Government digitization projects are complex—by any standards. 

There are many challenges. However, a specialist digitization services provider with deep experience with digitally transforming government agencies can provide strategies and implement best practices to see a digitization project through successfully.

Government agencies that commit to adopting technology and following best practices are reaping their rewards. Digitization unlocks efficiency and promotes collaboration without geographical limits. It helps government bodies to enhance service delivery to citizens, build efficiency into their internal processes, and allocate resources more efficiently. 

In this article, we discuss how transitioning a government body to digital processes is a monumental task. We look at the challenges in converting paper to digital formats and indexing large backfiles of government records before importing them into a document management system. 

Read on to understand how RDS works with government bodies to transform back-office processes and implement tailored document management solutions to help them on their digital transformation journey. 

The importance of document indexing for government agencies 

Document indexing is the process of tagging a digital file with information—or metatags—to help make it searchable from a large repository of documents.

Indexing provides a logical structure for storing documents, categorizing them by identifiers such as author's name, date of creation, reference numbers, or keywords from the document's content.

Accurate indexing is crucial to guarantee that a file can be retrieved when required. Missing metatags or incorrect metadata can render a document unsearchable. It's like misplacing a paper document among thousands of cabinets.

Imagine a government office that stores and processes citizen records. When a citizen walks in to ask for a copy of a particular document, departmental staff must be able to retrieve the specific document from the DMS or document management system. Without accurate indexing, finding the document from within a massive database may prove to be time-consuming and cumbersome—if not near-impossible. Indexing allows staff members to use the document management system's search functionality to find and retrieve the relevant document in seconds.

But indexing government records is not the easiest of tasks!

Government agencies face specific challenges around document indexing. Their ability to overcome these challenges defines their ability to create an organized, searchable, and easily retrievable system of government records. 

Let's look at the three main hurdles government bodies face in document indexing.

The first challenge: Rule-based backfile indexing

Most government offices have paper documents dating back several decades or even centuries. With such a large volume of legacy records to convert, a government digitization project is bound to be challenging. 

Often, the biggest challenge is making sure the backfiles are indexed correctly and consistently before importing them into the government agency's DMS.

When processing documents with sensitive and crucial information, even a minor indexing error can lead to significant consequences, such as delayed decision-making or even potential legal issues.

Rule-based indexing is a technique that ensures consistency during indexing. It involves creating a set of rules that can be applied across the entire collection of documents so that the indexing team delivers consistent indexing for the entire collection of documents.

Government offices handle documents of various types and in different formats. How do you create rules that can be consistently applied across diverse documents?

• Take the help of the entire team to create indexing rules that reflect your government department's specific needs and the unique characteristics of the documents you typically handle.

• Test the rules on a sample of documents before applying them to the entire backfile. If you encounter any errors, missing tags, or incorrect categorization, go back and refine the rules further.

• Remember that no set of rules will work 100% every time. There will be exceptions—which must be handled separately.

• It is a good practice to revisit the indexing rules every once in a while, incorporating different rules for new types of content and varying usage patterns over time.

PRO TIP: Leveraging Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) tools for automated indexing improves efficiency and consistency and reduces manual effort as well as the risk of human error. 

At RDS, we use and recommend OpenText Intelligent Capture to ingest vast amounts of digital documents, automatically identify key information for extraction, and route them to the right party using intelligent process automation and machine learning.

Indexing rules guide the digitization efforts and ensure accurate, high-quality backfiles are ready for import into the document management system. An accurately indexed backfile is essential for the DMS to effectively categorize, search, and retrieve documents.

The second challenge: Formatting index data for software compatibility

Government agencies use a wide range of software solutions to manage digitized files. Each software program has its own formatting requirements in the context of accepting backfile imports. 

If the formatting of index data is not compatible with the software being used, it runs the risk of being virtually unreadable by the DMS—like a vast library of valuable books but no catalog to locate a book by its category or author. It means the agency is stuck with inaccessible documents and wasted efforts and resources in the indexing project.

Believe it or not, there are instances of government agencies having imported backfiles into their DMS with incorrectly formatted index files. The result: There is valuable information in your document management system, but it is virtually unusable as employees cannot find and retrieve the exact documents they need due to bad indexing data. After all, the search functionality of a DMS is only effective if index data is applied correctly. Not being able to find a document when you need it is a very frustrating experience for users.

Partnering with a digitization services company with a deep knowledge of the various systems used for government document management is critical. 

You need an indexing team with deep knowledge of a wide variety of document management systems and other relevant software so that the index data is formatted optimally for the specific DMS being used. This helps them anticipate formatting challenges and develop solutions that ensure seamless data import in order to significantly improve document access and retrieval and unlock the full potential of their document digitization initiative.

RDS has worked with several government agencies across the US, so our teams are well-versed in the types of software used in government offices. 

Handling exceptions: Strategies for error-free document import

Exceptions are like a twist in the tale. You have set up clearly defined rules for your indexing team. And then there is a scenario that needs different treatment. That's an exception—and the way to handle it is—well, there is no rule for exceptions!

It takes an experienced indexing team to identify and correct errors before digitizing paper documents and importing them into a DMS.

Let's look at some common exceptions to identify before digitizing documents.

1. Misfiled documents: Sometimes, documents are misplaced or filed into the wrong cabinet or drawer. Conduct an audit to ensure documents are placed in the correct folders or stacks to avoid any miscategorization before importing them into the DMS.

2. Missing documents: During a pre-import audit, it is also essential to check if all documents have been submitted for digitization. There is a possibility that a staff member has removed or checked out a document from a cabinet or the archives and has not returned it. This document runs the risk of being left out of the digitization stack and will be missing from the DMS!

3. Illegible information: At times, our team encounters documents where the identifying information to be used for indexing is smudged or illegible. We flag these documents and report them to the stakeholders to see if they can add the missing information. For documents where the information is not completely illegible but is slightly unclear, we rely on advanced image enhancement technology to gain extra clarity in the digital file.
   

It is important to fix as many of these errors as possible before importing the digitized files to ensure you go live with a pristine set of documents in your DMS. A detailed report compiles all the errors identified or encountered during the audit as well as during the digitization process.

Best practices for successful government digitization

Government digitization is indispensable for modern-day administrative bodies. It brings significant increases in efficiency, transparency, and citizen engagement. Implementing digitization best practices will help you overcome the unique challenges of government digitization and pave the way for successful transformation.

Let's look at the top 10 best practices for digitization from our document management experts:

1. Define the objectives of the digitization project at the start. Usually, government agencies want to ensure that digitization delivers a positive impact on factors such as speed of service delivery, cost reduction, and enhanced accessibility to information.

2. Based on the objectives, create a project plan with measurable milestones in clearly defined phases.

3. Obtain a buy-in from department-wide for the project plan so that there is no issue in resource allocation once you start execution.

4. Select a digitization services company that can tailor the project to suit your institution's needs and requirements.

5. Leverage advanced technology, which is flexible and scalable, to set up a system.

6. Pick technology solutions that are easy to adopt, with intuitive user interfaces and with minimal training requirements.

7. Optimize processes to suit new digital workflows and set down standardized rules and guidelines for document prep, indexing and metadata creation.

8. Plan for quality checks at various stages of the digitization project to identify potential errors and take timely corrective action.

9. Provide adequate training for all staff members to ensure they are comfortable with operating the DMS. Also, address any signs of resistance to change to improve user adoption.

10. Develop long-term digital archival plans as well as a business continuity and disaster management plan to ensure sustained accessibility to valuable information.

RDS: Experts in government digitization technology and services

Government digitization requires a strategic and holistic approach. There are many challenges, but an experienced service provider can drive a successful digitization initiative by combining rule-based indexing, due diligence toward software compatibility, and finely tuned error-handling strategies.

RDS offers digitization solutions to transform government institutions into resource-efficient paperless offices.

Rely on RDS to provide tailored solutions to scan, store, and manage documents digitally. We use advanced automatic data capture software for indexing documents. But we also have hands-on indexing teams to manually process exceptions and handle fragile documents with expert care and attention. 

Connect with an RDS document indexing expert today for a no-obligation consultation on planning government digitization.