Document Capture and Scanning Workflows: What are the possibilities?

Autoscan Feature

With the tool "Autoscan", for example, functional scan jobs can be created, where scan settings, target archive and, if necessary, keywords are already defined.

Here is an example: The button "Scan business cards" captures the inserted scan material in color and pushes it directly into the archive business cards. In addition, a separate document is created from each inserted card. Such specialized scan jobs are of course also suitable for other types of documents, e.g. invoices could be sorted correctly with one click.

For files there is the possibility to create folders monitored by the DMS. The target archive is then simply derived from the folder name. As soon as a file is stored here, the archiving takes place automatically. This procedure is also used, for example, if scangut is to be set into the DMS via network scanners. This procedure is also used, for example, if scangut is to be set into the DMS via network scanners.

For e-mail systems bitfarm-Archiv knows the automatic archiving on the client side with the help of Outlook automation, as well as the automatic import of POP3 and IMAP4 accounts on the server side.

Emails are also archived automatically from systems that export eml or msg files, e.g. David or the Kerio server. This is often used to automatically feed messages from functional e-mail addresses to the DMS, e.g. to immediately start a so-called workflow.

An MS-Exchange interface is also available, as is the possibility to automatically archive faxes from different fax servers.

Sorting Rules

However, if different documents have to be processed together during mass processing, it is often no longer possible to get by with the assignment to an archive.

If the requirement is, that documents targeted at different archives come in via the same import process, the computer can handle the assignment to an archive itself.

For this purpose, bitfarm-Archiv offers the possibility to use rules to automatically sort the individual documents. In order to utilize this, different criteria are defined for each document type - usually recurring components of the content such as an invoice number. When these occur, the rule takes effect and the document in question ends up in the correct archive.

If no rule takes effect, the document remains in the predefined target and can then, of course, be sorted correctly by the user.

Barcodes

With scan capture, there is also the option of working with barcodes. These can either be glued on, or enclosed as a separator sheet during scanning.

The barcode can perform various functions at the same time. For example, it separates documents, allowing large batches of documents to be scanned in a single pass. 

It can also provide for pre-sorting into departments. In addition, sequential numbers can assign the scanned documents in an ERP system or serve other purposes.

Automatic Keyword Tagging

Not only bitfarm-Archiv's automatic sorting is a powerful tool for mass processing. Keywording can also be automated by a set of rules. If important numbers or contents are always in the same place on certain documents, the bitfarm-Archiv server can read them out via a mask that has to be defined once, in Order to store them in an additional field or use them for linking.

Alternatively, a method via full text search is available, which also considers relative positions. This is achieved through state of the art optical character recognition (OCR).

The pattern search function has proven to be very powerful. If your order or project number has an unmistakable form, the bitfarm server can recognize this on all documents and use it e.g. automatically as a link, without having to write special rules for the individual documents.

Of course, this works across all document types. bitfarm-Archiv recognizes the order or project number and links the documents to a virtual file, no matter if this number is on a scanned document, appears somewhere in an Excel spreadsheet, or occurs in an e-mail.

If further, special functions are required, there are also various plug-in interfaces for the processing process, where programmatic intervention is possible. Here are the degrees of freedom unlimited. Many server plug-ins are already available and can be used by customers free of charge and modified as required.