Keeping a Batch After Advanced Capture Processing

I ran into an interesting challenge with a customer and thought it might be something of interest to others. The challenge was in creating a way to have an entire batch of documents go through Advanced Capture processing and be returned to the input software, in this case ILINX Capture, as a single batch upon export.

Since the export from Advanced Capture is done on documents, not batches, there did not seem to be a good choice for making sure all the documents were exported for the batch. We also had to account for the import into ILINX Import where it was monitoring the export folder for the .txt file that contained the Advanced Capture document data fields and the pointer to the image file. Since the .txt file is added to as each document was exported, the major issue was one of timing. ILINX Import was set to look for the .txt file every couple of minutes, so it could be possible to see a .txt file that contained only one or two documents from all the documents in a batch. This meant that the documents would be split up into two batches back in ILINX Capture. The solution found was to implement a custom script into the workflow of the project properties.
On the workflow tab of the project properties the schema was switched from Simple to Advanced.  This allowed for the selection of the steps the batch would be processed.  Scanning, Recognition and Export were all that was needed but the user can add scripts as a step and then link it to one of the other steps.

We start by selecting the Plus Stage button.  This allows us to select the type of step to create.  We select the script option and that opens up the following window.

We give the step a name (in this case “Custom Script”) and then start configuring the step.  On the Script tab we select “Batch processing” so we know it is for a batch and not a document.  We can then use the Edit Script button to write the VB code that the script will execute.  In this instance the code is used to change the export .txt file to a .xyz file.  By making ILINX Import look for a .xyz file it does not see the .txt file and so does not process anything until the .xyz file is available. Since the code changes the .txt file to .xyz and does so only after the export stage we are assured that all documents in the batch have been exported.

The last step is to link to the Export Stage.  At first we thought that was done by placing the Custom Script stage after the Export Stage and relying on the automatic link between the two.  However, for the Export Stage there are two output links configured into the Stage, one to the Batch Integrity Check if export fails and one to the Exception Stage if export succeeds.  We had to change the output link for success to the Custom Script in order to have the script execute properly.  Once that was done everything work as needed.

This is just one small example of the power and flexibility of behind the ILINX Advanced Capture solution.

Chris Hillenburg
ImageSource, Inc.