What you need to know about multi-channel capture

Multi-channel capture is a way to capture and deliver information from multiple systems such as email, fax, database print streams, network file folders, web applications, web service calls etc.

Capturing data from these systems allows you to engage with your supply chain on any device at any time.

Consider this: “A typical employee uses 10,000 sheets of copy paper every year and spends 30-40 percent of their time looking for information locked in email and filing cabinets.” (Advanced Capture, Kofax)

By automating the capture and delivery of this information, employees can instantly access information, saving time and speeding up the business process, which in turn can keep customers or suppliers happy.

Without automated multi-channel capture, many companies struggle to gain visibility and control over data due to the many sources being used by customers and the supply chain. It’s no longer just paper that a company needs to worry about, customers are engaging directly through the web and mobile creating new channels to track and capture the information from.

Automating a previously time consuming manual process is a great way to create new opportunities and some of the features of multi-channel capture solutions include:

• Integrating with any system: In order to automate the process properly, without the need for manual intervention, a wide range of integrations are crucial. Be sure to choose a solution that integrates all of the sources of data you need, whether it be enterprise content management, ERP systems or email.
  

• API Flexibility - Customise the solution as you need with a flexible API and access any data, when you need it. Create rules and destinations for data exports.
  

• Data Adaptation - In some cases, a multi-channel capture solution can actually adapt and prep the data for the appropriate process, for example cropping or rotating a document before the information is extracted and delivered.
  

• Automated Learning - Over time, the solution can learn to understand different and unique document types in order to classify, separate and extract data, helping to further speed up business processes.

With these features in place with the implementation of a multi-channel capture solution, it’s good to think about the benefits it can bring over a manual version of the process.

Automated capture of data

Save employee time and cost by automating the scanning, indexing and delivery of content. It doesn’t matter what source or how structured the content is, the multi-channel capture solution can be set up with rules to extract the data you need - this might include machine-printed text, barcodes or hand print.

Regain control of your content

Capturing data is often a time-consuming process, and as more business processes turn to digital, the data capture has become more complex as there are multiple sources to worry about. With multi-channel capture, the processing of paper and electronic documents is sped up and automated and the data is delivered to the right place, meaning quicker access to information.

Any time, anywhere

It doesn’t matter where your company is based or how it’s set-up, whether it be a chain of global offices or a team of home workers or sales people on the go, multi-channel capture solutions can be flexible to capture data anywhere at any time, with the ability to centralise the delivery of the data.

Multi-channel capture provides new ways to capture and view data and content and creates unprecedented access to information within the organisation.

As well as being helpful to employees looking for information, it can also provide a quick return on investment with increased business process efficiencies and time saved by employees searching for the data and information they need.