Document Management Talk

Here are the final two new posts in the series of new features in our Document Manager 2.6.

Infonic Filing Assistant

Filing Assistant is a small utility that runs in the Windows System Tray and monitors a folder for any new files, usually a sub-folder of MyDocuments. When a new document appears in this folder it will pop-up and ask the user to profile the document for Document Manager and then move the document into the Document Manager repository.

This allows any application that has a ‘File / Save As’ menu option to achieve a relatively seamless integration with Document Manager. It can also allow integration with applications that support drag-drop of files into folders, like Software Fax solutions.

Email Signatures

This may sound like a minor feature but is actually very important. Previously when sending a document as an attachment to an email from Document Manager any pre-configured email signature that you had configured in MS-Outlook was not appended to the message.

This was not a failing of Document Manager but a result of the MAPI functionality provided by Outlook, and was the same for any application (including Windows Explorer) that used MAPI to send emails.

In 2.6 we now detect the presence of MS-Outlook and use it directly instead of using MAPI and this allows us to utilise the signature feature, so now all your emails can be sent with the required company disclaimer and signature.

Tim

Here are some more new features in the  recently announced 2.6 release of our document management software. These two topics continue the series I started a few weeks ago.

Microsoft Office Addin

Microsoft are always finding ways to do things differently and MS Office is no exception, particularly with the introduction of MS Office 2007 with its XML based file types and new look and feel.

So we have written a new Office Addin with options for Office 2007 and Office 2003 that allows documents to be saved directly to Document Manager from Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook.

In addition we have enhanced the Outlook functionality to allow attachments to emails to be saved separately or as part of the message.

Infonic Print Driver

The Infonic Print Driver is a windows printer that can be selected as a printer from any application that has a print option. When a document is printed it will create an image of that document (TIF or PDF) and pop-up a profiling window allowing you to index the document in Document Manager.

The print driver can then forward the printed file onto another physical printer so a hard copy is still produced.

The print driver has an API allowing some customisation and automation of its behaviour, for example automatically indexing the images based on the file name of the printed file. We have done this for some Accounting software to automatically file Sales Orders, Invoices etc…

Infonic Print Driver is an optional module so there is a small charge associated.

Tim

Due to popular demand from our reseller channel we have provided integration between our Business Edition product and Kofax Express 2, an all in one batch scan solution aimed at the low to mid range scan and indexing market.

It includes features like barcode recognition, database validation, automatic pagination, VRS (Virtual Re Scan) image enhancement, colour reduction and super compressed PDF for super small file sizes with colour documents. Pricing is based on the speed of the scanner, you do not need to be overly technical to make it work and it’s user interface even looks like that of Infonic Document Manager, a perfect combination.

For more details look here http://www.kofax.com/document-scanning-software/

Tim

Here are some more new features in the  recently announced 2.6 release of our document management software. These two topics continue the series I started a few weeks ago.

OCR Assisted Indexing

Different people have different names for this feature, like ‘OCR on the Fly’ or ‘Single Click Entry’ but essentially the functionality is the same, it’s the ability to OCR a part of the document to populate the structure index fields, like ‘Invoice Number’.

Currently when a document is scanned the user has to enter the index information by looking on the document and then typing the information into each field, like Invoice Number, Date, Value etc…

With OCR Assisted Indexing the user simply drags a rectangle around the information on the image and the area inside the rectangle is OCR’d and entered into the index field. The next index field is then selected and the process can repeat, making data entry much quicker and simpler.

This kind of technology is usually found in advanced data capture products with a premium price tag so inclusion in our business edition product is a major benefit.

Obviously this relies on OCR so some documents will perform better than others and it will not OCR hand writing but most documents will give good results, and where they don’t the user can still manually key the information.

OCR Assisted Screen Scrape

Screen scraping is a simple way to document enable other applications by reading their window contents and then searching for related documents. For example looking at a purchase transaction in your accounts software, press a hotkey and view the related documents in Document Manager.

Screen scraping would work for most (about 80%) of windows forms applications, but not web applications, java applications or applications running in environments like Citrix or Terminal Services.

With 2.6 we have now added another method of reading the screen contents using OCR which now allows us to screen scrape such applications where we could not in the past. Key zones on the application window are captured, read and mapped to fields in Document Manager.

 Configuring the screen scrape takes just a few minutes and requires no development skills, we will provide a mini tutorial to assist users with the configuration, and once configured it’s as simple as pressing a function key. 

This makes Infonic Document Manager one of the most integration friendly packages available.

Tim

One of the benefits of having our document management software based on Microsoft Silverlight is the wide range of platforms available for users to access their documents.

One of the more exciting ones is the Windows Phone 7 which gives you the ability to access your business documents on the move with an easy to use touch screen interface. Reviewing and approving those documents online is now something you can do on the move. Our Infonic propeller heads already have some proof of concept working code.

More details from http://www.windowsphone7.com/.

Tim