Frequently Asked Questions

As part of our efforts to provide the highest level of customer service and support in the industry, we have compiled this list of questions and answers. Discover what our customers have asked before. The answer to your question may be here.

What are the hardware requirements for the new version of VDE?

Viking Data Entry (VDE) version 4.3 for Windows® requires 10 MB of hard disk room for VDE, plus space for data files, sequential and indexed tables on the server, and none on the client. VDE requires only minimum memory requirements on the Workstation and no additional memory requirements on the server.

I receive a key-from-image module free with my document imaging system. Why should I spend my money for ImagEntry?

If it is free, your vendor probably knows what it is worth. ImagEntry pays for itself in three ways:

  1. You will reduce your key entry costs through greater productivity,
     
  2. You can set up applications quicker
     
  3. Your data will be more accurate.

Fully loaded data entry labor costs exceed $20 per hour. How long will it take to save $1,000 if your people key 10%, 20% or 50% faster? Data entry operating costs go on forever, software capital costs occur just once. Perhaps more importantly, a single undetected data error can cost you more than the cost of ImagEntry. Can you really afford to use that "free" stuff?

Do I need data entry if I already have the images in my computer?

Remember, an image is just a picture, a collection of pixels that represent the physical document. Before a computer can do anything with the information on the document it must be converted to ASCII data (i.e. letters and numbers, not pictures of letters and numbers). There are two ways to convert image information to ASCII:

  1. Manually key enter the data using a key-from-image module like ImagEntry, or
     
  2. Use a recognition engine (OCR, ICR or OMR) to "read" the data. (See next question.)

What are the system requirements for ImagEntry?

You don't need a high-end system to run this high-end software. ImagEntry is designed to run with minimal requirements. The minimum System Requirements are a 486 processor, with 8MB RAM, and Windows® 95 or later. If the documents are unstructured and free form, you probably need a 17" monitor. Monochrome is fine for black and white documents and most documents that have some color on them

Why do I need ImagEntry? I am getting a recognition engine that will eliminate all manual data entry.

If you believe that any recognition engine is 100% accurate I want to make you a deal on some beach front property in Arizona! You will always have some unreadable characters to be hand entered. Did the salesman tell you about substitution errors? How are you going to find them and fix them? ImagEntry can do it.

Tell me about data accuracy—my OCR system is pretty good. How do I compare it?

Manually keyed and verified data averages one character error in 10,000, or 99.99% accurate. OCR salesmen promise to read 95% to 99%. This means they can't read from 100 to 500 characters out of 10,000. Worse yet, the substitution error rate can be really bad.

What type of technical support is available for ImagEntry?

An online manual, a Getting Started manual with tutorial, and complete Help system is packaged with ImagEntry. Additionally, we offer Viking's unique Field Help facility for all technical support issues - contact by phone, FAX and email. This includes:

FREE for the first 30 days

Extended support, our Customer Care Plan, may be purchased for 18% of the cost per year of the license price.

Viking's customers enjoy unsurpassed level of quality in the industry. Our goal is for a Customer Care representative to answer each call as it comes in and respond immediately with a resolution to your issue.

What do you mean by substitution errors?

Recognition engines make two kinds of errors, Rejects and Substitutions. A Reject is a character that it couldn't read, and it recognized that it couldn't read it. Substitutions are characters that are misread. For example, it interprets an "e" as a "c".

Why does ImagEntry clutter up the screen with so many data fields? Your competitor simplifies it by only showing one field at a time.

Ask our competitor to talk to you about keying speed and rhythm. If they think keying rhythm is some new kind of music, run, don't walk, to the nearest exit.

We need to key data from images of large drawings in the CALS format. Can I do that with ImagEntry?

Certainly! Define image snippets that display the information to be keyed. You can move and zoom the image to find information that is not in the expected location.

How do I know how fast our people key data?

If your application doesn't measure and report some metric like key strokes per hour or records per hour, it probably means you are not keying very fast. We hear horror stories about keying rates that are only 10% of the national average of about 11,600 key strokes per hour. You need to understand why you key at your present rates. Do you?

Why can people key faster with Viking products?

To key rapidly the applications must do three things: (1) Eliminate unnecessary keystrokes, (2) Promote rhythmic keying, and (3) Minimize hand movements. Viking has been creating the tools and techniques to eliminate keystrokes since 1980. Many of these techniques are known only to those people who specialize in power/precision data entry. Superstar key entry operators regularly average more than 15,000 keystrokes per hour by building a smooth rhythm in their keying. They cannot achieve these speeds with applications that have short bursts of keying that leads to herky-jerky rhythm. Clearly, if you have to take your hand off the keyboard to use a mouse you lose many keystrokes

What kind of keystroke average should I expect?

Keystroke speeds are very application dependent and must be considered in that context. However, in 1989 the Data Entry Management Association reported that the USA national average for all applications was about 11,600 key strokes per hour. This is a mixture of a lot of different types of keying jobs. If you are only keying numbers you should expect to do much better. If you key alphabetic letters it may not be so easy to reach the average speeds. If your applications requires you to "think" before keying, or if you have to search for the data it will be much slower. And of course there is a big difference between individuals. The important thing to look for is whether the keyer ever has to wait for the system. Many applications can be improved dramatically by improving the design to increase keying speed and eliminate keystrokes

Why the big emphasis on key strokes per hour?

It is a common metric but is not always the best one to use. After all, the real measure of productivity is how long it takes to process a given number of transactions or data records

I cannot afford to buy new hardware and software. It just is not in our budget. What can I do?

You need to look at the total costs. The rental and maintenance for the hardware, the mainframe charges and the total labor costs for your data entry applications. If you are using dedicated key to disk machine, or keying directly on-line to a mainframe, the chances are pretty good that you can reduce you overall data entry costs with a modern system. When you identify all the costs involved you may be surprised how much money you have available that only needs to be reallocated

Under what platforms does VDE operate?

VDE operates with the following operating systems: Windows® 95 or later,
MS/DOS, VMS, UNIX (most popular systems, including IBM, DEC, HP, Sun, Intel, SCO, etc.)

Do you provide training on VDE?

Yes! Training classes are scheduled in Tulsa. VDE training is a 3-day session. You also receive a tutorial in the complete set of manuals with VDE. Check our Training Calendar, or us for a current class schedule.

How can VDE help me process my information ? What can I use VDE for?

Our customers find a variety of uses for VDE. It makes keying data faster, more accurate and requires little overhead. While each business purpose is different and unique to that particular business, here's some of the processes for which our customers use VDE.