Kofax Integration
1 Introduction
Ascent Capture is a solution that allows scanning documents, extracting
information and releasing it to external modules for storage and further
processing. It is developed by
Kofax, a California
based company, part of
DICOM Group, a global
leader in Electronic Document Exchange.
eXo Platform is a cutting-edge product line of
Portal oriented solutions. One of them is
eXo JCR
(which stands for "Java Content Repository"). It can be considered as a
standard compliant database to store structured information, such as
enterprise documents. Another one is
eXo ECM
("Enterprise Content Management"). It is built on top of the former one and
enables to handle the complete lifecycle of documents, including capturing,
storing, management, publishing and backup.
It makes perfect sense to merge Ascent Capture and eXo Platform and obtain a
comprehensive chained solution, leveraging best of both components :
extraction for Ascent Capture,
storage and
management for eXo Platform.
2 Concepts
In Ascent Capture, the export of images and data is done through a "Release
Script", a Windows COM component that implements specific interfaces. eXo
Platform, on its side, is developed using Java. As a consequence, a means had to
be found to enable cross platform invocation. It was decided to select
WebDAV ("Web-based Distributed Authoring and
Versioning", sometimes abbreviated as "DAV").
WebDAV is an extension to the HTTP protocol which allows users to
collaboratively edit and manage files on remote web servers. It is opened and
standardized by a working group. There exists many clients supporting WebDAV,
such as Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, MS Office, Adobe Acrobat… It is also the
preferred protocol for remote access to the JCR in eXo Platform. Two things
are allowed. First, users can access Ascent Capture released documents
from any available client on their machine. A typical example is the Windows
Explorer. Second, it should be possible to leverage the eXo Release
Script to access *any WebDAV repository.
Big picture
The eXo Release Script releases a document in three steps:
- First, a node is created in the JCR, at a location specified by the
configuration. It represents the structured document. The name of this node
is obtained from the document data. Its default type is
kfx:document.
This is a convention node type in eXo Platform which allows to identify
all Ascent Capture released documents. Of course, custom node types can be
defined to specify accurately the document structure and ensure the
consistency of the repository.
- Then, child files are added to this node. They consist of Ascent
Capture artifacts, which can be of types PDF, TIFF and text.
- Finally, properties are set on the main node. They represent the
extracted information, more precisely the values of the Ascent index and batch
fields. The mapping between Ascent data fields and JCR properties is
configured when setting up the script. Two sets of destination JCR properties
are available :
- The structural properties hold content data contained by the scanned
document. Typical examples are "name", "address" or "customer identifier".
Those properties are often prefixed by the "kfx:" namespace, which gives
kfx:name,
kfx:address or
kfx:customer_identifier.
- The metadata properties hold content that describes the document. Examples
are "title", "date" or "description". Those properties are often a part of the
"Dublin Core"
http://dublincore.org/" set, which is grouped into the "dc:"
namespace. Example :
dc:title,
dc:date8 or *dc:description.
eXo Platform allows to define any additional set of metadata that best fit
your business requirements.
Once the documents are stored in the JCR, customed actions can be launched to
modify, check, or start a Content Validation workflow. They can also be
visualized or edited thanks to templates. A generic template is provided. It
basically lists each "kfx:" prefixed property and allows the downloading of binary
files. This template can be customized to reproduce faithfully the original
document look.
Generic template showing a sample document
3 Installation
The Release Script has been tested with Ascent Capture 7.0 Service Pack 3.
- Install the Microsoft .Net framework 2.0 Redistributable Package
available at
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0856eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5&displaylang=en}.
- Download the eXo Release Script from the project forge at
http://forge.objectweb.org/project/showfiles.php?group_id=151. Unzip
the obtained package in any directory.
- Launch the Ascent Capture Administration module, select the
"Release Script Manager" menu and click on the "Add button". Select the file
called "eXo.inf" in the directory containing the extracted Release Script
files.
If the installation is successful, the eXo Release Script has been added to
the list of available Release Scripts.
4 Configuration
The eXo Release Script setup dialog is divided into three tabs.
The
Connection tab allows providing information to access the JCR, such
as WebDAV URI, user name and password. In some eXo configuration, you might
have to append the name of the portal at the end of the password, like
"exo@ecm".
Connection tab
The
Destination tab enables to specify the JCR path where the documents
are stored by the Release Script. By convention, the first element of the
path is the name of the JCR Workspace, for instance
/draft. It is also
possible to specify the Node Type that will be used. Finally, the name of
the nodes should be linked with an Ascent Capture data field.
Destination tab
The
Mapping tab enables to link Ascent Capture data fields with JCR
properties. To add a mapping, first select a data field in the combobox.
The index fields and batch fields items are prefixed with the
index_fields and
batch_fields keywords respectively. Then insert a JCR
Property name and click on the "Add" button.
Mapping tab
5 Online demo
Online demonstration
Start Demo !
6 Troubleshooting and support
The release script might end up with the following error message : *MKCOL
returned a wrong status : 403 FORBIDDEN*. This happens in the case a
document already exists with the same name in the JCR. Indeed, for the safety
reason, the document cannot be overriden. It should be renamed or removed
beforehand.
Generally speaking, the eXo Release Script appends information to the Ascent
Capture logs. They can be helpful while diagnosing problems. For any question
or feedback, please post a message to the mailing list
mailto:exoplatform@objectweb.org.
