The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)’s Memorandum M-19-21 mandate is approaching. If you’re in the federal government, chances are that you are aware – and possibly dreading – the upcoming deadline to digitize and electronically manage all of your records by the end of 2022.
Records digitization is critical to preserving historical records and something that recent generations are already doing. The National Archives has been storing digital files in the Electronic Record Archives (ERA) on servers, not filed boxes of paper documents in large storage facilities. But the explosion and growing amount of data and documents must not only be preserved but also made easily accessible in order to deliver value beyond saving space and paper.
Let’s not despair knowing that IDC has predicted that data worldwide will grow 10X and 175 zettabytes by 2025, with over 80% of it unstructured. Intelligent document processing (IDP) and automation solutions, such as Ephesoft’s, are the key to digitizing records and images accurately, fast and at scale. There are ways using AI and machine learning technology to automatically index or classify records and extract the data so no manual data entry or rekeying is necessary. Scanning documents is not enough; searchable, actionable data is needed for future use.
Intelligent document processing (IDP) and data capture solutions extend beyond the federal government into state, local, education (SLED) entities as well as into the private sector.
Any kind of documents, records (paper or electronic), contracts or forms can be digitally transformed into actionable data. Once data is transformed and in the right structured format, organizations can focus on becoming data compliant, which is becoming a common initiative as government regulations evolve to protect privacy and ensure security.
Other use cases where intelligent document capture and data extraction are saving time and money while increasing accuracy, customer satisfaction and compliance include:
- Higher education schools and services for transcripts, admissions and student records
- Large government agencies for digital mailroom automation and correspondence data extraction
- State agencies for eliminating manual data entry for workforce development and legal documents
- Extracting handprint, handwriting, signatures, complex tables and checkboxes
- Audits, compliance and fraud prevention
Are you ready to explore your use case and minimize document challenges? There’s still time to beat NARA’s deadline.
Resources
- NARA’s Records Storage Standards Toolkit
- Data Compliance Tops List of Use Cases for Document Capture for IT and Operations Decision-Makers
- Federal Government Capabilities
- Ephesoft Announces Product Recertification by Air Force Network Integration Center Press Release
- Convert Handwritten Data into Usable Data
- AIIM article: Direct M-19-21: What it is and How to Achieve Compliance
