Document Management System is a centralized system which helps organizations to streamline their documentation process. This requires a systematic way of scanning and entering the paper-based documents into the central documentation system. The scanning and archiving are vital to ensure that all paper-based records are converted into the digitalized format. Each document that is entered into the Document Management System should maintain its individuality so that it can be easily retrieved when the records are searched. This means that the documents should be identifiable in the document managing system’s database. This is done via using a Document Index Number – this is an accurate way of ensuring that each document is numbered and is retrievable later as the index number lends a unique identity to the document.
The numbers are input by a dedicated operator but this turns out to be a time-consuming process that also induces chances of entering wrongly. To overcome this problem the Batch Mode System is used. Here, a uniquely-numbered bar code is allocated to each of the documents or to the separator sheets that precede the documents. This ensures that document index numbers are distributed in an error-free manner.
This is the basis of the BarCode Technology and it offers some very obvious advantages, such as:
- Document Index Numbers are correctly allocated, helping each scanned record becoming easily searchable via visual or technical retrieval systems
- Document Management System are allocated in an automated process, ruling out costs and errors caused by this work being done by human personnel
- Presence of 2-D BarCodes on the separator sheets can be used for automated indexing of back files. This ensures that documents of a big file folder are indexed according to a user-defined hierarchy and are easily searchable.
Understanding Bar Code Technology – Section Scanner Control
Apart from automating Document Source Information, the presence of separator pages helps to establish scanner parameters in a more uniform way. To understand this, a basic understanding of bar codes is necessary.
Most of the barcodes tend to look quite similar. However, each bar code is totally unique since it combines many of the bar code alphabets which are called symbologies in a unique permutation. Symbologies are further grouped into two groups – Linear or 1-D symbologies and two dimensional or 2-D symbologies. One-dimensional Symbologies can be understood as the traditional format of bar codes that are usually visible on product packaging and are commonly used for encoding short messages. This includes stock, serial, part or client numbers.
2-D BarCodes are the more recent trend in the niche of Bar Code Technology. They are making an increased appearance among shipped documents and complex database requirements that handle medical insurance documents and patient records where there is an urgent need to encode larger volumes of data in the most systematic manner. It should be noted that most of the 2-D symbologies are actually a progression over the standard, 1-D symbologies and thus, understanding 1-D BarCodes forms the basis of getting acquainted with Bar Code Technology. The most appreciable feature of 2-D Bar Codes remains their use among the separator sheets as a part of automatic indexing. This is done when handling large volumes of back files such as the patient information files in the healthcare niche. This helps to make each of the file folders identifiable and indexed according to the hierarchy chosen by the clinic’s staff.
Please note that one complete barcode is referred to as a Symbol. Each of the symbologies was developed with a purpose but all the symbologies share the common objective of being readable to the computers. The digits present along the bottom of the symbol are provided just to ensure that the bar code is also readable to the humans since the computers can interpret the numbers from the symbol itself.