Intelligent Capture: Kofax Unveils Newest Component Of Intelligent Capture & Exchange

Kofax, the information capture vendor, recently unveiled the Document Exchange Server, a new software solution that is designed to facilitate the exchange of documents and information between standard document input devices within an organization such as multifunction peripherals (MFPs), scanners and e-mail – and transactional business processes such as invoice processing, new account openings, claims processing and sales order processing.

The Kofax Document Exchange Server plays an essential role in the company's strategy to help organizations streamline business processes by capturing documents in the front office, where they originate, and move such information in real time to transactional business processes. As a result, organizations can improve the efficiency of their document-centric business processes, offer better access to information, reduce operational costs and offer superior customer service.

"The announcement of the Kofax Document Exchange Server signals the next step organizations can take toward making their document-driven business processes better, faster and easier," said Rob Klatell, chief executive officer of Kofax's parent company, DICOM Group. "It also provides a significant opportunity for us and our partners to work with organizations in industries like financial services, government, insurance and transportation who are seeking new and innovative ways to improve efficiency and service levels."

Support for Multiple Document Devices and Destinations

To help organizations make better use of their existing information technology infrastructure, the Kofax Document Exchange Server is designed to support multiple document input devices, including MFPs, document scanners, e-mail and fax systems. This flexibility allows organizations to standardize on a single-system to process both paper and electronic documents, and rapidly respond to changes in their business environment. For example, an organization may find that due to increase in document volume it makes more sense to use a dedicated document scanner rather than an MFP for scanning.

In this case, they can swap out an MFP for a document scanner connected to the already available Kofax Document Scan Server. Further changes to the underlying document processing infrastructure created by the Document Exchange Server are minimal.

"Lexmark is excited to be one of the first multifunction device manufacturers to support the Kofax Document Exchange Server with integrated and embedded solutions," said Paul Rooke, Lexmark executive vice president and president of its Printing Solutions and Services Division. "We are pleased to have Kofax create a solution that leverages our customizable eTask interface to make it easy for users to manage their document scanning needs. MFPs already provide opportunities for organizations to consolidate printers, copiers and fax machines, and this is further evidence of their ability to provide a solutions platform to simplify and improve business processes."

In addition, the Kofax Document Exchange Server connects these document input devices to a variety of destinations through a single-server. These destinations include leading Enterprise Content Management systems, line of business applications, workflows, e-mail and fax that improve the timeliness and efficiency of a business process. In addition, it is tightly integrated with Ascent Capture for advanced document processing options and compatible with an extensive number of content management systems and data repositories.

"Organizations are quickly realizing the business benefits of an SOA for enterprise-wide applications, including those specific to the capture and exchange of information," said Paul Preo business line manager, Workgroup and Cutsheet Printing Solutions, IBM. "The new Kofax Document Exchange Server leverages an SOA foundation through open standards to help organizations improve business process workflows by connecting users with enterprise data sources to standard document input devices."

The Kofax Document Exchange Server features a thin client application - the Document Exchange - where users can easily retrieve documents sent from an input device. Users access the Document Exchange from a standard Web browser where they can preview documents, combine them with others, enter index information and send them to a desired destination. For further ease, destinations can be saved as shortcuts to reduce the number of steps necessary to submit a document to a particular destination point.

Kofax Document Exchange Server utilizes Kofax VirtualRescan (VRS) to improve image quality as well as improve processes like recognition and transformation. VRS also offers intelligent features that enable users to "blindly" scan documents with confidence knowing that VRS will correct the orientation or the document, eliminate blank pages, and improve the overall quality of the image.

Administrator Tools Aid Automation

The centralized Kofax Administration Console is a thin client application that is included with the Document Exchange Server. This tool gives administrators the ability to discover input devices and destinations, remotely check the status of input devices, set up user profiles and user privileges. A log of all activities related to a document, including date, time and user, is kept by the Kofax Document Exchange Server.

"The Kofax Document Exchange Server brings their significant experience in capture to entire organizations, across any industry or horizontal market," said Hede Nonaka, Ricoh's senior vice president, Document Solutions and Services Division. "It's obvious that Kofax invested a lot of time and energy into developing this product. From an architectural standpoint, the Kofax Document Exchange Server is impressive; it supports distributed document capture in front office environments and leverages Kofax's existing technologies with great functionality and an intuitive user interface using the Ricoh Java development platform."

The Kofax Document Exchange Server will become available this summer. For more information about Kofax and its innovative information capture and exchange solutions, please visit www.kofax.com.

Kofax
Kofax, a division of DICOM Group plc, is the world's leading provider of information capture software, according to research by Harvey Spencer Associates. Kofax products enable the automation of business processes by collecting paper documents, forms, and e-documents from throughout organizations, transforming them into retrievable information, and delivering it all into line-of-business applications, databases, and archives. The company's information capture platform is the world's most popular application of its kind and its VRS (VirtualReScan) is a de facto standard for scanning productivity. Kofax products are widely used in finance, government, insurance, healthcare, and a broad range of companies and agencies that must capture critical business information from paper and electronic documents and forms.

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