Thousands of Documents and Photos, and Nobody Can Find Anything

You need the files stored against the records they belong to, inside the system that runs the work. A photo is attached to its claim, a drawing to its job, a contract to its customer. Each file is described by a few fields, so it can be found by searching and not by remembering a folder name, and access is controlled by role. Shared drives fail because a folder can describe a file in only one way.

Signs this is your problem

• Staff spend real time every day looking for files.
• Photos from the field arrive by text message and email.
• The same document is requested from a customer twice because nobody can find the first.
• You are not sure everything you are required to keep has been kept.
• People outside the company need certain files, and sending them is a chore.
• A dispute was hard to settle because the photo or form could not be found.

Why shared drives and email stop working

• A file can live in only one folder. Is the inspection photo under the customer, the property, the date or the inspector? Everyone files it differently.
• File names carry all the information. “IMG_4032.jpg” tells nobody anything.
• Copies multiply. In email, on phones, on desktops, with nobody sure which is the latest.
• There is no link to the work. The file is in one place and the record it belongs to is in another system.
• Access is all or nothing. Whoever can open the folder can see, move or delete everything in it.

What it looks like done properly

• Files attached to records. Open the claim, job or property and everything about it is there.
• Described at upload. Type of document, date and who added it, filled in automatically wherever possible.
• Search. By customer, address, date, type or any field you track, and inside the text of documents where that is useful.
• Straight from the phone. Field staff take the photo in the application and it lands on the right record.
• Versions. The current drawing or contract is clearly marked, and earlier ones are kept.
• Permissions and a log. Who may see each kind of file, and who viewed or changed it.
• Retention. Files kept for as long as you are required to keep them, then flagged.

Buy a document system or build it in

If all you need is a better filing cabinet, a packaged document management product may be enough, and we will say so. The case for custom software is when documents and photos are part of a process: a claim that cannot close without its photos, a job that needs a signed form before invoicing, a property file that several outside parties must see parts of. Then the files belong inside the application that runs that process.

How Keene Systems handles it

1. We look at what you store and what it belongs to. Claims, jobs, properties, customers.
2. We agree how files are described and who may see them. Kept as simple as the work allows.
3. We build storage, search and upload into the application. Including capture from phones.
4. We bring in the existing files. Matched to their records wherever the information exists to do it.

The next step is a short, no-pressure conversation. Book a call with Lance Keene or use the form on this page.