MetaCommunications has announced the Workgroups 2010 Package 162.3 upgrade, bringing third party document scanning and OCR solutions to the collaborative workflow and project management suite.

This latest release includes a new technology for categorising and organising documents electronically and allowing users to simply convert traditional paper-based workflows into electronic ones. Workgroups 2010 now includes support for most scanning and OCR solutions, including Nuance Paperport & OmniPage, SimpleSoftware's Simple OCR, Epson Scan, eCopy PaperWorks, and Microsoft Office Document Imaging.

Once a document has been scanned, it can be picked up by Workgroups 2010, automatically indexed, and moved to the correct location on the file server. This makes all scanned documents immediately available to all Workgroups 2010 users. If scanned documents include OCR information, the text is indexed and can be used to perform ad hoc searches.

"The new document scanning and OCR integration provide a simple way to electronically attach paper documents like purchase orders, invoices, change orders, and customer correspondence to project, jobs, customers, and vendors" said Robert T. Long, Executive Vice President of MetaCommunications.

"With the new capabilities, staff no longer have to think about where they should store their scanned documents. The new technology makes the whole workflow automatic once the scan is done."

The new document scanning and OCR workflow support complements Workgroups 2010's existing project management, project workflow automation, document review and approval, document storage management, and financial productivity management capabilities.