Recommendations for Personal Document Management System/Electronic Filing Cabinet?

[w00dix]

There have been a few threads for commercial solutions but I'm looking for something geared more towards the home user. There's just too much damned paper that I must hang on to for one reason or another and I want to insure that stuff survives any sort of damage to my residence (fire, flood, theft). Additionally, I travel frequently for work and keep lots of receipts so being able to index and search for tax and compensation purposes is important.

A short list of requirements:
1) Scan to PDF Support - I'm going to feed docs into my multifunction device for the moment but have my eye on a Fujitsu scanner if this really takes off.

2) OCR capability - Docs have to be more than just images. Critical to know what's in them

3) Tagging/Metadata - Needs to be some method of classifying the docs before I ever file them.

4) Scalability of solution - I've seen lots of desktop solutions that are backended by something like MS Access. I've watched customers try to build apps on top of Access before and there's no way I'm going to let my personal info get flushed because the whole database gets corrupted.

5) Support for at least two users - My wife is the CFO of the relationship but I'll probably be doing the grunt work of getting everything loaded in and maintaining it. Separation of duties isn't necessary but being able to work in the app simultaneously is important.

Nice to have

1) Web based rather than fat client - I'd rather have all my data trapped in an RDBMS that requires management than flat files on one of my desktops. Although, worst case I can run the app as a VM and present/protect/archive it appropriately.

2) Open Source - I have a little more confidence that even if the product/project is abandoned or goes toes up, I can get my data out than with a product like NeatReceipts.


Any thoughts, recommendation or experience in this quest would be greatly appreciated. As I research, make choices (and hopefully implement) I'll continue to update this thread.

 

[Deleted member 176933]

1. Upping this as I'd like to hear some responses
2. I think you should consider apps like Mediawiki, Sharepoint, etc

They are obviously not designed for a home user....but...well...this is [H].

I setup my own Mediawiki site (ie. wikipedia software) for something similar. I first tried some other wiki system - I forget which one now - but never felt comfortable with it. I tried Mediawiki next and felt it made more sense. I first set it up using an old Pentium 2 Debian laptop for the apache part (yeah...p2). I had a MySQL server already running for mythtv, so I just made another database and let it work over my network. I wasn't overly pleased with the performance of the old P2 (actually, a VM hosted on the old p2), so later I moved it to a VM hosted in a P4 mobile based laptop. The hardware needs are rather low for such a small userbase (ie. me).

There are a bazillion different extensions for Mediawiki. A quick google and I found FileIndexer. This should let you index documents (including PDF). Seems you would also have this option in sharepoint as well.

The organization possibilities are obvious. You can have different rights if you want. You can even create groups - so your wife can't see the receipt for her Christmas gift. Its also scalable . See wikipedia.

I don't think you'll find a way to make mediawiki handle your scanning, but it will take care of the storage, tagging, indexing, etc for you. By default, it seems to store your files in random locations - but I think there was a setting to turn that off. I just never got around to doing it. I figure you should be able to scan to PDF, type out an article for your attachment, attach the file and you're done.

When I had my mediawiki site running, it felt like overkill....but I loved it. The learning curve is a B* as I had no experience with PHP (or mysql or css), but since the layout and configuration of the site is separate from the actual data, I was able to start populating my site while still trying to figure out WTF I was doing. Once I had it setup how I liked it, I was able to take off the administrator hat and put on the end-user hat. I used it more for a personal knowledge base, taking notes, etc, but I did upload files to it often (mostly pictures). Long story short - my MySQL server had a boo boo (completely my fault ) and now I don't have my site anymore, but its on my short list of projects to set up again. It was easier to setup than I expected. They have a great guide on their site.

I've not setup a sharepoint site, but I bet it would work for you too.

Just my $.029999

 

[Private Citizen]

Have you looked into Paperport?

Not sure if this will fit the bill or not but it is a program that is bundled with a lot of scanners and does what you are looking to do for the most part. I had a Brother MFP that came with Paperport and it was a nice app.

Paperport 12 Standard