How is FlexDocs different from the well-known Search Engines on the Internet, such as Google, Altavista, and Yahoo?

There are lots of differences, but two stand out:

1. In FlexDocs, the Search Indexes only contain the specific sites, servers, directories, documents, and web pages that are of interest to your audience.  FlexDocs provides a much more targeted Full Text Search, as opposed to the public search sites that index the entire World Wide Web.

2. FlexDocs also includes a database-driven solution for cataloging and searching for image formats, which may be photos, scanned images, or graphics.  Use a Learning Management System. This Attribute Search, along with the Full text Search above, lets you handle documents, web pages, images, and files in just about any format.

 

How do files and documents get into our FlexDocs libraries?

Remote content is targeted by the indexing system which builds the FlexDocs indexes, according to your needs and specifications.  Local content, on your server, is either indexed in the same manner or added to the Image database according to its attributes.  Attributes for documents/images in the Image database may include things like Title, Subject, Date, Keywords, etc.

If we index web content that lives on a remote server, do we have to copy the web pages onto our FlexDocs library server?

No.  The web pages and other full-text files can stay right where they are.  FlexDocs will maintain pointers to the actual resources wherever they live, and will keep the necessary index for the resource internally.

 

How often does the content in the FlexDocs libraries get updated?

That is up to you.  If the sites and resources that you wish to index and search are updated frequently, then you need to update your FlexDocs indexes frequently as well.  The Image database libraries will likely be updated constantly, as you identify more and more hard-copy document and photo resources you want to keep in the library.

 

How many documents, web pages, photographs, images, and so forth can the FlexDocs libraries hold?

The capacities of the Full Text Search index and the Image database are virtually unlimited.  The only restraint is the amount of disk space you have to hold the images.  The Full Text Index will hold an enormous number of resources.  The only constraint there is the time it takes FlexDocs to go out and index all the resources, and how often you need to re-index.

 

I would like the user interface to my Intranet-based FlexDocs information libraries to have the look and feel of our company’s internal systems and screens.  How can we do this?

FlexDocs comes with some standard images, banners and graphics.  To replace them, all you need to do is copy your own graphics over the standard files, and start using the system.  No programming is required.  We can help develop and/or implement these changes for you.

What are the advantages of deploying FlexDocs internally, on our internal intranet?

If you will keep a high number of large image files in the FlexDocs Image database, it will be easier and faster to load them on your own network.  For the Full Text Libraries, there is little difference between deploying FlexDocs on your Intranet and having us host it.

If you have a strong Intranet infrastructure or a robust, high-speed Internet server, and have the in-house skills to administer a web-based application, the Intranet deployment option may be for you.

 

What do my users need to have on their local PC’s to access and use FlexDocs?

On the Full Text Search libraries, a plain web browser is all that’s needed.  For the Image database, actually retrieving and viewing an image or document requires a plug-in for the Browser that handles the standard TIFF image format.  Viewer plug-ins are downloadable through the FlexDocs user interface, and are easy to install.

If your FlexDocs installation includes the optional Quick View feature, which is based on the Browse™ tool from Invision Research, users can see the first page of the document or image immediately, without even transferring the file to their local system.  This can be a real timesaver in cases where you are sifting through lots of large mage files to find the one you want.