Support Article: Document Imaging with WinAA

    In order to start using the document imaging portion of the WinAA software there are a few items that you will need to check. First after making sure that the scanner is Twain compatible, you will need to install your scanner. You may need to follow the instructions provided with the scanner for this step. One word of advice that we have for installing the scanning software, do not load any third party software that might come with the scanner. Imaging for Windows will also need to be installed on the scanning workstation and any workstations that you plan on viewing the scanned documents. Imaging for Windows is a component that comes with Windows 95/98/NT so in order to install this software you will need your operating system CD. Insert the CD and go to Add/Remove Programs under the Control Panel. Click on the Windows Setup Tab and select Accessories and click Details. Here you should see where to select Imaging if it is not already installed.

The next thing that you will need to do is configure a folder in which to store your images. In order to do this you will want to create a folder on your server that is accessible to all of the workstations. After you have created this folder you have to link it as the image storage path for WinAA. There are three methods that you can choose to do this. The first one will only work if you are using the same network drive letter on all of the workstations. This method is to use the direct path. An example of this would be F:\IMAGES\. One method that you can use if you are not using the same network drive letter on all of your workstations and if you have a dedicated server is to share your imaging folder with read/write permissions and then map each workstation to this folder with the same unused drive letter. This example would be I:\ if you chose to use the letter I. The third method that you can use also involves using a path. Instead of the old MSDOS type path you can use a windows UNC path. This is probably the best choice since it is more uniform. To use this method, simply include the shared server, drive and folder names. If your shared server has the name Server and you wanted to use the folder Images on the drive DrvC, the path would show as \\Server\DrvC\Images\.

Once you have determined which method you would like to use, enter the path into the WinAA Agency Information screen. Once you are finished with the configuration you are ready to begin scanning your first image. You may want to test your scanner to make sure that it is working correctly with its Twain drivers before attempting to scan in WinAA. The easiest way to do this is to scan a document from Imaging for Windows. This software strictly uses the Twain drivers. Once you have determined that it is working from this software you will want to go into WinAA to perform your first scan.

Once you have WinAA opened, go to Customer Folders from the main menu. Here you will select the customer that you will scan the image for. Open the customer folder and click on the images tab.

Next you will want to click on the Add button. You will see a pop-up window similar to the one pictured below.

On this screen you will see the image storage path, reference number and today's date. The number of pages to be scanned, policy number and description will need to be entered. If your scanner has an automatic document feeder you will need to place a check beside ADF. Once this information has been filled out, click the scanner button and the scanners TWAIN software should appear. From here you will need to follow the instructions that came with your scanning software. Once the documents are scanned the scanner software should close and you will see and entry under images for that document. If you click on view you will see what was just scanned.

Additional Tips: Make sure that smallest file size is selected under Imaging for Windows. This is found under Tools in Scan Options. When scanning regular text-only documents make sure that the scanner is set to black and white instead of color. This will help decrease the file size and also allow for faster scanning speeds.   

Written by: Cale Parrish

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