{"id":515,"date":"2012-06-22T15:37:38","date_gmt":"2012-06-22T22:37:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/?p=515"},"modified":"2023-10-21T15:29:01","modified_gmt":"2023-10-21T23:29:01","slug":"building-an-effective-capture-solution-part-3-of-3-storagebusiness-policyworkflow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/building-an-effective-capture-solution-part-3-of-3-storagebusiness-policyworkflow\/","title":{"rendered":"Building an effective capture solution \u2013 Part 3 of 3 (Storage\/Business Policy\/Workflow)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Building an effective capture solution \u2013 Part 3 of 3 (Storage\/Business Policy\/Workflow)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The real value of capture is realized when the information extracted from images is used within a business process whether this information is used, for example, to kick-off an approval process for expense reports, or this information is a Social Security Number used to retrieve your medical records.\u00a0 The &#8216;index values&#8217;, &#8216;metadata&#8217;, or &#8216;tags&#8217; (whatever) you would like to call these extracted keywords help create the workflow that helps make processes more efficient.\u00a0 After all, an image itself without recognized characters, numbers or words is useless to a computer for knowledge of what information is contained on the document.\u00a0 It&#8217;s the information on the document that is of most importance, not just the image.<\/p>\n<p>These days there are many great storage options for images and metadata captured but not all are created equal.\u00a0 Below are a few considerations for storage as it directly relates to document capture.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Storage considerations for document capture applications:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Does your storage, and image viewer, support well known\u00a0<strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">document formats<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong>such as TIFF, PDF, PJEG, DOC, XLS and others as well as emerging formats such as PDF\/A or XML?\u00a0 A universal viewer that supports a wide range of formats is preferable because you never know how requirements might change in the future.\u00a0 Also, you might want to consider a viewer that allows for annotation, or markup, of images with items such as sticky notes, highlighting or shapes if your process requirements dictate these needs.<\/li>\n<li>The capture process is all about extracting metadata from images so, therefore, does your storage provide a\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>metadata framework<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0in which you can store this information to enhance search and retrieval?\u00a0 Basically this means does the storage provider offer a method to map captured index fields to database storage fields.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Security<\/strong><\/span>.\u00a0 Of course security should be a major concern if your information is not intended for public consumption.\u00a0 While it&#8217;s an important issue, in general, if you ensure three simple features of your solution then you will address 80% of potential problems:\u00a0 (1) Secure disk-wiping of temporarily image files, (2) Encrypt data in motion and (3) Encrypt data at rest.\u00a0 Of course these are not the only three items to consider but start with these and research other security techniques based on the sensitivity of your information.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<table width=\"100%\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"10\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"file:\/\/\/C:\/Users\/kneal\/Documents\/My%20Web%20Sites\/buildi7.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/supporting_file_formats.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-928 aligncenter\" alt=\"supporting_file_formats\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/supporting_file_formats.png\" width=\"165\" height=\"122\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"file:\/\/\/C:\/Users\/kneal\/Documents\/My%20Web%20Sites\/buildi8.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/supporting_metadata.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-929 aligncenter\" alt=\"supporting_metadata\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/supporting_metadata.png\" width=\"167\" height=\"108\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"file:\/\/\/C:\/Users\/kneal\/Documents\/My%20Web%20Sites\/buildi9.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/encryption.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-930 aligncenter\" alt=\"encryption\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/encryption.png\" width=\"162\" height=\"101\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>Now that we have covered two of three basic components of &#8216;Building an effective capture solution&#8217; which included\u00a0<a title=\"Building an effective capture solution \u2013 Part 1 of 3 (User Experience\/Device\/Interface)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/?p=510\">User Experience<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a title=\"Building an effective capture solution \u2013 Part 2 of 3 (Capture\/Processing\/Transformation)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/?p=512\">Processing<\/a>\u00a0and having just outlined some Storage considerations, we should focus on the main theme of these posts and this is the point that &#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/?p=506\">Capture begins with process<\/a>&#8216;.\u00a0 In other words, and as I stated in the prelude to this series of blog posts, before considering all the technology and architectural options you should careful consider the business process or process workflow first.\u00a0 Capture does not begin with a scan of a paper or picture of an image from a smart phone, it begins with process.<\/p>\n<p>Below are a few considerations of business applications providers as it relates to document capture specifically:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Business rule considerations for capture:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Data Type constraints<\/span>.<\/strong>\u00a0 If the field is a \u2018Date\u2019 field then restrict the data in this field to only date values.\u00a0 Or if the field is a \u2018Social Security Number\u2019 or \u2018Phone Number\u2019, then, naturally, allow only number instead of letters.\u00a0 Conversely, if the field is a \u2018Name\u2019 field then the data type should only allow for letters instead of numbers.<\/li>\n<li>One of the greatest ways to ensure business continuity, as well as reduce errors in your document capture solution, is to perform\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>database validation<\/strong><\/span>.\u00a0 In other words, when a particular piece of information, such as a Phone Number, is extracted from a document then a database lookup is executed to match that the Address field corresponds with the Phone Number field.\u00a0 If it doesn&#8217;t, or there are multiple matches, then the capture workflow can automatically send the information to a validation station where a human will verify the correct data.\u00a0 This helps to achieve the highest level of accuracy.<\/li>\n<li>Handling\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>exceptions<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0is a critical, yet often overlooked part of the overall capture strategy.\u00a0 We all hope our system works 100 percent perfect but this is just not reality for many reasons.\u00a0 After all, there are a lot of moving parts in these types of solutions:\u00a0 People, process, hardware, software, client, server, etc.\u00a0 Be prepared, and actually expect the fact that &#8216;things&#8217; will happen.\u00a0 Try and define the possibilities.\u00a0 For example, if you are automatically classifying documents, expect that the system will have unrecognized documents and be prepared to send those to an exception queue for manual classification.\u00a0 Consequently this is also a great opportunity to &#8216;tune&#8217; the system by adding a classification technique to recognize this document type in the future.\u00a0 It&#8217;s an opportunity to create a process to improve the system accuracy over time from an activity that might have been perceived as a negative had exceptions not been considered.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<table width=\"100%\" border=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"file:\/\/\/C:\/Users\/kneal\/AppData\/Local\/Microsoft\/Windows\/Temporary%20Internet%20Files\/FrontPageTempDir\/wpkyrch2.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/data_type_constraints.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-931\" alt=\"data_type_constraints\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/data_type_constraints.png\" width=\"268\" height=\"281\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"file:\/\/\/C:\/Users\/kneal\/AppData\/Local\/Microsoft\/Windows\/Temporary%20Internet%20Files\/FrontPageTempDir\/wp334bl8.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/database_validation.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-932 aligncenter\" alt=\"database_validation\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/database_validation.png\" width=\"270\" height=\"272\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/database_validation.png 270w, https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/database_validation-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 270px) 100vw, 270px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>Now that we have discussed some of the high-level concepts of building an effective capture solution, I invite you to dig a bit deeper into specifics of each area of interest to you.\u00a0 We have many educational articles to supplement each of these three components of a solution including some of the following:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Building an effective capture solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/?p=510\">Part 1 of 3 (User Experience\/Device\/Interface)<\/a>:\u00a0\u00a0<a title=\"Why a network scanner?\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/?p=194\">Network scanning<\/a>,\u00a0<a title=\"Contributing content via mobile \u2013 Ubiquitous Information Capture\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/?p=414\">mobile<\/a>,\u00a0<a title=\"Getting the most out of your document capture solution \u2013 Multistream, color dropout for forms processing\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/?p=474\">multistream\/color dropout<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/?p=512\">Part 2 of 3 (Capture\/Processing\/Transformation)<\/a>:\u00a0\u00a0<a title=\"Trends Towards Higher Resolution Scanning\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/?p=161\">High resolution scanning<\/a>,\u00a0<a title=\"Demystifying Forms Processing and Data Capture\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/?p=440\">forms processing<\/a>,\u00a0<a title=\"Economies of scale:  Cloud processing\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/?p=464\">As a Service<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/?p=515\">Part 3 of 3 (Storage\/Business Policy\/Workflow)<\/a>:\u00a0\u00a0<a title=\"The SharePoint effect\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/?p=361\">SharePoint<\/a>,\u00a0<a title=\"Capture:  The ideal application for Cloud\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/?p=471\">cloud computing<\/a>,\u00a0<a title=\"The logic of document capture\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/?p=253\">taxonomies\/metadata<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Finally, if I could leave you with one bit of advice, or wisdom, from my industry experience is that in order to build a highly effective capture solution you should reverse-engineer the solution starting from the process and, ultimately, the choice of device and other considerations should be fairly obvious.\u00a0 Not device to process.\u00a0 Start by defining the process then build accordingly.\u00a0 This will ensure the highest level of success, efficiency and high user adoption.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/capture-begins-with-process_arrow.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-933\" alt=\"capture begins with process_arrow\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/capture-begins-with-process_arrow.png\" width=\"680\" height=\"75\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/capture-begins-with-process_arrow.png 680w, https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/capture-begins-with-process_arrow-300x33.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/capture-begins-with-process_network.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-934\" alt=\"capture begins with process_network\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/capture-begins-with-process_network.png\" width=\"668\" height=\"482\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/capture-begins-with-process_network.png 668w, https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/capture-begins-with-process_network-300x216.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 668px) 100vw, 668px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/512\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-935\" alt=\"capture_processing_transformation_arrow_leftfacing\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/capture_processing_transformation_arrow_leftfacing.png\" width=\"168\" height=\"89\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Building an effective capture solution \u2013 Part 3 of 3 (Storage\/Business Policy\/Workflow) &nbsp; The real value of capture is realized when the information extracted from images is used within a business process whether this information is used, for example, to kick-off an approval process for expense reports, or this information is a Social Security Number [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,93,109,3],"tags":[287,284,285,231,286],"class_list":["post-515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-capture","category-cloud-2","category-imaging","category-technology","tag-exceptions","tag-policy","tag-process","tag-storage","tag-workflow"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/capture-begins-with-process_network1.png",668,482,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/capture-begins-with-process_network1-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/capture-begins-with-process_network1-300x216.png",300,216,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/capture-begins-with-process_network1.png",668,482,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/capture-begins-with-process_network1.png",668,482,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/capture-begins-with-process_network1.png",668,482,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/capture-begins-with-process_network1.png",668,482,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/capture-begins-with-process_network1.png",210,152,false],"coral-dark-medium-large-2x":["https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/capture-begins-with-process_network1.png",668,482,false],"coral-dark-large-2x":["https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/capture-begins-with-process_network1.png",668,482,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Kevin","author_link":"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/author\/kneal\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Building an effective capture solution \u2013 Part 3 of 3 (Storage\/Business Policy\/Workflow) &nbsp; The real value of capture is realized when the information extracted from images is used within a business process whether this information is used, for example, to kick-off an approval process for expense reports, or this information is a Social Security Number&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13474,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515\/revisions\/13474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}