Batch remediation vs On-Demand
As ePresented document adoption rates continue to grow, portals for customer communications have become the easiest way for individuals to consume their statements, invoices and letters. However, what is often not considered is how to make on-line documents accessible to those that are blind, partially sighted or have a cognitive disability.
With an aging population, there are an ever-growing assortment of common ailments that are increasing the incidence of vision loss. With current regulations, and the recent focus on reducing document discrimination, the US Department of Justice is very active in warning and then prosecuting organizations that are discriminating. Fines and settlements have been substantial.
Organizations need to consider how to manage content that is in their archive, created and presented on-demand, and determine how to present a combination of on-demand and static content in an accessible format to those that are blind, partially sighted or have a cognitive disability.
The path forward for eDelivery typically has been to use PDFs. There are literally billions of documents stored in archives and presented via on-line portals to clients. These documents are created using a variety of information systems and composition tools. What happens when the need to be in compliance requires you to make these documents accessible? Crawford Technologies believes that organizations must use any tool at their disposal to make documents accessible and make these documents available to their clients. However, there are specific strategies that need to be considered in order to do this efficiently. In the past we’ve discussed the best way to make documents accessible – at composition or post composition.
Today, we’ll review options for remediating on-demand or remediating in batch. What is the right answer?
Structured documents can be automated and made accessible via batch or on-demand, but when implementing your workflows, you should consider the following when creating an efficient post composition solution:
On-Demand
Simply put, this is the process of making documents accessible as they are served up.
Pros
- Lets you keep your existing workflow and remediate on the fly
- From the archive
- From your central information system
- Accessible PDF is served up when needed
- There is no need to store Accessible PDFs, which have more storage requirements – 5% up to 70% size gains
- Any / All clients receive accessible PDF documents, which looks the same as a regular PDF
- There is no need to set up an exception process to determine who will need accessible documents – all documents are made accessible
- In a typical workflow, hundreds to thousands of documents per second can be remediated on-the-fly
Cons
- While documents can be served up at hundreds to thousands per second, server processing speeds for on-line consumption will be dependent on hardware availability
- There is more server overhead for transformation on-the-fly
Batch Automation
This means that you will accommodate specific requests for accessible e-Delivered documents
Pros
- Documents converted to Accessible PDF can be pulled for on-line viewing immediately, fully tagged with no lag
- It supports a scheduled remediation workflow
Cons
- This typically is an exception process, meaning that flags will need to set for users that are requesting accessible PDFs
- Batch processing generally requires all flagged documents to be made accessible and perhaps stored in the archive
- For clients that have a disability and do not disclose, their customer experience will remain the same – receiving inaccessible PDF files
- Time is required for Customer Service to log these requests and channel them to the document workflow as a flagged document for accessibility accommodation
- There must be ongoing maintenance of the flagged exceptions
Each of the above methods have its merits. The benefits of the on-demand system seem to be more advantageous as storage, workflow and customer service costs are not impacted. Either way, Crawford Technologies’ accessibility solutions can be easily implemented to fit the IT workflow requirements.
