Introvert

My (Simple) Personal Document Management System

I have friend whose job includes document management; tracking important documents, storing them, revising them and keeping track of them. I imagine the system his (large) corporation uses costs upwards of $100,000. In simple terms, a document management system consists of a scanning solution, a database for storing scanned documents, and a means of searching through scanned images.

But I just have two or three folders of paper that precedes my move to computers. I’d like to be able to store these electronically but not spend a lot of money doing it.

So my criteria for an electronic document management system include low cost, ease of use, and the ability to search for these documents easily. Searching for documents will involve ‘tagging’. Tagging means creating a description of the document in such a way that it can be found with a simple search.

The underlying ‘engine’ for my system is a Google gmail account. Each free account offers 7 gigabytes of online storage at no cost. Seven gigabytes will store a LOT of paper documents.

The biggest downside is security – while it is password protected it still is online and therefore open to possible hacking. In my case, nothing I wanted to store electronically was critical. If someone wants poetry I wrote in college; more power to them.

I also have a scanner built in to my HP OfficeJet 7110 multifunction printer but the scanning software that came with the printer absolutely SUCKS! Therefore I actually spent some money on this part.

I purchased a copy of VueScan from www.hamrick.com for $39.95 – a HUGE bargain as it completely revived my ability to scan. On the Hamrick site there is a comprehensive list of scanners that VueScan works with. An added ‘plus’ is that VueScan has an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) engine built in; so if you want to be able to edit the scanned document, VueScan will turn it into text that can be saved via your word processor.

So here we go - I fire up VueScan and scan my document. VueScan output defaults to PDF files. Here is my first tagging opportunity. By naming the PDF file carefully, I have a good sense of what it’s about.

For my document management ‘engine’ I signed up for a free Google gmail account – I simply log into it, click “compose mail” and address it to the same email address (in other words, it’s by me, from me, and to me). I click “Attach file” and browse to the PDF file I’ve just created.

This is my second chance to tag the document – in the subject line of the email I add all the words that I might need to find the file later. I click “send” and it shows up in my inbox. That’s it – that’s all there is to it. Of course, I’m trusting Google not to implode or cut me off so if your paper documents are critical or have personal information, this may not be the answer for you.

Now when I need a document, I simply go to my gmail inbox and use the search box. If multiple documents have the tag I’m looking for in the subject line, those documents immediately appear in the list. I can then easily view or print out the document.

It’s not sophisticated but it is easy to use, inexpensive, and searchable.

Hal Warfield is a speaker, teacher and coach. Write him at warfieldh@gmail.com . Or read additional self-development and business articles at www.introvert.cc and www.halwarfield.com. Hal is also VP of Business Development at www.marketstrategy.cc where he specializes in business development strategies for small businesses.