Input - Loading Documents

This page describes ways to load documents into SmartSoft Invoices online. Check the Manual and Automated sections below.

Important

Please note that the explanations below assume that Batch types and Document types have already been created. Click here for info regarding Batch type creation.

Manual

The Manual section assumes that the system is already configured and connected to a running server

To manually load some documents for processing start the input client.

  1. Log into the system;

  2. The Client selection screen screen will be displayed automatically;

  3. Click Input to open the Input client;

  4. Click Open or Scan to load some documents for processing;

  5. Click Submit;

  6. In the batch Info screen provide details for the batch;

../_images/input-batch.png

Name: A name for the batch. Either use the default name or provide your own.

Batch Type: Select one of the configured batch types

Default Document Type: If Classification is enabled the software will automatically determine the type of each document. Otherwise this value will be used.

Priority: Batches can be ordered by priority in the Verify Client

Description (optional): A description for the batch

Document and page manipulation

Once loaded into Input documents and pages can be manipulated and re-arranged.

Right click on the active document or page and a context menu with several choices will appear.

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  • Remove page – removes the currently selected page. The user can remove only a single page from a multi-page document with this option;

  • Remove document – removes the entire document with all its pages;

  • Rotate page clockwise 90 degrees, Rotate page counter clockwise 90 degrees, rotate page 180 degrees – rotates the currently active page at the appropriate degree. Rotated pages cannot be automatically re-processed. The user must fill in the form fields and column manually by typing into them;

  • Mark page as an attachment - marks the selected page as an attachment. This action will remove all captured data for this page from the form definition fields and columns. It will also add a paperclip icon on the top right corner of the document’s thumbnail;

  • Mark page and all below as an attachment - works for multi-page documents. Marks the selected page and all below it as an attachment. This action will remove all captured data for this page from the form definition fields and columns. It will also add a paperclip icon on the top right corner of the document’s thumbnail;

  • Move current page up – Moves the selected page upwards. Can be used to re-arrange multi-page documents. If done on separate pages, they will get merged into a multi-page document. The keyboard shortcut for this feature is CTRL+PgUp;

  • Move current page down – Moves the selected page downwards. Can be used to re-arrange multi-page documents. If done on separate pages, they will get merged into a multi-page document. The keyboard shortcut for this feature is CTRL+PgDown;

  • Move current page to a new document – This feature can be used to separate pages from multi-page documents. The keyboard shortcut for this feature is CTRL+SHIFT+N;

  • Merge current document to previous document – Merges the currently selected document to the one above it. Useful for multipage documents where the user needs to merge more than one page to a previous page or a document. The keyboard shortcut for this feature is CTRL+SHIFT+M;

  • Merge all documents - merges all documents and pages into a single multi-page file;

  • Split document to pages - splits the selected multi-page document into single pages;

  • Split document at current page - splits a multi-page document at the currently selected page. This way you can separate multi-page documents. Keyboard shortcut is CTRL+SHIFT+S;

Automated

SmartSoft Invoices Online can create and submit batches automatically without any user interaction. Documents are submitted into batches by defining Watched Folders. Each Watched folder has its own settings, Batch Type and a default Document Type.

Note

After the documents have been submitted for processing they are moved to a Processed subfolder which is automatically generated into each Watched folder.

Automated Input Service

The Automated Input service can be launched either from a shortcut called SmartSoft Input Service GUI located in C:\Program Files (x86)\SmartSoft\SmartSoft Invoices Online\, or from a shortcut in your Windows Start menu. Feel free to copy SmartSoft Input Service GUI to your desktop.

Running the following from your Windows Start ‣ Run command interface will launch the service directly:


C:\Program Files (x86)\SmartSoft\SmartSoft Invoices Online\InputService.exe" --gui=true


Configuring and using the Automatic Input Service

Double click on SmartSoft Input Service GUI and the following configuration window will appear:

../_images/input_serv_login_not_conn.png

Login configuration

  1. Server: A drop down menu that allows users to select what Application server to connect to. In order to add server address and port, click on the Settings button;

    ../_images/deployment-input-gui-servers.png

  2. User name and password: best to use admin for both;

  3. Click Test Connection to connect to the server;

  4. A Connected green check mark will appear if the connection is proper;

  5. Click Start in order to start the service;

If started successfuly the main window of the service will look like this:

../_images/input_running.png

Tip

Settings can’t be changed while the service is running.


Service configuration

To configure the service, go to the Service tab (If the service is running this tab is disabled, you need to first stop the service by clicking Stop service). Select the Start service on Windows startup checkbox to have the service start automatically.

  1. Install, and start the Input Service

  2. Create Watched Folders

    ../_images/deployment-input-shared-folders.png

  3. Click Add to add a new watched folder. Select a Batch type and a path for your new watched folder. (Batch types are defined in the Admin panel).

  4. Click Settings to configure a watched folder.

Watched folder settings

General Settings


Pre-processing

../_images/watched_general.png

  • Enable auto-despeckle of images - improves performance on images with digital noise and dithering;

  • Enable auto-orientation – allows the software to automatically rotate your documents. Manual rotation can be done if the user rights clicks on a thumbnail and uses one of the rotation options;

  • Keep blank pages – when enabled the software will not automatically remove blank pages;

  • Graphics clean up mode – with this feature enabled the software will automatically clean up handwriting and stamps. Disable the setting if it clears off parts of usable data from colour documents;

  • Extract vector PDF data if present - directly extracts data from vector PDFs instead of OCRing the document if such content is detected. Processing of such documents is faster;

Basic document separation

Check Enable document separation to enable the functionality. The separation mode menu offers the following choices:

  • 1 Document = 1 file - all the pages in a file are considered one document.

  • Check-based merge - A page containing a US/Canada check/cheque marks the start of a document. All subsequent pages are part of the same document. Works with multiple checks in a single document;

  • Use barcode separators - The software will automatically merge documents until it detects a specific bar code. If a page contains only a bar code it will be removed, it also means the start of a new document. To set the value for the barcode click Settings next to the Merge mode drop-down list. Download a sample barcode separator page with a barcode value of “barcode”. You can print it out and use it as a document separator.

  • Fixed page count per document - Processes only a certain number of pages per document;

Process only first X and last X pages - processes the selected page numbers and marks all other pages inside of the document as attachments;


Import

There are several import types used by the Watched folders which can be configured in the Import tab. Select the desired batch import type from the Import type drop-down list:


Single directory - fixed batch size

../_images/watched-settings.png

The Automated Input service scans the folder at 1-second intervals. All new documents that are located are submitted as a new Batch.

Batch Size: Maximum number of documents per a single batch. The system will not wait for the time out if the max number of documents is detected, they will be submitted to a batch immediately. If more documents are found in the folder they will be submitted as a separate batch.

Timeout: The system will wait for some new files before submitting the batch. This is useful if a network share is used as a watched folder and files intended to be submitted as one batch can appear in the folder over time, resulting in the files being split into multiple batches.


Subfolder as a Batch

Each subfolder inside of the main Watched folder is treated as a separate batch. The name of the subfolder is used as a batch name or a naming convention can be selected from the Submit tab.

Timeout: The system will wait X seconds prior to submitting subfolder as a batch.


Single Directory - interval batch creation

The watched folder is scanned after the defined time interval elapses, e.g. once per hour. All documents are submitted for processing as one batch.

Interval: the time interval in seconds.


Submit settings

This section provides users with means to set default batch names, batch type and default document types for a particular watched folder.

../_images/submit_settings.png

Batch name expression:Use the browse buttons to setup macros in order to name your batches and also add data to the batch description if required.

Image Processing Client

If the processing speed of the Input Client creates a bottleneck, you can install one or more Image Processing clients.

Multi-page Documents

Multi page documents are supported. Users can either use one of the basic separation modes above or take advantage of the advanced Classification client that SmartSoft Invoices Online comes with.

Automatic document separation via the Classification client

If a document contains multiple pages and there is no way to use barcodes or specific page ranges users can train the Classifier to recognize the document boundaries inside a multi-page document.

For this functionality to work there are several requirements:

  1. A classification model must be created and assigned to the current batch type;

  2. The classification role must be enabled in the Admin Panel under Workflow configuration;

  3. Perform Internal document separation must be enabled under Edit Batch Types–>Classification;

  4. Classification mode must be set to Semantic;

  5. Basic document separation mode must be set to 1 Document = 1 File;

This functionality works for both Input station and Input service;

Tip

The Default Default Type drop down in the Input interface will be overwritten by the classification engine if Classification is enabled.

E-mail Input

The e-mail input client runs as a Windows service that automatically downloads attachments from e-mails, creates batches and submits them for further processing. It supports multiple e-mail accounts and allows users to set separate settings for each account.

The e-mail client is automatically installed if the option is checked during installation of the automated clients.

It can be launched from a desktop shortcut called Email Input Client Configuration.

Important

The Image processing client must be installed and running for the E-mail Input client to be able to create and submit the batches.

Server Login

This is where the connection to the SmartSoft Invoices Application server is adjusted.

../_images/email_main.png

  1. Server IP: Type in the IP of the Application server you want to connect to;

  2. **User name: generaluser;

  3. **Password: user;

  4. Click Test Connection to connect to the server;

  5. A Connected green check mark will appear if the connection is proper;

  6. Click Save in order to save all changes;

  7. Click Start in order to start the service;


Email Settings

This is where you can add e-mail addresses to monitor. Check the instructions below to find out how to do it.

../_images/mail_settings.png
Email Configuration

  1. Click the Add button and an empty string will appear in the pane on the right;

    ../_images/mail_settings_empty.png

  2. Highlight it and click Settings;

  3. A new window called Email Configuration will appear;

  4. Type in your mail server, port, user name and password. If required, check or uncheck the SSL connection checkbox;

  5. Click Test. If the connection is successful a green check mark saying Connected will appear;

  6. Another tab called Input folders will automatically appear on the top if the connection is successful;

    ../_images/e-mail_conf.png

  7. It’s best to click OK, then highlight the newly added e-mail address, click Save and then Settings again in order to adjust e-mail folders and batch settings;

Input folders

This is where you can define what folders to monitor for a specific mail address and also batch settings such as type, document separation and name;

Click on the Add button in order to add a folder to monitor. The default inbox will be added if there is one. Subfolder structures for inboxes is supported.

../_images/mail_input_folders.png

  • Mailbox - select what mailbox to monitor. Use the drop-down button to browse between mail folders;

  • Pull Interval - interval to check the mailboxes in seconds;

  • Batch creation mode:

    • Batch per mail - creates a new batch for every unread e-mail;

    • Batch per X Mails - creates a batch per X amount of e-mails. You can set a timeout in seconds to check between the e-mails;

    • Batch per X Minutes - creates a batch based on the time period adjusted in the Pull interval setting;

  • Document separation:

    • Every File is Document - treats a single-page or a multi-page file as a whole document;

    • Every X Pages are Document - separates multi-paged attachments per every X pages and creates a document based on the number you fill in that field (e.g. if set at 1 page per document and a 3-page doc is received, you will get 3 separate documents when you download the batch in Verify);

  • Batch Type and Document Type - use the drop-down button to select what batch type and document type to use for this e-mail inbox. You can use different batch types for different inboxes/folders;

  • Batch Name - use macros in order to add a naming convention for the batch;

  • Include E-mail body - includes the body of the e-mail as a document in Verify;

Tip

Make sure to click the Save button after each change in this menu. After you are done with all changes you can go ahead and click the OK button.