Review

From Document Manager Magazine Vol 17 No 01 - January/February 2009

As highlighted by its unexpected win at the 2008 DM Awards, Omnidox from Stortext is finding favour among all kinds of clients,

As highlighted by its unexpected win at the 2008 DM Awards, Omnidox from Stortext is finding favour among all kinds of clients, from financial institutions to airlines. The thinking behind the offering is simple enough. Potential purchasers of a document management or digital mailroom system are generally faced with two choices: to buy software, at anything up to £150,000, along with 'per seat' licenses, annual maintenance charges and renewals, hardware (servers etc.), and associated staff costs; or to pay a monthly subscription charge to Stortext, plus a cost per document processed (for example around 30p for a single invoice).

Put in such simple terms, it is easy to see why Omnidox is proving such a popular approach, especially for organisations comfortable with outsourcing non-business critical processes. The Omnidox approach can also help mitigate compliance & retention concerns within many organisations - Stortext can offer guidance and peace of mind as well as straightforward process automation and management.

The Omnidox offering itself is a development of two products dating from the merger around four years ago of Stortext and FM Image: the best of their E- Docs and Eclipse Online systems have been re-used to create an entirely new and highly user-friendly hosted service solution. Omnidox includes all the functionality of both earlier systems, along with a list of 'nice-to-have' requests from existing clients and significantly enhanced ease-of-use via the browser-based interface. The system

has been carefully designed to require very little user training, with most new users up and running after one half-day onsite workshop. Anyone who does find themselves requiring assistance can hit a 'Help' button from anywhere in the system which sends a message to the Stortext support team, which endeavours to provide call-back within two hours.

Clients using Omnidox as their electronic mail room are able to have documents available at their desktops by 9am - often enough of a benefit in itself to justify the investment, especially in financial institutions. The Omnidox interface is entirely browser-based, requiring no software installation on client machines, and can be locked to specific IP addresses for security if required. The entire systems is designed to be easy to use as well as highly configurable - Stortext tailor each client's solution to reflect transparently the individual user experience as required

within that organisation. Different users may access the system via their own line-ofbusiness systems, effectively unaware that Omnidox sits in the background, handling all the document processing requirements.

Oracle Financials users, for instance, can simply click a button within their normal window in order to view an invoice image related to their current workload. This is managed via a standard application interface that sends a 'token' along with each document into the relevant business application.

Stortext has invested considerable time and effort into creating a system that instils a genuine sense of security and comfort among user organisations. Handling sensitive business-critical data relies on an absolute trust and sense of partnership between the client and the service provider, and this is an area where Stortext appears to have got things just right. More info: www.stortext.com

VERDICT: Omnidox represents quite possibly the best implementation of a hosted document management/mailroom service available to the UK market, as evidenced by the remarkable take-up to date among client organisations across a number of industries.

Review