Indexing

What is Indexing?

Indexing is when you extract key data from a source document for the purpose of fast retrieval. Some example would be indexing by phone number. If you have a contact management system, when a client calls you could quickly retrieval that client's information by search for their telephone number. Other commonly key fields to index are: Social Security Numbers, Account Numbers, ID Numbers. An index field should be unique to one record/client/file.

Indexing 101

The best example to explain indexing is the search engines. Search engines typically use keyword (key data) to provide results related to you search term. If you typed "Data Entry" in Google, Yahoo, MSN (popular search engines) they would return websites with keyword of data entry.

Indexing Images (Scanning)

Many companies today are scanning documents vs. manual data entry. One reason for scanning a document would be, if you have a signature document and want to extract key data and also retain the signature. Again, indexing the scanned documents by account number, social security number, or ID number are good for this type of application. If you archived the scanned documents to an external drive you could quickly retrieval the document's image by search for the indexed field, which allows you to print the document if needed.

If you need archiving services (Data Entry, Scanning, Indexing) please contact Yvette Stokes for a free quote.

Learn more about other Data Services