Download a step by step Power Point to describe how to
synch with MS Oulook.
CardScan as a product has
been around now for the better part of 10 years and in a
"nutshell" this is probably the single most compelling
reason why they are one of the clear leaders in the
market place today. "Experience"
The
physical "Business card scanner" is just that "a
scanner" and these days a scanner is a scanner is a
scanner. No more no less. The critical intelligence is
all in the software and how good the software is.
CardScan is a great solution for two key
reasons. 1. The technology that is employed to read,
recognise and categorise the information and 2. The
richness of the software to achieve many of the user
requirements.
Below
is a more in depth explanation of the above two points.
TECHNOLOGY
CardScan employ two quite
impressive and intimately linked pieces of technology.
1. A super fast and quite
accurate "Optical Character Recognition" OCR Engine.
Optical Character
Recognition is the technology that allows computer
software to recognise and distinguish between the
various letters of a standard alphabet even though those
letters may appear in one of hundreds of different fonts
that are popular. On its own an OCR Engine is of little
value because recognising letters is only half the
puzzle. The secret is understanding what the meaning
behind the letters and knowing what to do with them.
2. A software tool that
performs comprehensive "Computational Linguistics".
Computational Linguistics is
a fancy phrase for the ability to build and match
combinations of letters from the alphabet with
comprehensive "look-up tables of words". These "Look-Up
Tables" in the case of CardScan have been built up over
several years based on a "heuristic(1)" approach of
analysing thousands if not millions of business cards
and learning how people and businesses identify various
elements or pieces of information contained on their
business cards. An example is the presence of the "@"
symbol in an email address.
Example of what CardScan
Software does: In order to identify an email address and
put it in the right location in the CardScan database
file (.cdb file ). Firstly the OCR Engine identifies the
@ symbol out of a multitude of different font types that
exist. Once the @ symbol is recognised, the
computational linguistics part of the CardScan engine
says "For all "Text Strings" identified with an @ symbol
and either a ".com" or ".net" or ".com.au" or etc etc
put the text string without leading or preceding
"spaces" into a field in the database titled "Email
Address". This sounds simple to do however it is only
when you have tested and enriched your software to
handle the hundreds if not thousands of possible
combinations of fonts and email address endings that you
can start to reliably and accurately place the correct
email address in the correct location in the database.
Then you have to remember that the email address is just
one "element" of 10 or more elements that need to be
identified.
(1) Definition for "heuristic" from
www.wikipedia.org
A
heuristic is a method to help
to solve a problem, commonly informal.
It is particularly used for a method
that often rapidly leads to a solution
that is usually reasonably close to the
best possible answer. Heuristics are "
rules
of thumb", educated guesses,
intuitive judgments or simply
common
sense.
In more precise terms,
heuristics stand for strategies using
readily accessible, though loosely
applicable, information to control
problem-solving in human beings and
machines.[1].
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic
Richness of Software
CardScan, possibly by virtue
of being around so long and being tested by so many
users has evolved to the current release of Version 8.
By evolved I mean literally changing and adapting over
time to make the user experience more pleasant by making sure
the software application is above all, "Simple" and
"User friendly". It is not enough for a business card
reader to be able to "read, recognise and categorise the
information" as explained earlier in the "Technology"
section. Software for the purpose of scanning business
cards needs to able to perform a multitude of different
tasks. The following of which is just a sample of the
tasks that are performed well by CardScan.
1. Presenting business card information in a way that
allows sorting and filtering of card records based on
any one of the fields that make up the list of records.
2. Displaying card images in a range of easy to view
methods.
3. A "Quick Search" utility that searches all Cardscan
files and all Cardscan database fields within the user
interface.
4. The ability to not only export and import card
records from other sources and software applications but
the ability to comprehensively and sensibly synchronise
business card records with other popular software
applications such as
MS Outlook or popular CRM products like
ACT!,
Saleslogix,
Salesforce.com or even
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
5. The ability to comprehensively remove duplicates from
a database or update near duplicate business cards by
merging correct information with outdated information
like updating a persons role or business title/position.
6. Backup business card records locally or on a secure
internet site such as
https://www.cardscan.net
7. Send emails, even grouped emails
8. Print labels
9. Print Information in a number of useful formats.
10 Customise fields and create your own specific set of
categories.
Article
written by Riccardo Tenaglia
Other Articles to download.
CardScan Executive vs Team Solution - Pros and Cons of
each solution.
CardScan Executive Solution with Outlook using diagrams
to explain.
CardScan Executive with Outlook public folders
Powerpoint.
So if you would like more
information or you would like to take CardScan up on
their 30 Day Money-Back Guarantee "No questions asked"
if you are not satisfied offer. Either call us in
Australia on 1300 558 859 or Internationally +61 1300
558 859 or follow the
"Where to Buy" links to our secure Merchant Facility
with
St George Bank, "One of Australia' Leading
Commercial Banks" to buy your product online with any of
the popular credit cards.
