November 17-18, 2003

CheckWorks was invited to attend Micrographic Sciences, Inc.’s (MSI) 2003 User Conference in Savannah, Georgia, which attracted MSI’s bank customers and partner vendors. Several mutual MSI and CheckWorks customers were among the financial institutions represented. Vendors represented included Carreker Corporation in addition to CheckWorks.
Representatives from SunTrust Bank gave an excellent demonstration of CheckWorks’ Batch Retrieval and Batch Store technology, interfaced to MSI’s ANF and DIDS solutions. Jose Menendez, Group Vice President and Research Division Manager, and Sanders Wyatt, head of Research, presented the live demo of CheckWorks’ and MSI’s image retrieval, distribution and management technologies, retrieving 19 images from a test Viewpointe archive, as well as images from a film archive. CheckWorks contributed additional background information regarding high-volume batch retrieval and ad-hoc image retrieval through the ImageExplorer/Enterprise suite (branded as ImageLink at SunTrust).

SunTrust also demonstrated the Batch Store interface that allowed images retrieved through MSI software from multiple sources to be stored as a “Saved Request” back into ImageLink. The test ImageLink system was presented and the Saved Request images were displayed on the CheckWorks ImageInsight Viewer.

One interesting feature of the MSI software was a pop-up notification window that displays during the request and retrieval process, showing the number of seconds before it polls the CheckWorks API for images. A button is provided on the pop-up window that allows the operator to “Check Now” if he does not want to wait until the timer expires. According to the presenters, the operators become aware of the actual retrieval times after using the system for a short while and can predict the time pretty well.

Another MSI feature that received positive feedback was the “unattended review” function, where images are displayed to a screen for a preset amount of time as they are loaded into the MSI database. The preset time is easily changed by the operator.

MSI representatives emphasized the seamless partnership between MSI’s ANF and DIDS technologies and CheckWorks ImageExplorer technologies that support digital retrieval from both the film and image archives. Bank attendees acknowledged the benefit of acquiring a tested, working solution such as the CheckWorks-MSI partnered technology, instead of building a “one-off” solution in-house that would also have to be supported and upgraded internally.

During a CheckWorks sponsored lunch on Monday, Allan Edmonds and Henry Blair of CheckWorks gave brief talks to the attendees and continued the discussion of image interfaces.

Everyone agreed that the Savannah location was a very nice choice. Walter Silverman of MSI, a local Savannah resident, gave many insights into the local history. The food and service at the River Street Inn were excellent.