In this training, we’ll cover how to configure Content Central to monitor folders or email addresses using Capture Jobs. You can configure Content Central to monitor an email address or a folder on the Content Central server or somewhere else on your network so that anytime an email is sent to that address, or anytime a document arrives in that folder, Content Central will bring it into the system.
To set this up, you need to have access to Catalog Manager, which is an application that can only be run on the Content Central server itself and is not available through the admin menu in the web interface. A Capture Job is a collection of settings that we give Content Central to tell it what folder to monitor and how to handle the documents in that folder. An email Capture Job tells Content Central what email address to monitor and how to handle the documents that arrive there. Every document that comes into the system needs to have a catalog and document type assigned to it, even if it’s just a default one that may not match the document itself. Capture Jobs are configured by choosing a default catalog from the list of catalogs in Catalog Manager, selecting the “modify” button, and then the capture tab and choosing “add”. You can select the default document type in the drop-down here. Remember that the document type can be changed by the user later, or by any workflow you might set up. Be sure to give the Capture Job a name and optionally a description.
We’re going to set up a monitored folder first so we’ll leave the capture source set to folder instead of changing it to email. Capture Jobs are not enabled by default and we’re going to leave ours disabled for now until we’re ready. On the details tab, we’ll use the browse button so that Content Central opens up to the incoming folder that’s already set up with the Windows security permissions that we need. We can click the “Make New Folder” button to create a new Windows folder here and we can rename it “Scans”. The default settings for a Capture Job are to monitor a folder and expect documents that are an image type, or are a PDF. Documents that are an image type usually have extensions like tiff, jpeg, or BMP, and they may contain a picture with absolutely no text on it, a mixture of pictures and text like a copy of a magazine article, or a scan of a document that is nothing but text like a letter that was scanned at the office copier. When any documents that are an image type are placed in a monitored folder that is part of a Capture Job with the default settings, Content Central will perform optical character recognition, or OCR, on each of the image document and convert them to a PDF file. The PDF file contains the actual words or text that was in the image, but the text is in a better format for searching. In other words, Content Central converts the image document to a fully searchable PDF.
For instance, if I drop a tiff in a folder that has a Capture Job monitoring it with the default settings, that tiff will show up in the coding queue inside Content Central as a fully searchable PDF. This means I’ll be able to search for words or phrases within the document using the “find” function in the preview pane. Once I’ve committed the document from the coding queue and it’s officially entered the system, it will be added to the full text search area as well, so I can search for words or phrases within the document using the full text search boxes located on the main menu bar, or on the search pane.
Since the default settings are going to convert documents to a fully searchable PDF anyway, you can also drop PDF files into folders when using the default settings of a Capture Job. A great scenario for these default settings is when you’re configuring Content Central to monitor a folder that an office copier can send scans to. The reason this is a good fit is because many office copiers store their scans in an image type file like tiff or jpeg. If you want to configure your office copier to send scans directly to Content Central, then after you create and configure the Capture Job, you just need to configure the office copier to scan to the monitor folder that you specified in the job. Usually this means you’ll need to use Windows to share the newly-created monitored folder, and it also means you’ll need to set up the office copier with a shortcut or address book entry that users can choose when selecting where they want their scans to go.
Office copiers can be a bit tricky when configuring them to scan to a Windows folder because every office copier has a different method for configuring shortcuts or address book entries and also because it can be difficult to figure out the right security settings that a copier should use to gain access to the folder. Sometimes, it can be helpful to configure the Windows folder to allow the “everyone” group. If the everyone group has full control, then you can rule out other issues during testing. Before you enable your Capture Job, be sure to confirm that the scanner is actually sending the scans to the right place. If you’ve got things working right, you’ll see the document of here in the Windows folder right after you scan. Also, be sure that you can open the document. This lets us know that the office copier is sending the entire file and the file is not corrupted or incomplete in any way.
Finally, if you get stuck, consider contacting your IT department or your copier dealer for help. Capture Jobs that are configured to monitor a folder only pay attention to documents directly in that folder and they ignore any documents and any sub folders. Also, once Content Central has brought a document in for processing from the monitored folder, it will delete that document so that it doesn’t process it again. So be sure you’re ready for the document in that folder to disappear and then be stored Content Central before you enable your job. Some customers like to go a step further with their monitors folders and set up desktop shortcuts or Mac drives on each user’s desktop that opens up to the monitor folder. Remember that you need to share the folder so that it’s available on the network and you’ll need to configure the folder with the right security settings so that the user can see and write to it. With these steps done, users can copy and paste images and PDFs directly into the monitored folder to get them into Content Central.
If the user uses another system to generate important files, they can also use the save as menu item in that system to save directly to the monitored folder. Finally, some users have a special kind of printer configured on their computer that allows them to print to PDF. This process prompts them for a folder to save the PDF to, and they can select the monitored folder if they want to send a PDF straight to Content Central.
You might be wondering who can see a document that you drop into a monitored folder once it’s brought into Content Central. If the Capture Job is using the default settings, then it all depends on which users & groups have been given the view permission for the document type that was configured as the default document type on the Capture Job. For instance, if I have a Capture Job that is configured in the accounts payable catalog, and the default document type is “Purchase Orders”, then any user who has the view permission for the purchase order document type will be able to see any documents that are dropped in that monitor folder once they get into the system. Everyone in the accounting department will be able to view it as well since that group has been given the view permission for purchase order document types too.
This can be really useful in controlling who has access to scans coming into the system from a monitored folder. For instance, let’s say your organization has a human resources department that should not be able to see any incoming files for the accounting department and vice versa. An easy solution is to create a Capture Job for each department that monitors a different folder. The default document type for the accounting Capture Job can be an accounting document type like purchase orders or checks, and it will monitor its own folder just for accounting. The default document type for human resources Capture Job would be a human resources document type like a resume or an application. And would monitor its own folder just for human resources. The accounting department drops their documents into the accounting monitored folder and human resources department drop their documents into the human resources monitored folder. The appropriate default document type are assigned to documents that are dropped in these folders so that only the right users & groups have access to the documents. Since administrators have access to all document types, when an administrator logs in, he or she will be able to see documents for both departments in the queue both accounting and human resources. But let’s say Joe Smith is in the accounting department. When Joe logs in, he can’t see the human resources document because he hasn’t been given the view permission for them. Similarly, if Sarah Jones is in the human resources department, then when she logs in, she’ll only be able to see documents in the human resources catalog because that’s all she’s been given the view permission for both.
If both departments are using the same office copier, it’s a good idea to configure a shortcut or address book entry for each department. That way the accounting user just walks up to the office copier select the shortcut labeled “Accounting CC” and their scan is sent straight to Content Central with the right permissions so that only the accounting department will see the document. The human resources department would use the “HRCC” shortcut to get their document into Content Central with the right permissions for then. But if it’s important that one specific user and only that specific user can see the document when it first arrives, there are a few options to make sure this happens. If the document is already in electronic format and is located on a computer somewhere, then the user can use the electronic capture method on the capture screen along with the coding type of “post capture coding”. This will bring the document directly into the system for only then to see.
Finally, if the user only has the paper version of the document available and they need to scan it but the only scanner available is the office copier that everyone is using, then they can print a reusable cover sheet or “Q Card” that tells Content Central to route the document to their coding queue but no one else’s. On the general tab of the Capture Job, you can tell Content Central to monitor an email address instead of a folder by changing the capture source to email. When you do this, the details tab will ask you for the email settings it needs to connect to that email account, and allows you to choose whether you want to bring in the attachments or just the body.
Firewalls, spam filters, and email setting issues can get in the way of Content Central’s ability to connect to the email server, so it’s a good idea to test out the email addresses settings to make sure you have authentication and port settings that work, and to make sure that firewalls and spam filters aren’t getting in the way. Content Central will delete an email as soon as it has completed processing it, so make sure that you’re ready for those emails to be available only in Contents Central.
After you’ve configured your Capture Jobs, make sure that the Ademero Content Central capture service is running because it’s the service that does all the work with document capturing and processing. Documents with lots of pages will take longer to show up since each page needs to be processed. This processing includes rotation, deskewing the image, looking for zones, and performing OCR. This processing also includes converting the document to PDF.
The hardware specifications of your server along, with the number of threads your Content Central license supports will determine how quickly Content Central processes documents. If you have a high volume of documents coming into the system daily, or if you’re waiting too long for your documents to show up, you might want to consider upgrading your server’s hardware or purchasing a license key with additional threads from Ademero to speed up the processing.
In this video we covered the basics about Capture Jobs including how to monitor folders or email addresses.
