ImageSite Features   

ImageSite Engineering Advantages (PDF)

ImageSite's Full Text Search module allows document searches to be performed based on the content in documents, including AutoCAD, Word, PDF, Excel, PowerPoint, Email, and ASCII files. Search for words in a file, much like a web search engine searches for web sites by searching for words on the web pages.

Benefits

• Allows users to quickly and conveniently find documents based on words in the files.
• Reduces the need for extensive index (attribute) data to be manually assigned to stored documents.

ImageSite Domain Security gives administrators a single point of access for network security. This eliminates juggling multiple user databases on different systems throughout an organization--especially when hundreds or thousands of users are involved.

Benefits

• Ease of use, with an automatic login feature for end users based on the recognition of their network login/password information.
• Saves significant administrative time and effort by avoiding the need to manually create and manage ImageSite logins and passwords.
• Ensures that users who have been de-authorized from their company network environment can no longer access critical corporate information that could be stored in the ImageSite system.

ImageSite's Digital Signature module lets authorized users "sign" documents (or markups) to ensure that documents stored in ImageSite remain unchanged once they have been signed. Digital signatures use encryption technology to uniquely identify a file and compare its current contents with its content when it was signed. This provides a highly secure level of additional security on each digitally signed file.

Benefits

• A digital signature on a document or markup is a guarantee to other ImageSite users that the document has not changed since it was signed, and that the signer is really who they claim to be within the ImageSite user system.

ImageSite Workflow automatically routes tasks needing to be performed (typically with links to ImageSite stored documents) from one user to another according to a pre-defined workflow process, and based on a predefined schedule.

• Once initiated, the workflow runs automatically until the job is complete--just the way you have defined the process.
• Tasks assigned to specific users display in their inbox, so users know exactly what they need to do. Email notifications help focus users on work that is pending.
• Users (both end users and administrative users) are notified if workflow tasks are not competed by the deadlines established in the workflow schedule.

Benefits

• Mission critical work processes can be automated so that tasks are automatically routed to appropriate users and work is performed in the most efficient way possible.
• Administrative users can oversee the status of work in progress and ensure that important tasks are completed in a consistent way and according to a pre-defined schedule.
• End users understand exactly what is expected of them, as active tasks remain in their workflow Inbox until they complete the task and advance it to the next workflow step.
• A complete audit trail is recorded for each workflow event with all users, their activities, completion dates, attached documents, and comments. This results in a complete historical record of the completed work process.

ImageSite can be used to store and manage any type of electronic document or record that represents a physical document. Files not viewable directly within the integrated ImageSite viewer are automatically launched into their "native" applications.

Benefits

• This makes ImageSite the repository for all of your most important corporate archive information.
• Users can store any and all electronic documents or physical document records with the confidence that they are safe, secure, and can be conveniently retrieved by authorized users when needed.

ImageSite is totally web based, providing all of its functionality to all users through a web-browser.

Benefits

• No client software to install, update, reinstall, or conflict with your other important PC applications.
• No confusion about what features are available to users via a web-browser.
• Many document management solutions are a combination of client-server and web-based products. Some may "blur the line" when describing their web-based features. This may lead customers to expect web-based features that don't exist. There is no such confusion with ImageSite. All ImageSite features are web-based.

A no-cost database option using Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine (MSDE) is delivered with ImageSite for sites with 10 concurrent users or less.

Benefits

• Eliminates additional cost of the database software for systems with 10 concurrent users or fewer.
• All required software is delivered for easy installation and implementation.

ImageSite can be installed using Apache Tomcat alone or with Apache or Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) Web Servers.

Benefits

• The choice of web server technology provides flexibility to company IT decision makers to conform with corporate standards.
• The default installation of Apache Tomcat is easy to install and configure.

Convenient document navigation with a Windows-like tree structure and an easy-to-use search engine. Each user's navigation mode can be defaulted to Explore or Search mode.

Benefits

• The use of an explorer navigation is great for drilling into folders, subfolders, and the documents that they contain. Folder displays include easy-to-use thumbnail display of contents.
• Collaboration workspaces can be defaulted to explorer navigation for convenient folder drill-down.
• Large document archives can be defaulted to a convenient search interface to easily locate documents in ImageSite, which may contain millions of documents.

Create an unlimited number of projects, each with its own folders, documents, users, groups security, meta-data, and other administrative settings.

Benefits

• One ImageSite installation can support an enterprise-wide implementation with many virtual ImageSite projects that are configured appropriately for internal department use, or external company-to-company collaboration.

Use Project Templates to store complete set-up information, including users, groups, security, workflows, attributes, and so on.

Benefits

• Allows system administrators to create new Projects with the push of a button.
• Project templates can include documents, such as standards or administrative procedures.
• Unique project templates can be created for use by various departments, to meet inter-company and intra-company document management and collaboration requirements.

Expand a single server or use multiple servers to handle any number of documents.

Benefits

• With ImageSite you can focus on solving your most pressing problems, achieving the highest ROI, and knowing that you can expand ImageSite, when you are ready, across your entire enterprise.

Users accessing ImageSite can only access authorized Projects and are restricted to the following document security assignments:

• No access
• View Only
• Collaborate
• Download
• Full Rights (includes upload new and revise existing)

Benefits

• Individual users or groups can store, manage, and distribute documents with the confidence and security that only authorized users will have access.
• Document security settings, applied to users or groups of users, make ImageSite great for departmental use, internal enterprise-wide use, or external company-to-company collaboration

ImageSite can be implemented using SSL--Secure Socket Layer, a protocol for transmitting documents via the internet using encryption technology.

Benefits

• SSL implementation ensures an extremely high level of data transmission security through encryption technology as information is transferred between the ImageSite Server and ImageSite web-clients.

Users can only see documents that they are authorized to see, and use functionality that they are authorized to use. Administrators can change a user's access privileges dynamically. User access privileges can be changed either through the ImageSite administrator UI or through Windows Domain Security.

Benefits

• The ImageSite UI is very easy to use, displaying only documents that a user is authorized to see and features that a user is authorized to use. This makes the user interface simple and consistent for all users.
• Users have no access to and are not even aware of projects, folders, or documents that they are not authorized to see. This lowers the security risk for the entire system.

Organize users in groups for default assignment of group privileges including to access data, system functions.

Benefits

• Allows convenient security settings to be established and assigned to logical organizational groups.
• When new users are provided system access, their security assignments will be inherited based upon the group that they are in.

ImageSite's UI Profiles allow the project administrator to configure simple user interfaces, with only the appropriate product features enabled, and assign them to specific users or groups of users.

Benefits

• The UI provides detailed out-of-the-box configuration options to create user interfaces that are targeted to just the right features for various users and groups.
• Enables very flexible customization features without the need for expensive professional services or custom software that is then difficult (and expensive) to maintain.

ImageSite folder and document attributes (metadata) are highly configurable, allowing an unlimited number of custom attribute fields for document searching. Each attribute can have optional pick lists and can be configured to be optional or mandatory when uploading new documents.

Benefits

• ImageSite is highly configurable, out-of-the-box, which means that complex and expensive customization is not required to configure ImageSite to fit your unique requirements.
• Pick lists for attributes eliminate common typing mistakes when filling in attribute values and make searching for documents based on standard attribute values easy.
• Mandatory attributes forces these attributes to be defined as new documents are uploaded into the system.

ImageSite offers an easy to use search user interface that allows users to find documents that they need with minimal clicks. Results are presented with document thumbnail displays and quick links to perform common functions like check-out, download, view, and print.

Benefits

• ImageSite is designed to allow users to do most common tasks with ease and few button clicks.
• Users can be defaulted to the simple search interface and restricted to this interface for focused applications.

ImageSite's Advanced Search options include search on document names, attribute values, notes and note contents, or wildcard values, with rapid response, displaying results as large images, thumbnails, or lists.

Benefits

• ImageSite offers a simple search interface for ordinary users, with a configurable advanced search user interface for complex Boolean searches.
• Provides power users with the features that they need, while not cluttering up the user interface for ordinary end users.

Conveniently index documents with attribute (index) data for later searching. The Rapid Indexing interface is especially useful to index scanned files when uploaded without pre-defined attributes.

Benefits

• This convenient user interface allows users to quickly view new files, automatically zoom to the title block, key in index values, and carry forward common values to the next document being ndexed.

New revisions of checked-out documents are automatically recognized by ImageSite and incremented to the next revision name or number based on a configurable revision scheme.

Benefits

• Enables use of letters, numbers, and combinations of both for revision scheme, ensuring that you can continue to use your existing document revision scheme within ImageSite.

ImageSite allows administrative users to change revision schemes for a project from one name/numbering system to another, and to use different revision schemes in different ImageSite projects

Benefits

• Enables accurate archival of documents from different sources with different versioning schemes
• This situation often occurs when companies are acquired or merged, each having their own preferred document revision systems.

The most current versions of documents can be uploaded first for immediate use, and back-versions of the same documents can be uploaded later.

Benefits

• Provides immediate productivity, allowing ImageSite to be used with current version, active documents, while still allowing back-versions of documents to be uploaded into the system at a later date for a complete historical record of the documents in use.

Files can be checked-out of ImageSite to authorized users, like a library book, so that users can make revisions to those files. Other authorized users can still use checked-out files, but only the user who has checked-out a file can check it back in and update its version.

Benefits

• Ensures that only authorized users can revise ImageSite documents and that users know when files are being revised, including who is making the revisions.
• Ensures that everyone is using current versions of documents stored in ImageSite.

ImageSite automatically recognizes new versions of existing, checked-out documents as they are checked back into the system. Existing documents are archived and linked to the most current document. The current document is stored using the next available version name/number. Back revision documents are archived with their correct attributes (meta-data) and any markups or notes that have been created.

Benefits

• ImageSite's fully automatic revision control system enables documents to be checked-out, revised, and checked-in with confidence that only current versions of documents are in active use, historical records are maintained, and a complete audit trail is recorded for each document.

ImageSite stores a complete historical record of documents as they change over time, including their attributes (meta-data) in prior versions and any markups or notes that were created for back versions.

Benefits

• Allows authorized users to conveniently find and reuse prior versions of documents.
• Allows errors in new revisions to be corrected by backing up to a previous version.
• Maintains a complete record of collaboration activities that led to document changes.

ImageSite stores a complete audit trail of users who have viewed, downloaded, checked out, checked in, and marked up documents in ImageSite.

Benefits

• Provides a complete record of all users who have interacted with each document

Use ImageSite to electronically "distribute" documents without actually sending the document anywhere. Just send lightweight email messages that automatically drive any user to where you want them to go in ImageSite. Use a variety of direct hot links (URLs) to get them there.

• Entire Project (containing document folders)
• Folder (containing documents)
• Individual Documents
• Markups to a Document
• Sets of Documents
• Plot Sets ready to be re-printed
• Library of Encapsulations
• Dynamic Query (launched on each entry). Queries are processed at request time providing real-time results to dynamically changing data sets.

Benefits

• Avoid large email attachments that clog up email systems by sending lightweight email messages with URL links instead.
• Your data is always secure, since it never leaves your ImageSite, and the recipient must be an authorized user, as well as authorized to view that document or project
• Track who uses your data after you've sent them links.

Use ImageSite to create encapsulations of your stored documents. An encapsulation is a digital document set, with a self contained viewing, printing, and markup capability. Like a Zip file, but includes everything needed to view, markup, and print the enclosed documents, even CAD files.

Benefits

• Distribute encapsulations from ImageSite to users who don't have direct access to your ImageSite.
• Use encapsulations in the field, using your laptop or tablet computer when access to ImageSite is not available to view documents and record and store field markups.

Users with disconnected encapsulations can "phone home"and let the encapsulation check to see if its documents are still up to date. If not, the user can automatically download the current version documents.

Benefits

• Ensure that all users have the current versions of distributed documents.

Remote users can take encapsulations to the field and make markups. Later, these markups can be automatically uploaded to the ImageSite server with ease.

Benefits

• The option for direct connections between encapsulations and the master documents on the ImageSite server ensures that remotely collected data is uploaded seamlessly and to the correct documents without error.

Pre-built encapsulations can be stored and organized on the ImageSite server for direct downloading by authorized users.

Benefits

• Enables a simple and highly effective distribution of document sets in self-contained encapsulations.
• Simple selection of the encapsulation enables instant downloading of data, which avoids complications involved with sending emails with large attachments.

ImageSite offers an integrated viewer with extremely high performance to enable viewing, Markup, and Collaboration features for:

• AutoCAD
• MicroStation
• Microsoft Office formats
• Adobe PDF files
• Picture files (JPEG, PNG, many more)
• Scanned files (TIF, CALS, Raster)

Benefits

• Viewing documents in ImageSite's integrated viewer is FAST!

ImageSite includes an extensive markup tool set, allowing users to perform free-hand and precision drawing of lines, circles, squares, ovals, and other shapes. Markup graphics overlay source documents in ImageSite and never alter the original documents.

Benefits

• An easy to use, web based markup feature.
• Markups can't modify source files so your data is always protected and secure.
• Markups include security features to prevent viewing or modification by others.

Pre-defined, database driven markup categories add convenience and organizational structure to the markup process.

Benefits

• An easy-to-use, web-based markup feature.

Use electronic sticky notes to create detailed comments about drawings or documents. Associate sticky notes with specific areas of a drawing, with focused markup graphics, to address your unique issues. Create a series of sticky notes to drive reviews from location to location within a drawing.

Benefits

• Electronic sticky notes are a great way to perform engineering drawing reviews. Create note threads with a series of sticky notes, each including detailed descriptions or instructions that are text-searchable.

Benefits

• Interested users can keep advised of document access by others and by type of access (view, print, download, etc.).

Event monitors automatically notify users when a wide variety of ImageSite specific events occur. For example, "Notify me (by email) when this document is revised".

Benefits

• Interested users can keep advised of document access by others and by type of access (view, print, download, and so on).

View multiple documents at the same time, side-by-side, by tiling or stacking multiple view windows. Each window includes its own full feature set.

Benefits

• Work efficiently with multiple documents and to compare one drawing with another.

ImageSite version allows pre-defined markup graphics to be stored for reuse as standard symbols. Markup graphic symbols can be automatically generated from existing symbol libraries of CAD systems, such as AutoCAD.

Benefits

• Makes the drawing review and markup process highly efficient.
• Allows convenient, interactive placement of company specific or industry specific markup/drawing symbols.

Multiple users can simultaneously view, discuss, and markup documents directly in ImageSite from a web. Real time conferencing uses the same set of markup tools described above, and allows other conferenced users to see another's view and markup activities in real. No additional (3rd Party) software is required.

Benefits

• Resolve problems immediately by working together in conference mode to view, discuss, and markup documents.
• Web browser access for real-time conferencing allows users to work together when thousands of miles apart.
• Since there is no software to install, ImageSite conferencing is easy to do with customers, suppliers, or any partners.

ImageSite records and stores an extensive record (minutes of meetings) for each real-time collaboration conference. The conference record includes participating users, documents used, markups, comments, and decisions made.

Benefits

• Complete minutes of meeting are automatically recorded and stored within ImageSite to document the conference, including discussions and decisions made.

Benefits

• Enables convenient measurement estimates in a variety of unit formats.

Post general news about each ImageSite project to keep everyone informed. Include web-site links to drive users to other web sites or internally stored company information.

Benefits

• Establishes ImageSite as your complete project collaboration space, where all authorized users know how to store important project information and where authorized users can find the project information that they need to most efficiently do their jobs.

• Search Bills of Material (BOMs) generated by 3rd party PLM or ERP systems and automatically generate print sets for electronic or printed paper distribution.
• Fully automate Bills of Material print production so that stacks of engineering prints are automatically printed each night.
• Semi-automated BOM searches allow users to search from predefined BOM lists and generate immediate print results or electronic distribution sets.

Benefits

• Highly efficient automated print and electronic distribution process. Integrates easily with existing infrastructure.

Use ImageSite bulk uploading to automatically import and index hundreds or thousands of documents directly into their correct ImageSite locations.

Benefits

• Starting a new ImageSite system is easy with features to import large numbers of electronic documents directly into ImageSite and correctly assign each document's attribute (Index) information.

Generate search URLs (Uniform Resource Locator--commonly called a Web Address) on the fly, to link your existing systems (such as ERP, PLM, and GIS) directly into ImageSite. This allows you to find one or many documents in an existing system, and directly view, markup, print, or perform other tasks with these documents in ImageSite.

Benefits

• This simple, yet powerful integration method is easy to implement and enables highly efficient connectivity between your existing systems and your important corporate information stored and managed in ImageSite.

ImageSite never corrupts or turns your corporate content into proprietary data formats. ImageSite stores electronic files of all types in their original formats on standard computer file servers. ImageSite stores attributes about these files and links to the files in its relational database (SQL Server, Oracle, and so on).

Benefits

• Your important corporate information is never held hostage by a proprietary technology that could prevent you from full access to migrate or integrate it as you need.
• Direct access to the ImageSite relational database is always available through standard SQL techniques, should you need to extract data or develop customized methods of data integration with other systems.

ImageSite offers a number of convenient export capabilities to extract these files in their original formats along with their attribute information (index data). The files can be individually downloaded with attributes in XML format, or large quantities of files can be exported through a CSV download that describes the location of each file and its attributes.

Benefits

• ImageSite makes it easy to extract data for use in other systems or for long term archival on optical or tape media.

ImageSite's data acquisition system automates document upload to easily populate the repository from other applications and input devices such as scanners.

Multiple acquisition queues can be set up to automatically acquire (import) documents from a variety of sources in a completely unattended mode. As new records are created in other systems, those systems can be programmed to deposit linked copies of the records into your master ImageSite content repository.

An acquisition queue can be as simple as a file server disk directory in which a user or an application may deposit files/documents for automatic upload to ImageSite.

Benefits

• ImageSite makes it easy to import large quantities of data (electronic files or scanned documents).
• This is another easy way to integrate data (documents) from your existing systems (ERP, PLM, GIS, ...) directly into ImageSite.

ImageSite offers a number of out-of-the-box integration methods and an Application Programming Interface (API) document which describes these methods.

ImageSite includes an application programming interface to enable software integration links to be developed between ImageSite and existing information systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems, Product Data Management (PDM) Systems, Geographic Information (GIS) Systems, or Project Management Systems.

Benefits

• ImageSite offers a number of convenient integration methods that you can use to directly integrate important corporate information systems with ImageSite.

ImageSite's UI Profiles allow the project administrator to configure simple user interfaces, with only the appropriate product features enabled, and assign them to specific users or groups of users.

Benefits

• Allows ImageSite's user interface to be uniquely configured for various users or groups, out of the box, with no programming required.
• Enables a focused user interface to be dynamically streamed to users, providing them with only the features that they need to do their jobs.
• Allows ImageSite to be used across the enterprise, with targeted user interfaces configured for various departments or user groups based on their need for specific product features.
• Makes ImageSite extremely easy to use, for both ordinary end users, and for administrators.
• Avoids complex and expensive customization that may be required with competitive products.

ImageSite's configurable Search UI allows for frequently searched information to be listed first and the results of searches to be displayed based on configured display priorities and sort order.

Benefits

• Ease of use, with an automatic login feature for end users based on the recognition of their network login/password information.
• Saves significant administrative time and effort by avoiding the need to manually create and manage ImageSite logins and passwords.
• Ensures that users who have been de-authorized from their company network environment can no longer access critical corporate information that could be stored in the ImageSite system.

ImageSite can be configured to automatically launch documents (by extension type) directly into their registered applications upon selection of the document. This enables direct launching of files into Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat, or any other applications when attempting to view, download, or checkout any document.

Benefits

• Ease of use.

ImageSite's OutBasket acts like a "shopping cart" in commercial websites and enables convenient assembly of documents into temporary (or permanent) sets for convenient future access, electronic distribution, or compound set printing.

Benefits

• Saves significant time and effort when reusing important documents.
• Enables powerful electronic distrubtion methods.

Use ImageSite's email feature to send hot links to document sets. On clicking a link, users are prompted to log into ImageSite and are then driven directly to the linked set. Use ImageSite's event subsystem to track access to your distributed sets.

Benefits

• Convenient electronic distribution methods.
• Lightweight emails with links, not attachments
• Documents are always secure.

Use ImageSite's PDF generation feature to convert a mixed compound set to a single multi-page PDF file for further distribution.

Benefits

• Enables convenient file viewing and distribution of mixed file types using PDF instead.
• Convention viewing and electronic distrucution.

Enables direct printing of documents, for scanned files and picture images from the ImageSite server, to virtually any printing device on your world-wide network.

Benefits

• Authorized users can directly print documents within the building or around the world without the need to download files locally.

ImageSite supports dynamic reference file support thru our AutoCAD, MicroStation and SolidWorks Connectors, including automatic reference file detection, upload, and storage with dynamic reference file links.

Benefits

• Makes ImageSite the perfect application for engineering design activities where multiple users are actively checking out, modifying, and checking in CAD files with complex reference file relationships.

Title Block integration automatically updates ImageSite's web-based search attributes with values directly entered in AutoCAD Block/Tags and Fields.

Benefits

• Automatic indexing of search criteria based on values within yur AutoCAD files.

Benefits

• Finds files easily without the need for pre-defined index data.
• Automatically indexes AutoCAD files and finds files based on their contents.

ImageSite uses an Adobe standard called Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) display for color vector CAD files within the web browser for very high quality and high performance viewing.

Benefits

• Provides high quality, high performance CAD displays within the web browser without the need for additional 3rd party viewers.

The ImageSite CAD display enables selective layer and reference file display control for AutoCAD and MicroStation files with no additional 3rd party viewing software required.

Benefits

• Enables the kind of CAD viewing and markup features that CAD users have come to expect.

ImageSite's OutBasket acts like a "shopping cart" in commercial websites and enables convenient, direct submission of drawings for batch printing with just a few mouse clicks. Many competitive document management systems don't offer batch plotting features. These systems force users to download large CAD files individually and print/plot them one at a time, wasting valuable employee resources.

Benefits

• Saves significant time and effort when printing individual files. Saves even more time and effort when plotting large sets of files.

ImageSite's Server-side plot processing drives high volume, high quality prints and plots directly from the document repository.

Benefits

• Offloads print/plot processing from individual user computers to high performance network printing devices.
• Eliminates network traffic from large file downloads from the server to individual users by allowing direct plotting from the ImageSite server to any network addressable printing device.

Enables direct plotting of documents, including CAD files from the ImageSite server, to virtually any wide format (or small format) printing device on your world-wide network (including wide format devices from Xerox, KIP, OCE, HP, and others).

Benefits

• Authorized users can plot to devices within the building or around the world.
• Ensures printing to a wide range of small format and wide format printing devices, preventing corporate records from being held hostage to any one vendor system

Users can only print to devices that they are authorized to use, whether those devices are down the hall or around the world.

Benefits

• Ensures that expensive printing/plotting devices are only available to authorized users.

ImageSite's server-side batch printing features are highly configurable like all of ImageSite.

Benefits

• Printing can be configured to include extensive options, such as paper size, scale, device selection, folder options, banners, and watermarks.
• Printing can be simplified to a one button click, with all options defaulted and hidden to avoid confusion for occasional users.

Benefits

• Control the use of expensive corporate resources such as wide format plotting devices.
• Ensure accurate capture of internal resource expenses to bill customers or ensure proper project resource management, including charge backs.

ImageSite's conditional watermark engine enables automatic, dynamic generation of watermarks at print time based on system-defined settings including:

• Document Attribute values
• Digital Signature
• Document Check-out Status
• Document Versions

Benefits

• Provides important status information on every printed drawing as may be required for ISO 9000 compliance or other regulatory requirements.
• Ensures that important document status information is always printed on drawings without any required actions on the part of end users making the prints/plots.

ImageSite offers a Print Room Management module that enables print requests to be efficiently processed by attended print staff. While some end uses are authorized to print directly, others users should not be authorized for direct print/plot submission. These users can be configured to only submit print requests so that the documents to be printed are automatically submitted to a traditional print room for processing.

Benefits

• Ensures only authorized users have access to expensive printing and plotting devices.
• Simplifies printing experience and creates high efficiency for both end users and print room staff.