Please help me define my workflow

DEVONthink Tips
1

Hello! I’m a new member on the board and an extreme novice with DevonThink Office Pro, having just licensed my copy yesterday. I would like to set up a digital filing system for my home consisting mostly of bills, receipts, bank statements, medical bills and correspondence, etc. I have the beginnings of a workflow together, but am getting hung up on two things: Sharing the DB between two computers (not on the same local network) and processing new items. Your help on those two would be greatly appreciated.

My workflow now:

  • Scan paper on home or office scanner
  • Move the scanned document to a specific category folder (e.g. Mortgage Statements, 2016 Medical, Veterinary)
  • Hazel automatically renames the files according to the folder and creation date, and tags them red
  • In DevonThink, I process all the new items, toggling back and forth between the finder and DT to determine which files need processing
  • Manually untag the red files in Finder so that I am ready for the next import

Surely, there is a better way? Perhaps using the inbox feature? Should I index all of these files on DropBox so both computers can better use them? I also have WebDAV available on one of my domains, but it is not https and I feel DropBox might be more secure.

I would greatly appreciate any pointers! Thank you!

2

You’re asking the right questions. So have many others as they are introduced to DEVONthink – and that means that there is a lot of information here in the forums, in the DEVONtechnologies.com blog, and a lot of personal experiences and recommendations published in blogs across the internet. I think you’d be missing out of the good advice that many folks have spent a lot to time writing up for you and others if you didn’t first research the topics you’re interested in by browsing the forum. You could also consider Joe Kissell’s book on DEVONthink (a little dated but still valid), available from Take Control books.

3

It sounds like you already have a good handle on things. But, here are some links that might help.
christopher-mayo.com/?p=2237

I would say, in general, that you want to avoid anything “manual” in any workflow, unless that meaningfully contributes in some way to your organization of data.