Background

Often times, users of a document management system find that they would like to access or work with their documents while they are on the road.  Worldox provides several methods for working remotely:

• Worldox GX4 Enterprise: The full Worldox experience, adapted for multi-office and/or remote-access environments

• Worldox GX4 Cloud: The full Worldox experience, on the cloud

• Worldox\Web Mobile: Ideal for road warriors who want to have access to their documents on their iPads and smart phones while traveling
  

• Remote Desktop / Terminal Services: For remote users who have high speed Internet access, and don't need to scan many documents while remote

• Remote scanning using Symphony Profiler Reservation system in conjunction with Terminal Services and/or WAN

• Direct launch via Wide Area Network over Virtual Private Network (WAN over VPN): For remote users who need to be able to check out a number of documents, work on them, then check them back in.  This approach is not generally recommended.

• Offline mode: Ideal for road warriors who want to have access to their documents on their laptops while traveling

This page outlines each of these methods, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each:

Worldox GX4 Enterprise

This is Worldox adapted for multi-office, remote-access environments.  Worldox Enterprise features an add-on server component that allows fast connectivity from on-site desktops, remote offices and out-of-office machines (e.g., your home PC or laptop).  It centralizes document storage and indexing in your data center, behind your firewall. This solution is NOT browser-based. End users receive the full Worldox application delivered to their desktops via Microsoft published application technology. Worldox interacts seamlessly with locally installed applications.  It looks and feels exactly the same as the Professional version.

This solution is ideal for you if you have a centralized document set accessed by remote offices and remote users, and are NOT using a terminal server or Citrix remote deployment model. The Enterprise and Professional model can be combined as a mixed environment to fit your desired approach to accessibility.

For more information on Worldox Enterprise, visit:

• https://www.worldox.com/worldox/worldox-enterprise/
• Minimum system requirements - Worldox Enterprise
  
  
  

Worldox GX4 Cloud

This is a cloud-based version of the Worldox document management system.  Like GX4 Enterprise, this version is adapted for a multi-office, remote access environment, featuring that add-on server component mentioned above.  However, with the Cloud version, all of your firm's documents, and the Worldox software, are hosted off-site at one of World Software Corporation's secure/redundant data centers.  This solution is NOT browser-based. End users receive the full Worldox application delivered to their desktops via Microsoft published application technology, with the Worldox WDSAAS architecture. Worldox interacts seamlessly with locally installed applications.  It looks and feels exactly the same as the Professional desktop version.

Another key difference from other cloud-based document management systems is that only Worldox and Worldox managed files are hosted off-site. You provide the other applications locally.

This "Software as a Service" solution is ideal for you if you want your document management system and documents stored and backed up in top-tier data centers without the cost or effort of managing your own hardware.

For more information on Worldox Cloud, visit:

• https://www.worldox.com/worldox/worldox-cloud/
• Minimum system requirements - Worldox Cloud
  

Worldox WebMobile

Worldox/Web Mobile is an enhancement to Worldox that allows users to access and send files from mobile devices such as the iPad and most smart phones.  When users connect from their mobile device, Worldox/Web Mobile presents a simple, scaled-down interface that can:

• Access, review, and forward e-mail or e-mail attachments

• Search for and review files in Worldox

• Review the profile information of a file

Remote Desktop / Terminal Services

This option encompasses both Microsoft's remote desktop technology and other remote control solutions such as Gotomypc, Laplink, PC Anywhere, etc.

In this mode, users connect to their workstations (or to a virtual terminal services workstation) and work with Worldox as they normally would.  Documents can be viewed, opened and modified in the remote session, and new documents can be created.  The caveat is that all work must be performed INSIDE the remote session.  If the user creates a document on their local workstation, then they won't be able to save it into Worldox without the cumbersome process of transferring the file, then moving it into Worldox using DropZone.

If you have remote employees, then a remote desktop solution is most likely the solution for you.  The only exceptions are if the employee can not work entirely inside the remote session.

Options for minimal usage of scanners in remote desktop environments

If a remote user needs to perform incidental (i.e. low volume) scanning in a remote desktop environment, they can scan locally, save to the user's desktop, then use a file transfer (or shared local drive in Terminal Services) to transfer the file to the home office.  Once the file is at the remote office, it can be dragged onto the Worldox WorkZone icon to file it.

Note that moving large (or many) documents over a slow VPN connection can take some time, so this option is only suitable for very low volume scanning.  If you are going to be scanning a large number of documents, then using the Symphony Profiler or WAN with off-line mode and synchronization options (described below) are far superior options.

Preferred Method for Remote Scanning - Symphony Profiler

Symphony Profiler is an add-on application to Worldox that enables employees who have detailed knowledge of how a document should be filed to make a "reservation" for a document using a barcode cover sheet.   Documents can then be scanned in batch, and the Symphony Profiler will take care of automatically filing the documents to Worldox in the background.

Symphony Profiler allows for a number of interesting workflows, including several remote scanning workflows.  For remote scanning, the user that obtains the reservation (the 'Filer') can also be the user that performs the remote scanning (the 'Scanner') - or the remote site can have another user fulfill the Scanner role.  A process for remote scanning using Symphony Profiler is:

• Filer fills in a Worldox index card inside the Terminal Services session and types in the reservation ID from a cover sheet.  This process is repeated for all documents that need scanning.

• Scanner scans the document on their local system and saves to a local folder that is also made available to the network (e.g. via WAN connection, periodic file transfer/synchronization scripts or any other mechanism).  This save is very fast because it is a local save.

• Symphony Profiler pulls the scanned file (over the WAN connection) from its location at the remote site, breaks the file apart at each cover sheet, and fulfills the reservations in the live Worldox system

• The scanned document is now available for access by any user in the Terminal Services session or the home office.

The above is one way of leveraging Symphony Profiler to remove the slow WAN connection from the scanner operator's workflow.  There are other configurations/techniques that we can discuss with you if your remote access technologies don't align with the above assumptions, and Symphony Profiler is a good choice if you are considering a centralized or partially centralized scanning workflow - please ask!

Direct Launch via WAN over VPN (Not generally recommended)

A wide area network creates the exact same network drives on your remote workstations as you have on your internal local area network (LAN).

Note:  VPN connections tend to have significantly higher latency (round trip time) than regular network connections.  Unless you have a VPN that has been explicitly designed for low latency, we strongly recommend that you not use this approach for working remotely.  Please consider a remote desktop type solution instead.

If you have a Wide Area Network, then Worldox can work as it normally does - but slower (and in many cases much, much slower) because of the network speed of the remote connection.  Because the workstation operates exactly as if it were connected to your LAN, the user can perform any task that they would normally be able to.  This includes scanning and filing on the remote workstation.

Worldox has several features that help overcome the speed differences between a workstation running on a WAN and one running on a LAN:

Mirrored workstation install

The first installation of Worldox on the remote workstation can take a bit of time (~15 minutes).  During this process, Worldox copies all of it's files to the local workstation.  From that point forward, whenever Worldox is launched, it copies down only changed files. 

Launch times for Worldox running on a WAN are typically 10-15 seconds.

If you do not already have a WAN set up, and you wish to use this option, please contact your system administrator to ask about what it would take.  Configuring virtual private networks is a technical specialty, so if your system administrator does not have direct experience setting it up, we recommend that you contract with someone who does have experience.

Offline Mode

Worldox can store documents in what is called a "local mirror".  This local mirror is a partial representation of the full document repository on the file server.  Users can work with documents in the local mirror when they are disconnected from the network (and can even add new documents and make changes to existing documents).

When the user connects to the network again, Worldox will notify them that they have changed documents, and asks if they wish to copy those changes back to the server.

Users can explicitly copy documents to their local mirror, or they can check the documents out.  If a document is checked out, then it can not be modified by any other user until it is checked back in (users can still view, copy and open documents checked out as read-only).  Checking documents out is useful if the user is certain that they will be working on a given document, and wants to ensure that no one else will make changes.

Other Options

If you have (or are considering) a remote connectivity architecture that is not described above, please let us know and we can discuss how Worldox will work in your environment.