When creating the "Floor-Plan" of the different aspects when implementing IMS, you will need to consider a starting point and an end goal. If you desire to start with one department and then grow into multiple departments and/or locations, you must decide how things will look in the future and work your way backwards.

IMS-Enterprise allows for unlimited index fields and profiles. You may choose a profile to represent one type of file/document or one for each department. Some departments may choose to have multiple profiles for confidentiality reasons. Everyone in the company could have their own profile for managing their own unique information. Every organization is different; it is your personal preference as to how you design this database. Keep in mind that the more Profiles created, the more details to manage. You may also think of a Profile as its own isolated database, linked to the master IMS database.

Customizing Fields

You may have in mind what you would like your fields to be, but if you follow along you might find a need to change.

Locate all documents intended for scanning. It may help to make copies and circle all important content on the copy. Also list important information related to the document not necessarily present on the page. This important content may reside from another database, other documentation, or personal knowledge that would be nice to either search by or use for creating reports that could never have been achieved before.

Now make a list of all your potential search criteria (circled). Begin prioritizing least to greatest of importance. NOTE: IMS-PLUS is limited to only 6 fields and one of the six is a permanent DATE field (not customizable) you will need to select the top 5 or 6 of your most important fields. Field names (search criteria) can be changed at a later time, although all images scanned previously to the change can not reflect the new field content without going into each document and indexing manually.

NOTE: If any field you chose is "fixed information" that is found on every single document of its type, you may think of creating a bar code to minimize your data entry time and potential clerical error. If interested in implementing a bar code on your documents, or if they already exist and you would like IMS to automate the index field, see further documentation on Bar Codes within this document.