18. The digital document processing system according to claim 4 , wherein the processor stores a time of submission of the stored digital document in a field of the linked email item.
4. A digital document processing system, comprising: a plurality of workstations, each of the workstations including a respective email client; a control system; and at least one document processing device connected to the control system, wherein the plurality of user workstations and the control system include respective devices that enable bi-directional communication through a network, wherein the control system includes: a document storage that stores and manages digital documents related to a document processing operation in the at least one document processing device, where each of the digital documents are associated with a user of the plurality of workstations; a dedicated document email server that stores email items, wherein each email item is linked to a corresponding digital document in the document storage and where each email item stores the corresponding digital document's processing status; and a processor that executes instructions stored on a tangible computer readable storage medium to perform the steps of: storing and managing the digital documents in the document storage and informing the user on a digital document processing status of at least one of each of digital file documents associated with the user; operating the dedicated document email server to generate and maintain therein a respective email item for each digital document in the document storage; accessing the generated email items using the respective email client on the plurality of user workstations, wherein the respective email client includes a dedicated email folder coupled to a particular user account in the dedicated document email server; using the at least one document processing device-to perform a document processing operation on one of the digital documents in the document storage that changes the digital document's processing status; and updating the stored corresponding digital document's processing status in the generated email item in the dedicated document email server and the document storage, wherein the updating dynamically reflects the one of the digital document's actual changed processing status.