemy. It won't make the organization of the files any better, but the searchability is incredible. All those old Word Docs, Excel Files and PDF's become fully text searchable. Using the datagrabber module you can pick up documents from print streams, like check printing streams from your accounting system, invoices and statements from your CRM or ERP system and more. Command line tools, batch scripts, .NET API's, web service calls and various other SDK's are available for you to write your own tools and applications that can utilize the power of Alchemy

Single page scanning, batch scanning, automated indexing...
Alchemy can create barcoded separator sheets for batch scanning of 100's of documents, and it can also use your own proprietary barcodes as separators. By combining separators and Alchemy zonal OCR templates, you can actually pull data off of your forms and use that data to automatically index and/or file the documents into Alchemy. Zonal OCR templates can be applied automatically or manually, and you can also choose to OCR documents real-time or in a nightly batch process (saving CPU cycles for when the system is not in use). Using special scan drivers, you can scan from MFP's, ISIS/TWAIN Scanners and even network file directories. This is part of the process where our best practices approaches and experience in the space will really save you some time and headache!

Searching for documents
Use a thick client application installed on user desktops, or use the web based searching module. The viewer supports over 200 document formats, meaning that you can view AutoCAD and Wordperfect files without even having those applications installed. The Texas Department of Transportation scans all of its documents and opens them up for the public to search. Click this link and notice what application is serving up the documents!  If you are an engineering firm looking to store documents, you'll want to follow that link! Search document contents, document index data, annotation content and even search using the full-text index of any OCR information (Optical Character Recognition) that Alchemy pulled off the scanned document. Phrase searching, AND's, OR's, and complex date searching are all built in. You can even customize the search screen to only include the information you want people to search on (ie, making it easy for the "I need it to be easy" users).

Security
Alchemy's security model is really robust. You can create standalone Alchemy user accounts, or you can link them to accounts on your network using Microsoft Active Directory. Your users only have access to the filing cabinets or documents that you allow. Considering that all the branches of the U.S. Military use Alchemy somewhere, you better believe that it is a secure solution. Want to increase security even more? Use the 256 Bit blowfish encryption module to encrypt the data between server and client endpoints.

Platform
Alchemy only runs on the Microsoft OS platform, XP and up for the small business version, Server 2000 and up for the server versions. The server version uses SQL Express or your own full version of SQL. No, the documents themselves are not stored in SQL server as BLOBS. Alchemy has customers putting a "BILLION" documents in their filing cabinets. The search, retrieve and backup aspects of SQL in that transactional situation were completely unacceptable. Alchemy uses a storage and retrieval method that is now being implemented in Microsoft's Exchange 2008 platform. If someone tries to use this as a selling point against Alchemy, they aren't worth their technical salt, and obviously they think they are smarter than Microsoft who is moving towards the same technology that Captaris Alchemy has been using for years.

Open-ness
We like to point out that although Alchemy uses its own method for storing the files on disk, there are no proprietary modifications being done to the document. At any time during your Captaris Alchemy usage, you can right click and export all the data from any filing cabinet, including metadata, annotations, OCR information and the files themselves. Word docs are stored as word docs, PDF's as PDF's, AutoCAD as AutoCAD, etc. Your documents stay in their original format and are available at anytime. What keeps you locked into the Alchemy platform is its efficiency and functionality. You could leave it anytime you want. Try to get your data out of other doc mgt systems! We do it everyday and it usually requires a great amount of professional services effort.. See our eCabinet to Alchemy migration tool as a good example of just that!

Implementation
Most of our Alchemy implementations take 3-5 days, including onsite training and creation of a filing cabinet for one line of business. We want you to be as self sufficient as you want to be, but we are always here if you want the hired gun to just get it done for you. We have business consultants, developers and data modelers who can work with you to deliver just what you need, or at least help you understand what you need to get there!

Call us or email us to start down the Alchemy discovery road today!