Producer: ACSYS BSC Limited

Modules: FA Database; FA Scan&Amin; FA Designer; FA Production Manager; FA Engine; FA Verifier; FA Export

FormAnalyzer integrates with Stellent Imaging and Business Process Management, Stellent Universal Content Management and all the other software products which accept and process recognition results and store corresponding images.

 

FormAnalyzer is a modular system designer to automate conversion of the forms from paper to electronic form. On the input there are paper forms and the output of the system consists usually of a set of text files containing content of the form’s fields.

FormAnalyzer supports scanning, recognition and verification and validation of the scanned forms.

With FormAnalyzer you can process documents with defined fields layout and unlimited number of pages. Documents can contain any attachments not containing recognized fields. Using ICR/OCR technology supports recognition of documents filled with handwriting and machine printing. Documents can also contain barcodes and filled by hand checkboxes.

It is possible to process different document types in one batch in any order. Individual document (form) types are recognized on the base of field layout and automatically sorted.

FormAnalyzer consists of the following modules:

• FormAnalyzer Designer

• FormAnalyzer Scan & Administrator

• FormAnalyzer Production Manager

• FormAnalyzer Engine (OCR/ICR BarCode)

• FormAnalyzer Verifier

• FormAnalyzer Database

• FormAnalyzer Export

The number and type of modules for the system implementation is selected according to the user needs, such as desired system throughput or characteristics of the forms processed.

Documents – either scanned or imported from files – are stored by FormAnalyzer Database. Relational database (Sybase SQL Anywhere) is used to hold description of the documents, for example date and time of creation, user creating document in the system, type of document and recognized or entered manually document’s contents. Database ensures proper synchronization between FormAnalyzer modules as well as security and integrity of data. Images of the documents pages are held on the volumes – file system folders designed for this purpose.

Typical document processing schema consists of four stages:

1.     Inserting documents into the system

This stage is realized by FormAnalyzer Scan&Administrator. Documents can be scanned or can be imported from the graphic files. Already in this step initial document processing can take place: page skew removal, image enhancement, document type recognition on the basis of barcodes.

2.     Automatic recognition of the documents’ contents

Documents’ contents is recognized by module FormAnalyzer Engine. Using descriptions of the document content recognition schemas stored in FormAnalyzer database (so called configuration files prepared in FormAnalyzer Designer) it automatically recognizes document contents. Engine features automatic validation and correction of invalid data. Recognition results – document’s content – is stored in FormAnalyzer database.

3.     Verification of the automatically recognized data

Verification of the document content validity is the most time consuming stage of document processing. It is performed by verification operators using FormAnalyzer Verifier module. Depending on the type of documents, significance of data and desired data quality verification process can be differently implemented (document workflow is designed in FormAnalyzer Production Manager). On one hand documents can be verified automatically, i.e. their content may be directed to destination systems without participation of human operators. On the other hand – for important data – the same document may be verified independently by two different operators and in the case when verified data is different, by the third person.

Different verification procedures can be used in one FormAnalyzer installation – decisions are made according to document type or even its contents.

Even in one document different fields can be verified differently: some, if only validation criteria are fulfilled, will not be shown to verification operators, others, independently of the remaining factors, will have to be entered twice.

All these mechanisms are used to find optimum balance between data quality after verification and time spent on verification of the data.

4.     Export of the documents’ content to the destination systems

The end of the documents processing is sending their contents to external destination systems, which perform further processing of these data. This step is performed by FormAnalyzer Export.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sample configuration of the FormAnalyzer system.