A question for the IT's

[jefferycarman]

I am looking for some software to do some data entry that allows for multiple search options for large amounts of data. I am not a software guy, so I need your answers.

The information is adoption information. busawife and I are doing some volunteer type work for a non profit adoption agency. They have 50 years worth of hard copy paperwork that needs entered in to a computer so it can be accessed and searched.

They need to be able to search by child's name, date of birth, date of adoption, parent's name and stuff like that. It needs to be able to be searched from both ends ie a child looking for a parent or a parent looking for a child.

So what am I looking for? Also, what programs work well for scanning and recognizing writing? I know they are out there, but I don't really know what I am looking for.

We are trying to help get this organization up to speed so they can help get the state program more on track.

Thanks!

 

[dadofthree]

 

[jefferycarman]

That's me too

 

[dadofthree]

There's a large number of techs here that will chime in. Admins for example. I was going to suggest Microsoft Excel until I got to the last statement. Good Luck my brother.

 

[zukracer]

There are a lot of programs out there that do OCR (optical character recognition) but they all generally have some strengths and weeknesses. If you have a lot of forms, I'd ping Mr Bogus, I'm sure he has some suggestions since he works in the medical field in IT. If you are going low tech, manual entry, you could build a basic application in MS Access but its pretty low tech and not hugely scalable. How many entries are you talkin about here? ???

 

[Mr Bogus]

well there is quite a bit of stuff around that will work..

Is this going to be a web based search?

the OCR (optical character recognition is easy) the key here is going to be how users access the data.. oh and an rough idea of how many people are accessing the data

 

[thrasherfox]

I would first recommend Microsoft access as Zuk stated.

for optical Character recog I would recommend one of the following:

Nuance - OmniPage

Readiris Pro 11 : Powerful OCR software for text recognition!


Both of these products have been around for a long time. While I do not do OCR much I have used both products and they are both pretty good.

Let me know if I can be of any more help

PM being sent

 

[Mr Bogus]

3 way echo here

Omni page :agree: I use a lot of OCR for converting records to EMR (HIPPA) compliant status..

the database is going to be another issue.. if this is going to be a web based search, MS access sux.. you are going to be a lot further ahead to build the database and fall back on Mysql and PHP.. Alternately (and more pricey) is sybase.. MS will work but is hugely a pain in the azz for large numbers of users and the fact that licensing can be an issue in some cases.. Server loads running MS Server can be really problematic where running Linux you end up with maybe half the overhead..(an issue for MSAccess again)

Data entry from OCR is going to be a bit iffy as each bit of data coming from the OCR will need physically verified by a set of human eyes if 100% accuracy is required.. (labor intensive and may even be worthwhile to just setup a form and manually enter all the data..) It may seem daunting to manually enter all the data but it goes pretty fast if you have good keyboard people..

 

[jefferycarman]

I will need to find out on the number of people accessing this for sure, but at this point I am under the impression that this would be a minimal access in a singular office. I am not afraid of the manual entry even if it takes me a while doing it solo. I am just a not so techy person

I will find out more of the specifics and see what the exact needs are. Thanks to all as I would never have guessed there was that much to look into.

 

[jefferycarman]

Okay, so here is the skinny.

Because of the information that is in there it is not going to be available to be searched via the internet. So I am looking at a single computer data program that has a lot of search options for the technologically challenged.

I was thinking data base like multi place search.

That should make it easier, but I would still love input. I am not familiar enough to know what would make it possible to do all the searches.

Thanks for all the info, especially the OCR. I think this is going to be used for a back up of the hard copies. There has to be a physical copy stored somewhere, and in the event of something bad happening I am pushing for scanned copies and OCR would make my life easier in searching.

to you smarties

 

[PandaNin]

If it's for single-office use only I'd go with MS Access.

You can create your form for entry and searching and the database will handle as many records as you'll be throwing at it.

I was thinking you wouldn't post this on the web considering the info being stored.

Make sure to backup the Access database nightly to a place not on the machine.

 

[Mr Bogus]

single machine, single user.. .MS access will work pretty well... with a little bit of training, you can make your own queries etc..

A fairly straight forward relational database should not be too tough to put together.. you just need to gather all the different data fields you are going to use so that they can be put into tables and then the relationships setup..

You can then enter the data either through a form in Access or do a spread sheet and link the tables up... either way is pretty simple to do

 

[jefferycarman]

The back up is something I was just discussing. I was thinking that I would go with an external drive as a back-up. Would this work? I am currently funding this and using Mac's But (pun intended) They are on PC's, so both platforms are available.

As far as doing the input and searches I have a very limited knowledge on this sort of thing. I will see what they have as far as software goes, then I will hit you up with the how to's and what not.

Once again, thanks for answering my simpleton question

 

[PandaNin]

Backup to an external drive works in a pinch but remember there is a MTBF (mean time before failure) on harddrives so eventually that external will give out. Back it up to HD nightly, then once a month, burn a copy on CD. At very most you're out a month of new data which I suspect is not alot.

Pick up the book Access for Dummies; it'll show you how to get started and keep it simple.

 

[jefferycarman]

Backup to an external drive works in a pinch but remember there is a MTBF (mean time before failure) on harddrives so eventually that external will give out. Back it up to HD nightly, then once a month, burn a copy on CD. At very most you're out a month of new data which I suspect is not alot.

Pick up the book Access for Dummies; it'll show you how to get started and keep it simple.

Awesome, thanks for that. I see a trip to the bookstore in my near future.

I was not aware of the externals "crap out" So I will do the CD back up. It's a good thing someone knows this stuff, I woulda screwed that one up.

 

[PandaNin]

All harddrives (internal and external) fail eventually. It's not IF, it's WHEN.

Backups are like Illinois voting. Do it early and often.

 

[thrasherfox]

My thoughts on backup would be two duplex the drives internaly.

2 drives, seperate controlers mirrored. This way you have a constant backup of the data without having to worry about nightly backups.

I would also engineer a weekly backup for redundancy AND off site storage.

I would then determine your data size for backups, you could probably get away with purchasing a dual layer DVD burner, this will store I believe about 8.5 GB of data.

If your data requirements exceed this, burning software such as Nero will allow you to backup to DVD and it will span disks.

I would do these backups once a week and keep them off site somewhere, a home, a safe deposit box etc. Off site storage is important and protects you from theft, fire damage etc.

Another thing to consider if you dont need specific data on the form and you just need to search parent to child and child to parent is scan all the hard copies into a PDF document and then create a database of parent and child which points to the PDf document in question.

PDf files are pretty small, should make it easy to search for the original digitized copies and if you need to print out copies it is easy to print the PDF file out for a good looking copy.


Hope this provides some additional possible solutions

 

[jefferycarman]

Thanks Thrasher.

I have to see exactly what the scope of this is before I can say the size. 50 years sounds like a lot to me. But I don't know what that will translate into as far as data size. Once I know that I will have to cross the bridge I guess.

I am going to check the legality of the off site storage. I am not sure what the rules are on that. It may have to be in another of their offices. I think they have at least two. If not I will do a storage somewhere I know for sure is safe.

This is a very fledgling program at the moment. I will have busawife give you the whole story on that. She is more articulate than I.

We did our official, sort of, meeting tonight as well. We will be taking this over and hopefully pushing it more into the lime light and getting these programs noticed. There is a ton of foster kids out there and we feel this is the best way for us to help at the moment. So it's a big thanks for all the help. It's for a great cause, and it keeps the wife from beating me to boot!

 

[Wag]

OCR will only work on the forms if they are typewritten. Also, you'll have to find a way to have the OCR dump the data to your database, then you'll have to review them all to make sure the OCR did it right.

It ain't perfect.

Access is fine if you keep it simple. The data from Access is easily ported to just about any other data filing system you could ask for.

If you find you're having to learn more than you really want to know, Filemaker might be a better choice. Again the data is easily ported over to other systems.

Excel is a bad choice for this kind of thing if you have more than 10,000 records. It just isn't a database program though oftentimes, people will try to make it into one! Better to use a database system and THEN, if you need Excel in order to do some analysis, you can port it over as needed.

Good luck. If you need any other help, chime in.

--Wag--

 

[Mr Bogus]

I often use exel just to port in data... is faster than access and I can usually get by on LESS user training on short projects.. it is easier for me to have them key in the data and I just link the tables.. is NOT for data storage by any stretch..