POLYSOFT

Polysoft was founded in Switzerland in 1980 by two engineers, Patrick Mégard and Serge Favre.

In 1985, with the industrial market in mind, Polysoft, which is specialized in technical informatics introduced a line of products CAD/CAM for component designing and realisation.

And in 1993, Polysoft registered a key patent, known as “isologic process”. This innovation has given its products considerable advantage in the realisation of the user interface, resulting in an increase of productivity by 10 to 100 times more than traditional solutions.

    OBJECTIVES

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR THE AUTOMATION OF DOCUMENT HANDLING AND DISTRIBUTION

Doc Manager has been designed and built to simplify and eliminate where possible, the transit of paper documents among offices. Until now such a problem has been a headache for the amount of paper submerging desks of office workers and technicians, not to mention public institutions. For years, information technology has been promising a solution to this problem, but with the onset of new technologies it has only been able to accelerate the production of documents, that is technologies devoted to increase personal productivity. On the contrary, paper’s role is getting more and more important, often in duplicating the contents of digital files, with the addition of documents constantly arriving from external offices. If we were to consider the extraordinary advent of faxes, with their speed in forwarding correspondence, led to a build-up of paper, often faded, on overloaded desks worsened the already heavy logistical situation. A positive sign, although limited, came with the introduction of e-mail technology, and this was probably the first step in the right direction: the elimination of printouts and timeliness in communications. Why not take heed of this success and transfer these benefits into streamlining all company correspondence and documentation?

This is the idea which can make highly competitive modern enterprises.

The sole handling the flow of documents (notes, invoices, catalogues, orders, correspondence, technical drawings, pictures, etc.) represents today the most important challenge to face and to overcome. Our technology puts at any users disposal fundamental information so essential for speeding up work and avoiding unnecessary tasks.

Doc-Manager furthermore, is unequalled in organizing every single persons’ work load via the documents themselves.

  PROTOCOL

The purpose of the Doc-Manager system is to handle the distribution of documents upon arrival, in order to define their typology, and forward them to the relevant offices. Important fiscal and legal original documents are numbered and stored in binders, to be kept for a period of time as required by law. Previously they will undergo to the same scanning process applied to all correspondence, but unlike this later will be destroyed and the relevant image will be kept in the Doc-Manager file. From this moment on, there is no further need to transfer papers from one office to another, but like e-mail messages, are sent as electronic mail with their digitised documents attached.

CLASSIFICATION

The most important operation requested for document index filing is providing the data base with a series of information for forthcoming searches. Doc-Manager supplies a variety of tools which have been designed for such purposes. These are a vital key to process productivity and our specialists have purposely focalised their attention on optimising such optimal solutions.

DISTRIBUTION

The system, upon recognition of a document’s category by means of its relationship with the tasks of the operators, can send to individual staff members notification of mail in arrival, or the digital attachment of the document through the network. The typical function of e-mail facilitate the immediate implementation of this system. Manual interventions being eliminated, the operator can now forward documents either to a specific department or person, confident that it will be taken into consideration upon receipt. The receiver will also receive an attachment explaining how to proceed with the document itself and can notify other operators by attaching the path. User-friendly and fast, even for the inexperienced operator, Doc-Manager will become one of the most popular and widely used tools in the office.

STRUCTURE

The informative system contains special files allowing a total automation of document distribution:

Users’ file	Mailing list for notifications
Password file	Path file
Job description	Document classification file
Activity file	Departments file

  DOCUMENT PATH

DOCUMENT PATH HANDLING

The doc-Manager system features an extraordinary tool for the control and speeding up of documentation processing. It foresees the possibility to define the path of each class of documents, in such a way to associate the mail notification automatic process with the assigning of the activities to be performed through the document itself. Each class of documents is given an array of operations or activities plus the sequences to be followed. During the phase of classification, it will be sufficient to assign the type of document, and the procedure shall perform both the notification and to attach the path to follow. This function foresees the possibility to sign the performed activity, thus the system goes to the successive sorting to other users for verification and final authorization. At the end of each path, the storage in the historical file of process information, and, if necessary, the printout of specific reports are previewed .

Every operation leaves an indelible trace in the intervention log in case of adjustments need to be made.

ATTACHMENTS The application has foreseen the creation of dossiers able to hold both an external document in digital format and internal elaborations in order to support or complete this document. In this way, it is possible to load on the DB-DOC all the elaborations produced by the user related to the basic document, or to the procedure, thus to define the relationships in order to trace them not only by their classification, date, or another tag, but also by procedure or folder number. The user can also combine together a huge collection of different files able to satisfy both filing needs and documental information retrieval. Formats available are: All office formats (if present on the net) Raster formats (tiff, git, pcxm , bmp, jpeg, gif etc.) Vector formats (dxf, dwg. iges, hpgl, pdf) Htlm formats for electronic mail All these formats can be visualised, enlarged, either in preview form or printed, so satisfying even the most particular needs. dxf and dwg are Autodesk trade marks Pdf is an Adobe trade mark

  CATALOGUE HANDLING

One of the biggest problems concerning businesses or public companies that purchase goods for their own consumption or to sell is the time spent in consulting catalogues. Often this activity is contrasting the inherent nature of the media. In the need to offer a fast reference, given impossibility of duplicating pamphlets, automating distribution is the sole alternative. Doc-Manager allows its digital filing (classified per supplier, validity dates etc.) including price lists and if necessary, index pages. In just a few seconds, every authorised user can track down catalogues, view them, enlarge details, print one or more pages and attach them to an outgoing email.

If suppliers’ articles were made available on CD, valuable time in digitising pages would be saved.

  DRAWINGS HANDLING

Every manufacturing, services or public institutions activity, in addition to their routine correspondence and administrative documents, require also the handling of the technical office drawings. Actually a specific handling, given the cumbersome size and dimensions to be taken into account.

Doc-manager owns all the features needed for a correct and safe use of technical drawings to be made available to authorised users.

AUTOMATIC INSERTION AND CLASSIFICATION

The application is to develop a filing system for drawings utilizing technical documents on hand or those sent by suppliers or customers. And, considering the diverse nature of the available media, Doc-Manager has made available a complete set of tools suitable for old drawings on paper or transparencies to be digitalised and stored in the scanner format enabling the image visualization. There are no limits in setting up your own filing system: the user can choose the format he prefers according to the tools at his disposal. Besides the raster formats proposed, Doc-Manager can provide even the well-known formats for vectorial documents, say DXF, DWG, IGES, HPGL, as well as its internal format, so covering almost the entire market, and at the same time guaranteeing a considerable degree of compatibility for the present and future.
It is contemplated that the control panel of the program can select prototypes and merely indicate the areas where key field descriptions can be found for searching purposes. These will provide an automatic document classification. Doc-Manager, in the preliminary stage of file organization, provides a formidable series of automatisms which can reduce manual operations for the classification to a minimum. For every type of format, specialized recognisers can detect information contained in the data table of the scrolls standardised for each company, and, as soon as they are both verified and normalized, will become part of the technical Data Base of the application. These tests synchronized by explanatory label (field prompt) will be utilized by the user to organize intelligent search filters which can find any drawing in just a few seconds fully satisfying the preset searching chain. Speed and precision are the keystone to an automated filing system: furthermore, economizing will be of significant importance thanks to these functions. In very little time, investments outlaid for this extraordinary application program will give handsome returns - technical filing automation is a significant time-saver and quality improvement is guaranteed as well.

  TECHNICAL OFFICE

  SEARCH BY KEY FILTERS

Doc-Manager supplies a complete and effective research system. Thanks to Relational technology, the authorized user can select a series of documents simply by supplying or choosing one or more research filters. The system will then show data of all the recorded documents that fulfils the features required and, by a simple command, the user will be able to see all the current information and examine the image instantaneously as well.

Research can also be performed by document classification, file or dossier numbers and request a specific catalogue of a given supplier.

DISPLAY AND PRINTING In the graphics area, documents and drawings can be visualized, enlarged and eventually printed. The user can safely work on an identical copy of the original, because no changes can be made to the file’s contents unless any indications of changes or traces of personal password are left. For manufacturing companies that foresee printing of their technical drawings, Doc-Manager permits the acquire a list of drawing codes and will care for their automatic printing. In comparison with user- strategy definitions, synchronizing printing formats to the peripherals devices available will save considerable time and costs.

  SECURITY

Doc-Manager provides the widest guarantee of information security and confidentiality.

Every user is recognized and classified according to his qualification and department so that access by others to information is bound by an impenetrable wall.

Protection measures are personalized by each system manager who will in turn provide the users with a specific password.

ELECTRONIC SIGNATURES Access to document consultation is possible by use of an electronic or magnetic key. This key allows the user to have access to documents within his domain, or if authorized to do so by the system manager, is also entitled to check department or general files. Such procedure guarantee the highest degree of information privacy and the integrity and reliability of the information system as a whole. The password also allows the “signing” of completed work, or check-ups that have been carried out. This means that a high degree of automation in the procedure of process management is obtained. Every completed operation carried out on the files bears the user’s registration number and is recorded in the operations’ register so that any likely modification or correction may be found.