Enterprise Applications’ Imaging Services (IS) Team: What * is * IS?

By Rhianon Price, Imaging Services

Many people in the IT field hear the word “imaging” and think of reformatting a computer. Others have guessed that it has something to do with the UNT Copy Center. However, “imaging” in IS’ context refers to something completely different! If you thought of document management instead, you’re on the right track.

Imaging Services supports ImageNow, a software program whose most basic application is to serve as a document imaging system. Historically, document imaging systems provided, essentially, a digital filing cabinet for archive records, saving organizations space and time, and therefore money – fewer filing cabinets means more work space; digitalized records (ideally) means faster, more reliable document retrieval; etc.

Green and efficient 

Document imaging systems have come a long way. They still save space, time, and money, but they now offer features that facilitate improved business decisions, increase processing efficiency, reduce legal liability, and reduce institutional environmental impact. ImageNow provides “document imaging, document management, workflow, eForms, and record and information management…” in order to “…bring order to the volumes of unorganized papers, computer files, images, email and all other types of unstructured content…” (https://www.perceptivesoftware.com/products/index.psi, January 2012). In a nutshell, Imaging Services helps make the university system more efficient and greener, as we assist departments make the conversion to ImageNow paperless processing and provide support to existing users of this software.

Our customers

Some of our current customers include the Denton Registrar’s office, Financial Aid, Financial Reporting, and Advancement, as well as the newly-transitioned Business Services Center’s (BSC) Purchasing, Payroll, and Human Resources units. We are currently assisting the Texas Academy of Arts & Sciences (TAMS) Admissions office transition to paperless workflow. Some of our recent projects have included assisting CITC administration digitalize their contract records and assisting the BSC migrate from individual campuses to the UNT System.

Our next big incoming customers will be the Denton Admissions offices (all four – undergraduate, graduate, international, and, in a few capacities not already accomplished, TAMS) and the entire UNT Dallas campus. Both of these large, ambitious projects are still in the charter phases of their implementations. We will also soon begin implementing the Business Insight and Retention Policy Management features. The former will provide real-time data dashboarding and reports regarding document workflow processing, user access, data stored in ImageNow, and much more. The latter will allow automation of document retention and disposition, eliminating the need for staff to monitor physical files, increasing accuracy of record management practices, and reducing UNT’s legal liability; we will work hand in hand with the Office of Institutional Compliance (http://compliance.unt.edu) to roll out this feature. We are excited for the challenges to come as we tackle these projects, as well as to see the benefits these efforts will bring to the UNT system.

More information

For additional information about Imaging Services, please see our website at https://imaging.unt.edu or our SharePoint site at https://untranet.unt.edu/enterprise/imaging. UNT departments interested in seeing a demo of ImageNow should email imagingservices@unt.edu.