Matthew Wrighton, Product Director
4 min read
Smart scanning solutions like cloud-enabled digitization software radically improve your organization’s productivity. There was a time when scanning documents required a bunch of manual data entry. Thankfully, enhancements in digital scanning mean that time is at an end.
Features like OCR technology, scan-to-email, and cloud repository destinations are the newest tools to help uplift organizations’ document management structure. With multi-brand scanning (for legacy and cloud solutions), we’re enabling IT teams to focus on their core functions and get away from the back-and-forth of document workflow management.
This is just one of the many ways our solutions tackle bigger outcomes and promote business growth. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves–for now, let’s talk automated scan workflows and scanning in general.
In general, multi-brand cloud scanning are solutions that are brand-agnostic and enabled for cloud software. Agnostic software gives businesses the freedom to choose multiple device brands and achieve a consistent user experience. These solutions boost productivity and enable digital collaboration.
Read on to learn how cloud-first, multi-brand scanning solutions can help your business become more productive and improve operational efficiency.
What is Multi-Brand Scanning?
Before we begin our dismantling of the scan process, let’s focus on what multi-brand scanning actually is. Modern offices often use devices from a variety of manufacturers, this includes print and scan devices. Often, a company will even use printers from two different manufacturers in separate branch offices as their standard brands.
This hardware ecosystem requires printing software that can bridge the gap with ease. Multi-brand scanning offers such a solution. It handles consistent document capture across multiple vendors’ devices, as well as online storage and document workflow.
Say Goodbye to Tedious Scanning with OCR Technology
Digital scanning services weren’t always convenient. Before the advent of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, converting scanned paper documents into computer files was a time-consuming manual process. The repetitive nature of the task meant the employee working on it could easily get fatigued. And tired workers will likely make mistakes.
Luckily, OCR technology in scanning gives your organization a safety net. The software converts scanned images of documents into computer-friendly text files that can be analyzed by other word-processing software. This process takes place over four stages:
- Image Acquisition: The OCR software converts a scanned image into binary data
- Preprocessing: The image is cleaned up, realigned, and enhanced to make it easier for the OCR software to read
- Text Recognition: OCR software identifies alphanumeric characters by one of two processes, pattern matching or feature extraction
- Postprocessing: The OCR software converts the recognized text into a computer file, ready for analysis or review
Our document capture capabilities within SAFEQ use OCR technology to render extracted text in formats like Microsoft Word, PDF, or HTML. This OCR engine also supports over 200 languages, making it a scanning powerhouse.
Make Scanning to Email and Cloud a Breeze
Document digitization software like SAFEQ has re-imagined how companies store information. Despite the vast digitization of most modes of communication, document management continued to lag with paper records.
Transitioning to a sustainable, future-proof method of the otherwise physical document handling process has been a critical step in modernizing offices across the globe. With enhanced scanning and its scan-to-email and cloud repositories integration features, we can rethink how data is stored and analyzed.
Digital scanning doesn’t automatically imply a paper-free workplace. In fact, a report titled “Global Print 2025 Study” by the research firm Quocirca found that 64% of the companies surveyed still expect printing to be an essential part of their day-to-day operations in 2025. Even though office work and paper printing don’t seem to be heading for a break-up anytime soon, the same study also noted that a majority of its subjects were looking for sustainable ways to optimize their print infrastructure.
One solution to this is to adopt cloud-enabled multi-brand scanning. Both the scan-to-email and cloud repository features allow organizations to reduce their reliance on paper without compromising data sharing or collaborations.
Scan to Email
Before print management software, scanning documents on a multifunctional device (MFD) was only the start of the document-handling process. Now, the entire process can be completed in one move thanks to the scan-and-send document-to-email functionality. This allows you to instantly send your document to a specific email. Scanned documents can be sent directly to their intended recipient. This eliminates the need for scanning, data entry, uploading attachments, and manually sending emails.
Scan to Cloud
Misplaced documents can leave gaping holes in your organization’s knowledge system. With the help of digital cloud repositories such as OneDrive or SharePoint Online, you won’t have to worry about a misplaced document ever again. Multi-brand scanning lets you send scanned documents straight to these cloud repositories, where they can be securely stored and easily accessed whenever you or your colleagues need them.
Supercharge Productivity with Advanced Metadata Searchability
Y Soft’s printing solutions are more than just scanning software; they are a comprehensive document management system. Advanced metadata searchability allows you to unlock an efficient, one-touch workflow that streamlines searchability and helps you organize files better. Adding metadata tags to scanned documents to make them easier to search for is essentially a productivity and efficiency hack.
SAFEQ combines the two functionalities of metadata searchability and cloud document storage to give you unprecedented control over how you navigate your document management systems. Some benefits of having access to metadata include:
- Improved Searchability
Automated metadata tagging lets you discover files within your database with ease. No more rifling through storage cabinets in search of an old agreement. - Enhanced Organization
The ability to add metadata to scanned files makes categorizing them a whole lot simpler.
- Improved Collaboration
Metadata searchability allows every employee to navigate the knowledge database with ease. Collaboration becomes a much more streamlined activity with no information falling through the gaps.
- Better Compliance
Using metadata for document management gives you a bird’s eye view of the entire knowledge infrastructure. This makes it easier to ensure that all files comply with regulatory requirements.
FAQs on Multi-Brand ScanninG
Q1) What is document digitization?
Document digitization is the process of converting paper documents into digital files, most commonly through scanning. The advantage of digital documents over paper is that they can be easily managed, safely stored, and retrieved when necessary — all without taking up any physical office space. Besides saving space, other benefits include boosting productivity, promoting collaboration, and automating document processing.
Q2) What are the three steps of scanning?
Scanning with SAFEQ is a three-step process. The three steps of the scanning process are:
- Conversion: Where paper documents are converted to digital files
- Capture: Where information is extracted from the digital file
- Storage: Where digital files are uploaded into a server, hard drive, or the cloud
Today, organizations can automate this workflow with modern document-handling solutions. The solutions execute the entire three-step process without human intervention while lowering processing costs.
Final Points
As the modern workplace continues to evolve, multi-brand scanning will take up a position of even greater prominence. With advanced scanning technology like OCR recognition, metadata searchability, drive scan, and so much more, modern document management solutions make it easier than ever to optimize the process of storing documents while meeting compliance standards.
Check out SAFEQ’s Cloud features to see how you can transform your document workflows today and let go of (and automate) manual IT work.
