If you are thinking of using INVU or are currently an INVU user this section may be useful.
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Due to the increasing numbers of INVU data imports we are carrying out from their product, we have asked a couple of the businesses involved to explain their rationale.
Alex Docherty DipPFS AIFP CeMap
Internet IFA Ltd
23 Westminster Terrace
Glasgow G3 7RU
Comparison between Volume and INVU
Background
A D Associates is a small Independent Financial Adviser company running Windows Server 2003 and XP workstations. We decided to add an additional server running Windows Server 2003 64-bit software upgrade and to upgrade our back office system to Adviser Office by 1st Software. On the recommendation of 1st Software, our main back office systems provider, we decided to use INVU as a document management system. Principally this was on the basis of the “fully integrated” document management system and client database. Both companies offered a full installation service and 1 day training in the case of 1st, 1/2 day in the case of INVU.
Installation
1st Software installed their system approximately 2 weeks before INVU and we therefore had an opportunity to iron out any issues regarding compatibility/reliability. Other than upgrading all the server memory to 4Gb and 6GB in the case of the new server, and upgrading the workstations to a minimum of 2Gb no other work was required.
The installation for INVU was not straight forward. Despite having had confirmation it would install on Windows 2003, in reality, it would not install on the 64-bit machine. The suggested solution was to downgrade the new server or to install on the existing 32-bit server. Neither of these solutions was particularly acceptable, however, having already paid the non-refundable fee of £3500 we were left with no option but to install on the slower machine given the time constraints. I would comment that the aborted 64-bit installation process left many INVU “loose ends” which resulted in the server having to be re-installed.
The software was installed, eventually successfully, on the 32-bit server having moved the 1st Software across to ease the install process. Training was consequently slightly time constrained as a result but as it was a few days before the Xmas holidays we figured that we could “play” with the setup during a quiet spell.
INVU Implementation and Use
Having setup the INVU system as per our training and having reviewed the manuals, our initial impression was of how un-integrated the integration between 1st and INVU actually was. The simplest of tasks, such as filing a scan to a client file seemed to take an inordinate amount of time. We put this down, initially, to our having to learn two new systems at the same time. We were also aware that there were occasional glitches with INVU requiring server and workstation restarts
After our second month we reviewed the progress of the system in relation to our expectations’ and any time spend resolving bugs. It came as some surprise that INVU, and only INVU, was requiring remote maintenance on the server and workstations as often as 3 or 4 times a week. One could barely accept this if it resulted in a system being off-line for 15 minutes at a time but both I, and my staff, experienced whole mornings without any system access whatsoever – totally unacceptable. Comments from users also indicated that the system was clunky, slow and difficult, almost counter-intuitive to use, particularly setting up the various folders. This observation was made by people used to using Document Scanning Systems since the mid-90’s
We raised our concerns with Lindenhouse, who, to be fair, tried to resolve the technical issues to the best of their abilities. Unfortunately this did not in, all instances; result in a resolution of the problems.
Alternative Solutions
Given the time spent trying to resolve INVU/Lindenhouse issues we felt we had no alternative but to consider an alternative solution. We looked at a number of providers, and on the recommendation of a former colleague, Alan Moran, looked at Volume on a 30 day free trial.
We setup a comparison system on an identical but “INVU Free” machine to allow a direct comparison between the two programs in terms of speed, reliability and ease of use. We installed the server portion on the 32 bit Windows 2003 Server to negate any advantage a 64-bit server would give. Volume will, as we now know, install on 64-bit Windows 2003 servers should it be required. What was particularly impressive was the ease with which the systems were set up remotely. A no-fuss clean installation with no manual intervention to get it to work. I would comment that this was in sharp contrast to the INVU install.
A further hour of free training was given during which it looked much easier to use than the INVU alternative. What followed was a rigorous comparison of each program from simple filing of letters and scans, document display times, searches, 1st integration and most importantly ease of use.
Comparison
Having spent £3500 with INVU I really didn’t want Volume to be better. Frankly we tried to break it. Large reports, massive spreadsheets, pictures, scans, PDF files - you name it we threw it all at Volume. At no time did Volume have a problem in accepting a file into the system.
What impressed most, however, was the ease of setting up a new client file and the ability to display documents. Basically we didn’t have to think “How do we do …..” it was obvious right from the start. All this, however, was entirely subjective and while useful not really a proper comparison.
Our objective tests were carried out for the main tasks of :-
scanning and filing,
filing word documents and other Microsoft Office documents,
searching filed documents,
document display both on network and by remote VPN link to an external location.
The tests were carried our using varying sizes of documents and included image intensive files. The results were as follows:-
Volume was consistently faster in scanning by a factor of between 3 and 4 depending on the document type.
Volume was more than three times as fast as INVU with the only process bottleneck being the 1st software integration, albeit this would be consistent for both Volume and INVU.
Volume’s OCR seems to have a better ability to recognise poorer quality document scans resulting in blanket searches being more successful. Again it was noted that display times were consistently faster.
Document display was considerably faster than INVU almost to the extent of being un measurable. Conservatively we would estimate in excess of six times faster (we actually had to buy a stopwatch to allow us to measure as Volume was so quick). Over a VPN remote link Volume would operate only marginally slower than a local link. We could not measure the speed differential with INVU as INVU would not display.
Conclusion
We decided that there was no option but to remove INVU from our systems and replace it with Volume. We followed the INVU uninstall process, however, even this was fraught with difficulty with every machine requiring a manual removal of elements from the system registry after the “uninstall” process had completed. This was carried out by Lindenhouse remotely, however, even though we removed it almost a year ago we still get INVU elements popping up from time to time. I’m sure Microsoft would regard such instances as coming from a poorly written program.
Since we installed Volume across our whole system we have had no downtime whatsoever. No crashes, no missing documents and because it is so easy to use no reluctance to actually use the system at every opportunity. Recently we have been particularly impressed with even greater ease with which Microsoft Office documents are filed.
We would have no hesitation in recommending Volume for whatever profession or business you may be in.
Yours sincerely
Alex Docherty DipPFS AIFP CeMap
Peter Klein Director AJ Buckley Financial Management Limited Independent Financial Advisers
When our company investigated a document management system we came across INVU - as a very highly regarded and competitively priced document management system with a large user base. It seemed exactly the sort of thing our company needed to ensure that we moved into the electronic age of document management. After the initial excitement of installing INVU, the reality of indexing each document started dawning on our staff as they realised it was far more time consuming and cumbersome than it initially seemed. Enthusiasm lessened considerably and they ended up avoiding putting documents into the system altogether. All attempts to encourage our staff to continue scanning in documents and saving electronic information into INVU did not produce much fruit and we ended up hardly using it at all.
Our staff all believed that electronic document management was certainly the way forward, but we did not feel that INVU was best suited to our needs. While trawling through the 1st Software’s Intranet site we came across a number of very positive comments from users of Watermark’s volume product. After the negative experience of a document management product we were initially very skeptical about any other product, and initially viewed volume with great caution. We arranged for a demonstration of the product ,and what struck us all about volume was its ease of use and more importantly that we did not need to go through the arduous process of indexing each document. The system could also be setup in a very flexible way, and client’s records could be setup in similar ways to paper files. After talking to a number of existing users of volume we decided to take the plunge, scrap INVU and implement volume.
Many months later our staff are far more at ease using a document management system which has become part of our daily routine. We have a huge number of files stored in volume – and the data grows daily.
Peter Klein Director AJ Buckley