Creating Automated Indexing for Scanned documents in Saperion

This is a quick guide on how to setup automated metadata capturing from scanned documents. Assuming you are a Saperion Administrator this should be rather simple. If you don’t know what anything here is, ask.

1. Let us decide what to call what. Saperion calls thins other names, so lets call the scanning overlay that defines where what items will be captured as the Document Formats. You will find this under Design > Tables > Document Formats

2. Now lets us load the DDC. The Document Definition (DDC) needs to be loaded, so lets open Design > Load and select the DDC of your choice

3. Now simply close the Edit Tables Definition dialog by choosing cancel. Saperion has the DDC loaded for use, but you don’t need to make changes on the fields.

4. Get the file you want to scan using OCR and load it into your documents. Right click on the file and select Display.The reason we do this is so that when we go on the Document Formats to select the fields, we need the document open. A little bit counter-intuitive, but hey.

5. Now open the Document Format. This will work for the DDC that you opened earlier. After it opens, select Insert then select your type of document, I will use PNG image files for this

6. Now select your new type and select Recognition. You will not get prompted for anything unless you did not open the file for display earlier.

7. Now select an area you want to OCR. And you will be rewarded with a Recognition window.

In here you can select the field you want to recognize, also whether you want to allow some noise, change the angle or what type of text. There is a plethora of options here.

8. Once you have selected Ok, the dialog will disappear and will show you on your document preview the area that has been selected. You can not select another area or simply click Recognition again. Never close down your displayed document or your fields do not get saved properly.

You will also see that you now have OCR next to your document type.

9. Once you are done selecting your areas you can close the Format Rules dialog by selecting OK. You will get prompted to save the DDC, select Yes if you are happy doing so. Selecting No will undo any changes..

10. To test you can use a scanning mask. Select your document, not just the individual file, go to Document Tray, choose your mask and click on Index. Make sure you have an OCR button on the mask.

11. When you hit OCR, you should be rewarded with the scanned item in the corresponding field.

Of course in all probability this did not happen, that is why you haven’t got this working in 6 months. Assuming you have OCR setup with Abbyy for Saperion and you have done every single configuration you are supposed to the most obvious problem might be closing the display form prematurely. If you do there is no prompt to warn you about the fact that your selections will not be saved. It is also advisable to do 1 field at a time. Test in then do the next field. You might need to fine-tune the area or something. When all else fails, ask.

Adrian.