Step 1
The basics of the case need to be understood by the coders in order to identify and generate meaningful indices for the documents.

Step 2
Important next is to understand the accessing needs of the end users. This will help in generating "Enhanced" or "Derived" Titles wherever "Natural Titles" are not present on the documents. We next try to standardize the coding philosophy in consultation with the Client, especially with respect to generating derived titles and defining document boundaries

Step 3
The most crucial activity in the entire coding process is defining the document boundaries.

This is done by senior coders who are specially trained for this activity and are knowledgeable about the content of the case. This process is aided programmatically: the images / pages of the documents are displayed one after another and the system stamps the beginning of each new document as identified by the coder.

Step 4
The document boundaries are then used by the system to restrict the coders only to those document units as defined.

Below are different fields of the documents that IQWEST usually codes:

• Author - Organization
• Recipient - Organization
• CC - Organization
• Date
• Reference
• Subject / Title
• Document Type
• And so on based on the individual case.

IQWEST Methodologies:

• Allow the coder to concentrate and so as to promote Quality Output.
• Code one Field of a document at a time. This helps to develop the expertise in locating the fields as well as improves quality and throughput.
• Require that important and complex fields like Doc Title to be coded by senior coders.
• Validation of date fields using normal algorithms for date validations.
• Verification of doc type versus the approved list of doc types for spelling mistakes and unwanted / undefined doc types.
• Generate a master file of Author / Recipients / CCs on a continuous runtime basis and use the same at the final stage to verify the spelling as well as save runtime coding using drop down menus.
• Checking continuity of Image and Bates Numbers.
• Verifying Document Boundaries and Attachment Boundaries against the Databases generated at the time of scanning so that integrity of the sequence is maintained and attachments are not intermixed. Output is generated as specified by the Client.