Key summary — What to know
A digitization project stays on track when you measure it weekly against five fixed numbers. You only get those numbers if someone sized the backlog before scanning started and the system records every stage.
Picture a records unit three months into its project. The scanners have run every day. A senior manager stops by with a fair question: how far along are we?
The project lead gives an honest answer. Probably about halfway.
Nobody counted the pages at the start, so nobody knows what halfway means.
Why Do Digitization Projects Lose Track?
Usually because people measure what's easy to see. Boxes leave the archive room, images come off the scanners, and weeks pass on the calendar.
The stages that decide success are harder to spot. Indexing describes each document so people can find it. Quality review checks the scan and the data before anything gets accepted. When those two fall behind, the project looks busy while the usable archive barely grows.
Before the First Scan: Size the Backlog
You can only measure a project against a known total. Four steps get you one.
1. Count a sample. Take ten boxes from different shelves and different years. Count the files in each box, the documents in each file and the pages in each document. Average the results and multiply by the number of boxes.
2. Agree the document types. List every document type in the backlog and the index fields each one needs. A contract needs a supplier and an end date, while a personnel file needs an employee number.
3. Define "done". A document counts as done once it's scanned, indexed and approved in review. Counting scanned pages as progress hides most of the work.
4. Time one box. Scan, index and review a single box from start to finish, and note how long each stage took. That gives you a first throughput estimate and a realistic end date.
The Weekly Report: Five Numbers That Tell You Where You Stand
| Number | What it shows | Warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| Pages and documents entered | Output for the week, per day | Daily totals dropping with no change in staffing |
| Completed documents against total | Real progress toward the sized backlog | Scanning far ahead of completed documents |
| Rejection rate and top reasons | Quality of scanning and indexing | Rate rising, or one reason dominating |
| Incomplete folders | Work started but not finished | The list growing week on week |
| Throughput per person and team | Where capacity sits | Wide gaps between people doing the same task |
All five fit on one page. A manager who reads that page every week will never need to ask how far along the project is.
Three Ways Projects Slip, and How the Numbers Show It
Scanning outruns indexing. Scanners are fast and easy to staff, so images pile up waiting for data entry. Storage keeps growing while search results stay flat. Within a week, you'll see it in the gap between pages scanned and documents completed.
Quality slides under deadline pressure. As the end date gets closer, reviewers approve faster and check less. The rejection rate drops for the wrong reason, and the errors surface months later when someone can't find a file. A sudden fall in rejections deserves as much attention as a spike.
Files stall in the middle. A clerk moves to another batch with a folder half indexed, and nobody picks it up. An incomplete folders report catches these before they turn into permanent gaps.
How ELArchive Runs a Digitization Project
With ELArchive, our archiving platform, the backlog is scanned, indexed and checked directly on the platform your teams will use every day afterward. Nothing has to be moved from a project tool into a records system later. ELArchive has been in production since 2008 at government and private-sector institutions in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Review checks the batch, beyond the image. Before accepting a document, quality control checks three things. Count integrity compares pages per document and documents per file against the physical batch. Image quality makes sure every scan is legible before it enters the archive. Data accuracy confirms the index fields are complete and correct, type by type. Anything rejected goes back to the right team with a recorded reason, such as a scan problem or an indexing error.
Data entry moves faster without cutting corners. Staff see the scanned image right next to the entry screen, so they extract data from what they are looking at, and validation rules control every field. Every document can carry a barcode, and the platform accepts TIFF, PDF and JPG.
The weekly numbers are already there. Built-in reports cover daily entry for folders and documents, folder status across all users and departments, user performance statistics, and incomplete folders. Together they give you most of the weekly page without building a spreadsheet by hand.
One team for software and scanning. IT-Blocks runs its own Backlog Scanning service. The team scanning your backlog knows the platform it's scanning into.
Start With One Box
Before you plan any timeline, pull one box from the archive room. Count its files, documents and pages, then time how long it takes to scan, index and review it properly.
That one box gives you a page count to multiply, a throughput figure to plan around, and an early look at which document types will slow you down.
Bring us that box count and those timings. We'll turn them into a project plan with weekly targets you can report on from week one.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does a document digitization project take?
It depends on page volume, the number of document types and how many index fields each type needs. The reliable way to estimate is to scan, index and review a sample box end to end, then multiply by the sized backlog.
What is backlog scanning?
Backlog scanning means digitizing paper records that have already built up, as opposed to scanning new documents as they arrive. A proper backlog project includes indexing and quality review along with the scanning.
What is the difference between scanning and indexing?
Scanning creates an image of each page. Indexing records the details that describe each document, such as a supplier name, a date or an employee number, so people can search for it and retrieve it later.
How do you measure digitization quality?
Track the rejection rate in review and the reasons behind each rejection. Check count integrity by comparing pages and documents in the system against the physical batch.
Which file formats should scanned documents use?
TIFF, PDF and JPG each come with trade-offs in legibility and file size. Agree the format for each document type before scanning starts. ELArchive accepts all three.
Can the scanning team see the whole archive?
Only what you allow. Access to archived records is set per user and group, including who can view, download or print each file and which departments' files each person can see.
Sizing a paper backlog?
Start with one box. We'll help you turn it into a plan, a timeline and a weekly report.
Book a scoping call