Off Paper — The Digitization Playbook

The honest starting point

Every deployment begins in a building full of paper. The playbook's first principle: digitize the flow before the stock. New work enters ASTRAEA from day one (the DTS and intake screens); the backfile converts in prioritized tranches while operations continue.

The second principle: the paper doesn't disappear — it gets a digital twin. Barcode/QR tracking for physical files (court rollos, correspondence folders) means the hybrid years are managed, not chaotic.

Backfile conversion

Tranche prioritization: active matters first, then recent-closed (the retrieval-heavy band), then archival by retention class. Scan → OCR → structured reconstruction: dockets and registers are rebuilt as data, not just images.

Every scanned page hashes at ingest and joins the same Document Engine as born-digital records — one verification path for everything. Quality gates per tranche: double-entry sampling, reconstruction audits, and registrar sign-off.

Digitization-as-a-service

Segal Industries and regional integrator partners operate scanning lines — equipment, staffing, chain-of-custody handling for sensitive classes (sealed records digitize under supervised protocols with access logging from the first touch).

Throughput is planned per institution during Stage 0's digitization assessment; the metric that matters is 'backfile remaining,' and it is on the steering committee's dashboard until it reads zero.

DTS as the wedge

For executive agencies, correspondence tracking is the fastest honest win: Track E stage E1 replaces one agency's paper routing entirely within a quarter. Every document scanned at intake, QR-affixed, deadline-routed — the paper-trail killer, and the habit-former for everything after.