MetaServer > Version History
CaptureBites MetaServer Version History
Here you will find all MetaServer release notes, including details of new features, improvements and fixes.
You can always download the latest version of MetaServer including Operator, Admin clients and sample workflows on the MetaServer Product Page. If you are looking for base installers without any sample workflows, please use this download page.
IMPORTANT: If you are updating from a MetaServer version lower than 3.1.3, it is possible that a Computer ID mismatch can occur.
On most systems, the update will not cause any problems. However, occasionally, on some systems this may cause a Computer ID mismatch after upgrading. To fix this issue, please refer to the Computer ID Mismatch troubleshoot page.
IMPORTANT: If you are updating from a MetaServer version lower than 3.1.1
IMPORTANT: If you are updating from a MetaServer version lower than 3.1.1, a pop-up window will ask you to request a serial number. If you haven't received a serial number already, please press the "Request a Serial Number" button and fill out the form. We will send you your serial number as soon as possible.
Please also note that old MetaServer activation codes (e.g. "K-123F0-12345-123B4-CD12B-C0D12-E1EB2") are not compatible with this version and future releases of MetaServer. You can apply for a replacement serial number through our online request form.
IMPORTANT: If you are updating from a MetaServer version lower than 3.0.23
IMPORTANT: If you are updating from a MetaServer version lower than 3.0.23, it is required to republish existing workflows. Select each of your workflows, make a small change, like adding and removing a space to the workflow description, and publish the workflow. If there are documents already imported in the workflow, then you do not have to apply the changes to these documents.
Version 3.1(10) | 2021-01-29
NEW #657 #680 #677: EXPORT PROCESSED SET TO EMAIL: The main use case for the Export Processed Set to Email action is to send an email after all documents of a set have been processed.
IMPORTANT: A set is a range of documents originating from a single PDF that was split in multiple documents using the Separate Document / Process Page action or by using the Organizer.
As soon as your workflow contains a Separate Document / Process Page action and/or Organize action, the Export Processed Set to Email action is automatically added at the end of your workflow. The Export Processed Set to Email action is disabled by default.
NEW #654: WORKFLOWS – MOVE ACTION UP AND DOWN BUTTONS: With the Move Up and Move Down buttons you can move Actions to better organize your workflows.
NOTE: Links between actions stay the same as actions are moved, so don’t forget to change those links if required.
NEW #690: SERVER – CONFIGURABLE DOCUMENT TIMEOUT: A document opened in Organizer or Validation is locked for other users and was automatically closed and unlocked for other users after 30 minutes to avoid documents being stuck in validation when someone went for lunch, for example, and forgot to close a document.
We now made this parameter configurable between 15 and 360 minutes. The setting is called “Document Timeout” and can be found in the Clients group in the Server Settings.
NEW #646: TASK – IMPORT METASERVER DATABASE: With the Import MetaServer Database action, you can import CSV files from any location in the local MetaServer DB folder:
C:\CaptureBites\MsData\DB
This is useful for creating a MetaServer database based on an external CSV generated by another program which places the CSV in an unchangeable / fixed location.
NEW #646: BACKUP METASERVER DATABASE: With the Backup MetaServer Database action, you can create a backup of a local MetaServer database and store it somewhere outside of the MetaServer DB folder.
NEW #658: NEW DIAGNOSTIC INFO: After loading the documents, MetaServer writes some info in:
C:\CaptureBites\MsData\Log\DocumentManager.CBMSLog
This log file shows the amount of memory used by its internal database, the document count and the average document size. The file is overwritten when it already exists.
ENHANCEMENT #661: EXPORT TO EMAIL: EMAIL THROUGH LOTUS NOTES SMTP – HANDLING OF NON-EXISTING RECIPIENT: If you try to email to an non-existing email address, most SMTP servers will handle this gracefully and not return an error to the sending application. Instead, it sends a warning email to the sender informing him that the recipient’s address does not exist.
Lotus Notes SMTP works differently and throws an error to the sending application. We now catch this error and send a warning email to the sender informing him that the recipient’s address does not exist.
Version 3.1(9) | 2020-12-14
NEW #324 #634 #635: VRS AUTO-ROTATE & DESKEW INCLUDED WITH TEXT & BARCODE EXTRACTION: The VRS auto-rotate and deskew functionality is now included with the purchase of the Text Extraction or Barcode Extraction module.
The auto-rotate and deskew correction is not only used to optimize Text, Barcode and OMR extraction but the file is also updated with the corrected result resulting in an improved processed file.
NEW #279: VALIDATE – TEXT: We’ve added “Email Address” to the Type list. The regular expression behind this type is:
/^[-a-z0-9~!$%^&_=+}{‘?]+(.[-a-z0-9~!$%^&=+}{‘?]+)*@([a-z0-9][-a-z0-9_](.[-a-z0-9_]+).[a-z]{2,6}|[0-9]{1,3}.[0-9]{1,3}.[0-9]{1,3}.[0-9]{1,3})(:[0-9]{1,5})?$/i
NEW #651: TASKS – NEW RESTART ACTION QUEUE TASK: We added a new task to Restart Action Queues on a scheduled basis. This task is called “Restart Action Queues”.
Action queues are selected by their type. All actions of the same type are restarted.
A restart consists of:
– pausing, stopping and unloading the threads of the selected queues
– instantiating and starting new threads of the same types
Example use-case:
A customer uses a large number of MetaServer databases.
– A MetaServer database is loaded in memory as soon as you access it for speed reasons.
– Imagine the MetaServer database name changes every day through a dynamic DB name based on index field. Every day, the newly named database will be loaded in memory and the old ones will also stay in memory.
These databases are accumulated over time until you run out of memory or until you restart MetaServer (restarting MetaServer unloads all databases).
Instead of doing this manually, you let a task run every day to unload all the databases automatically and only the databases that are used will be loaded in memory.
ENHANCEMENT #240: TEXT EXTRACTION FROM PDF FORMS (ACROFORM TYPE): The fields of a fillable PDF form (AcroForm Type) were not extracted by MetaServer. We can now directly extract AcroForm fields. AcroForm is the most common fillable PDF form format.
NOTE: The less common XFA forms created with Adobe LiveCycle Designer need to be converted to an image first to extract the field values, you do so by enabling the Apply OCR if PDF contains images option.
NEW #291: EXPORT TO EMAIL – HTML PREVIEW: We’ve added a Preview button to the HTML Tab to show the result of the HTML body in an HTML viewer pop-up.
Previously, you had to test your email body HTML code in an external viewer to check for errors or see the final result. You can now do this directly in the Export to Email setup by using the “Preview” button.
ENHANCEMENT #309: EXPORT TO EMAIL: We added a new HTML preset to insert a grid of 3 x 3 thumbnail pages in the email body to display up to the first 9 pages of the document.
ENHANCEMENT #278: EXPORT TO EMAIL: It is now possible to use an index field in the from and the cc field.
ENHANCEMENT #303: EXPORT TO DOCUWARE: The direct document link generated by the connector that you for example can include in an email message is now shorter. The trailing “&queryInInvariantCulture=False” was not required.
Version 3.1(8) | 2020-11-12
NEW: OPERATOR CLIENT: EXTRA LANGUAGE OPTIONS: you can now toggle between:
1) Czech
2) Dutch
3) English
4) French
5) German
6) Italian
7) Spanish
8) Portuguese
This is also available for the Organizer, Validation and Error tab of the Admin Client.
If you require a translation for an unlisted language, please contact us for a localization kit.
NEW #630: NEW CREATION DOCUMENT DATE AND TIME VARIABLES: The date and time is the when the file was originally created.
Imagine that the MFP created the file on 1-NOV-2020 10:30h. You copy or move the file to the MetaServer’s watched folder 3 days later on 4-NOV-2020 12:00. The Creation Date / Time would, in this case, be 1-NOV-2020 10:30h.
NEW #632: EXPORT TO ALFRESCO: SUPPORT FOR ALFRESCO ASPECTS: The Export to Alfresco action now supports Alfresco Aspects. Aspects are global properties that can be used with any Alfresco document type.
1) Aspects are implemented with CMIS 1.1 and CMIS 1.1 Basic Authentication. The “Aspects” button is disabled with other protocols.
2) Aspects can be selected from a list after clicking the “Aspects” button next to “Content type”.
3) A content type must be selected, multiple aspects may be selected. The index fields list show the fields of the content type and the different aspects.
ENHANCEMENT #436: EXPORT TO EMAIL / EXPORT TO ALFRESCO: Added the possibility to use fields as values to set parameters. These allow you to dynamically change settings to, for example, easily switch between Production system and a Test system.
The following parameters now accept fields:
1) Export to Email:
– User Name
– Password
– From
– Display Name
2) Export to Alfresco:
– Address
– User Name
– Password
NEW: #633: IMPORT FROM FOLDER: SCHEDULED PROCESSING OPTION:
Setup shows up to 3 Start processing times:
MetaServer will start importing all available documents at the defined time(s). When finished, MetaServer will wait until the next defined time to import more documents.
For example, if you want to process all documents scanned so far at 12:00 at noon and at 18:00 (6 PM), then you set Time 1 to 12:00 and Time 2 to 18:00.
If 20 documents are available at 12:00, all 20 documents will be processed. Then, MetaServer will wait until 18:00 (6 PM) before starting to process additional documents that arrived between 12:00 and 18:00 (6 PM).
This feature can be used in a notification workflow to send email notifications to people who received scanned mail by postal services. This is a short description of the logic:
You have to define two workflows:
Workflow 1) The first workflow saves the scanned mail once in the user folders and a second time in the watched folder of the second workflow. So you have to define two Export to Folder actions in your main workflow.
The second export is configured in “overwrite if file exists” mode and exports the scanned mail a second time to the watched folder of workflow 2 which will send the notification emails. If a user has received one or more mailings, there will be one PDF in the watched folder of workflow 2 for that user.
If a user has not received any mail, there will be no PDF in the watched folder of workflow 2.
Workflow 2) The second workflow uses the new “Scheduled processing” option and imports PDF files at 12:00 or another moment in time.
The second workflow does nothing with the PDF, it mainly uses it as a trigger to send a notification email to each user who has received an email. User information and other information can be contained in the file name to pass it to the second workflow and to use it in the notification email.
In short, workflow 2 consists of 3 actions.
Action 1) Import is only done once a day, but you have the flexibility to schedule it up to three times a day at fixed times. You have to delete the imported files to get this notification processing daily.
Action 2) The Extract action is purely there to extract data from the name and subfolder of the imported PDFs (recipient name, recipient email,…) for use in the notification email.
Action 3) Export to Email. You select PDF attachment but you uncheck “Attach files”. The idea is to send an email notification without attachments.
NEW #628: EXPORT TO EMAIL: We added “Request a read receipt” option.
NEW #522: VALIDATE – DATABASE LOOKUP: BLACKLIST VALUES: you are now able to blacklist values in the Validate Database Lookup setup. This list can be made in the Blacklist setup or you can specify a field containing a list (the values need to be separated by a semi-colon).
Version 3.1(7) | 2020-10-20
If you require a translation for an unlisted language, please contact us for a localization kit.
Confirmed languages for next build:
– German
– Italian
– Portuguese
– Spanish
NEW #162: PDF MRC: This new option is now complete and fully implemented. PDF MRC reduces the size of a 300 dpi JPG image with about 90 to 95%.
We also made it possible to compress images using JPEG 2000 (J2K). This results in excellent image quality with a file that is about 70% smaller than a traditional JPG compressed image.
NEW: #522: VALIDATE – TEXT: BLACKLIST VALUES: you are now able to blacklist values in the Validate Text setup.
This list can be made in the Blacklist setup or you can specify a field containing a list (the values need to be separated by a semi-colon).
NEW #530: VALIDATION: STICKY VALUES: When a validation field is specified as “Sticky”, then the last value is saved and presented automatically as the value for the next document.
Common Use-Cases for a Sticky Value:
1) The operator validates all documents of a box. It introduces the box number when he starts validating the first document, then the box number stays the same for all following documents until he changes it when starting the validation for a new box of documents.
2) The operator enters the contract date for a series of a contracts with the same date. He enters the correct date on the first contract and it stays the same on all following contracts until he changes it again.
The sticky value is stored per station, per workflow and per sticky field.
When the operator closes the Operator Client or Admin client, and opens it again, the last-used value is presented again in the sticky fields.
NEW #532: VALIDATE – TEXT: DOUBLE-ENTRY: “Double-entry” or “Double-Keying” is a process used by operators when they need to enter important information twice. The two entries are then compared with each other to ensure that they match.
When the operator presses ENTER or navigates to the next entry, then the first entry is obfuscated. This is a safety measure for the operator so that they are not tempted to just read the value from the first entry but is forced to look at the document again to enter the second value. It is not possible to Copy / Paste the values.
NEW #543: Make it possible to forget a server. Previously, every selected MetaServer was listed in the Select Server drop-down. However, it was not possible to remove a server from that list. Now, you can right-click any of the servers and select “Forget This Server” to remove it from the list.
NEW #562: CHANGE DATA DRIVE: Modern servers have relatively small SSD drive to hold Windows and key software. The data is kept on a large secondary internal hard drive.
It is now possible to move MetaServer’s data that holds all queued documents, MetaServer databases, workflows, logs, etc. to another drive than the C drive. Typically to a larger internal hard drive. In the server tab, you have a new function called “Data Drive“. It lists all available internal drives. For each drive, you can see the total size and its free space. You can also check the space taken by MetaServer’s data folder.
You simply select the drive you want to move the data folder to and press “Move…”
A warning message will pop up:
When pressing Yes, all data will be moved. Depending on the size of your data folder, this can take some time.
At the end of the process you can decide to keep the original data folder intact or delete the files in the original data folder.
NEW #561: BOOKLET SPLITTER: Booklets or saddle stitched books can be easily produced with modern digital copiers. The copier automatically prints pages in the right sequence, folds the paper and staples the book in the middle delivering a nice booklet in the output tray.
This booklet format is often used by attorneys or notaries to produce contracts, deeds, statements or notarial acts. Also surveys, exams, admission forms etc. are often printed in booklet format.
To split the folded booklets in individual pages with MetaServer, the booklets simply need to be unstapled and unfolded. After scanning the unfolded booklets with a wide duplex scanner, you end up with A3 (297 × 420 mm) or Ledger sized images (11″x17″), in case the folded booklet is A4 or letter size, containing 4 pages per sheet (2 on the front and 2 on the back) in an awkward sequence.
MetaServer’s Split Booklets action will split the unfolded pages in two and put them in the correct sequence.
To demonstrate the Booklet Splitter, we added a new workflow called: CB – BOOKLET SPLITTER
- Samples are available in: C:\META-DEMO\MFP\BOOKLET-SPLITTER
- Copy them in: C:\META-IN\MFP\BOOKLET-SPLITTER to split them
- The result will first be displayed in the Organizer to show the result during a demo, and after approval the result will be placed in PDF format in C:\META-OUT\MFP\BOOKLET-SPLITTER
NEW #575: VRS DESKEW AND AUTO-ROTATE IS NOW INCLUDED WITH TEXT EXTRACTION: New and existing MetaServer licenses that have the Text Extraction module enabled also get access to VRS Deskew, Auto-Rotate and fixed Rotate options.
For existing MetaServer licenses, you simply have to refresh your license to enable the VRS Deskew & Rotate option. Auto-Rotating and deskewing your scanned images before extraction helps improve the OCR read rate. It is just a matter of adding a VRS action and only enable the deskew and one of the Rotate options.
Converting to black & white requires the full VRS option, so make sure that VRS is configured in color mode.
Version 3.1(7) | 2020-10-20
If you require a translation for an unlisted language, please contact us for a localization kit.
Confirmed languages for next build:
– German
– Italian
– Portuguese
– Spanish
NEW #162: PDF MRC: This new option is now complete and fully implemented. PDF MRC reduces the size of a 300 dpi JPG image with about 90 to 95%.
We also made it possible to compress images using JPEG 2000 (J2K). This results in excellent image quality with a file that is about 70% smaller than a traditional JPG compressed image.
NEW: #522: VALIDATE – TEXT: BLACKLIST VALUES: you are now able to blacklist values in the Validate Text setup.
This list can be made in the Blacklist setup or you can specify a field containing a list (the values need to be separated by a semi-colon).
NEW #530: VALIDATION: STICKY VALUES: When a validation field is specified as “Sticky”, then the last value is saved and presented automatically as the value for the next document.
Common Use-Cases for a Sticky Value:
1) The operator validates all documents of a box. It introduces the box number when he starts validating the first document, then the box number stays the same for all following documents until he changes it when starting the validation for a new box of documents.
2) The operator enters the contract date for a series of a contracts with the same date. He enters the correct date on the first contract and it stays the same on all following contracts until he changes it again.
The sticky value is stored per station, per workflow and per sticky field.
When the operator closes the Operator Client or Admin client, and opens it again, the last-used value is presented again in the sticky fields.
NEW #532: VALIDATE – TEXT: DOUBLE-ENTRY: “Double-entry” or “Double-Keying” is a process used by operators when they need to enter important information twice. The two entries are then compared with each other to ensure that they match.
When the operator presses ENTER or navigates to the next entry, then the first entry is obfuscated. This is a safety measure for the operator so that they are not tempted to just read the value from the first entry but is forced to look at the document again to enter the second value. It is not possible to Copy / Paste the values.
NEW #543: Make it possible to forget a server. Previously, every selected MetaServer was listed in the Select Server drop-down. However, it was not possible to remove a server from that list. Now, you can right-click any of the servers and select “Forget This Server” to remove it from the list.
NEW #562: CHANGE DATA DRIVE: Modern servers have relatively small SSD drive to hold Windows and key software. The data is kept on a large secondary internal hard drive.
It is now possible to move MetaServer’s data that holds all queued documents, MetaServer databases, workflows, logs, etc. to another drive than the C drive. Typically to a larger internal hard drive. In the server tab, you have a new function called “Data Drive“. It lists all available internal drives. For each drive, you can see the total size and its free space. You can also check the space taken by MetaServer’s data folder.
You simply select the drive you want to move the data folder to and press “Move…”
A warning message will pop up:
When pressing Yes, all data will be moved. Depending on the size of your data folder, this can take some time.
At the end of the process you can decide to keep the original data folder intact or delete the files in the original data folder.
NEW #561: BOOKLET SPLITTER: Booklets or saddle stitched books can be easily produced with modern digital copiers. The copier automatically prints pages in the right sequence, folds the paper and staples the book in the middle delivering a nice booklet in the output tray.
This booklet format is often used by attorneys or notaries to produce contracts, deeds, statements or notarial acts. Also surveys, exams, admission forms etc. are often printed in booklet format.
To split the folded booklets in individual pages with MetaServer, the booklets simply need to be unstapled and unfolded. After scanning the unfolded booklets with a wide duplex scanner, you end up with A3 (297 × 420 mm) or Ledger sized images (11″x17″), in case the folded booklet is A4 or letter size, containing 4 pages per sheet (2 on the front and 2 on the back) in an awkward sequence.
MetaServer’s Split Booklets action will split the unfolded pages in two and put them in the correct sequence.
To demonstrate the Booklet Splitter, we added a new workflow called: CB – BOOKLET SPLITTER
- Samples are available in: C:\META-DEMO\MFP\BOOKLET-SPLITTER
- Copy them in: C:\META-IN\MFP\BOOKLET-SPLITTER to split them
- The result will first be displayed in the Organizer to show the result during a demo, and after approval the result will be placed in PDF format in C:\META-OUT\MFP\BOOKLET-SPLITTER
NEW #575: VRS DESKEW AND AUTO-ROTATE IS NOW INCLUDED WITH TEXT EXTRACTION: New and existing MetaServer licenses that have the Text Extraction module enabled also get access to VRS Deskew, Auto-Rotate and fixed Rotate options.
For existing MetaServer licenses, you simply have to refresh your license to enable the VRS Deskew & Rotate option. Auto-Rotating and deskewing your scanned images before extraction helps improve the OCR read rate. It is just a matter of adding a VRS action and only enable the deskew and one of the Rotate options.
Converting to black & white requires the full VRS option, so make sure that VRS is configured in color mode.
Version 3.1(7) | 2020-10-20
If you require a translation for an unlisted language, please contact us for a localization kit.
Confirmed languages for next build:
– German
– Italian
– Portuguese
– Spanish
NEW #162: PDF MRC: This new option is now complete and fully implemented. PDF MRC reduces the size of a 300 dpi JPG image with about 90 to 95%.
We also made it possible to compress images using JPEG 2000 (J2K). This results in excellent image quality with a file that is about 70% smaller than a traditional JPG compressed image.
NEW: #522: VALIDATE – TEXT: BLACKLIST VALUES: you are now able to blacklist values in the Validate Text setup.
This list can be made in the Blacklist setup or you can specify a field containing a list (the values need to be separated by a semi-colon).
NEW #530: VALIDATION: STICKY VALUES: When a validation field is specified as “Sticky”, then the last value is saved and presented automatically as the value for the next document.
Common Use-Cases for a Sticky Value:
1) The operator validates all documents of a box. It introduces the box number when he starts validating the first document, then the box number stays the same for all following documents until he changes it when starting the validation for a new box of documents.
2) The operator enters the contract date for a series of a contracts with the same date. He enters the correct date on the first contract and it stays the same on all following contracts until he changes it again.
The sticky value is stored per station, per workflow and per sticky field.
When the operator closes the Operator Client or Admin client, and opens it again, the last-used value is presented again in the sticky fields.
NEW #532: VALIDATE – TEXT: DOUBLE-ENTRY: “Double-entry” or “Double-Keying” is a process used by operators when they need to enter important information twice. The two entries are then compared with each other to ensure that they match.
When the operator presses ENTER or navigates to the next entry, then the first entry is obfuscated. This is a safety measure for the operator so that they are not tempted to just read the value from the first entry but is forced to look at the document again to enter the second value. It is not possible to Copy / Paste the values.
NEW #543: Make it possible to forget a server. Previously, every selected MetaServer was listed in the Select Server drop-down. However, it was not possible to remove a server from that list. Now, you can right-click any of the servers and select “Forget This Server” to remove it from the list.
NEW #562: CHANGE DATA DRIVE: Modern servers have relatively small SSD drive to hold Windows and key software. The data is kept on a large secondary internal hard drive.
It is now possible to move MetaServer’s data that holds all queued documents, MetaServer databases, workflows, logs, etc. to another drive than the C drive. Typically to a larger internal hard drive. In the server tab, you have a new function called “Data Drive“. It lists all available internal drives. For each drive, you can see the total size and its free space. You can also check the space taken by MetaServer’s data folder.
You simply select the drive you want to move the data folder to and press “Move…”
A warning message will pop up:
When pressing Yes, all data will be moved. Depending on the size of your data folder, this can take some time.
At the end of the process you can decide to keep the original data folder intact or delete the files in the original data folder.
NEW #561: BOOKLET SPLITTER: Booklets or saddle stitched books can be easily produced with modern digital copiers. The copier automatically prints pages in the right sequence, folds the paper and staples the book in the middle delivering a nice booklet in the output tray.
This booklet format is often used by attorneys or notaries to produce contracts, deeds, statements or notarial acts. Also surveys, exams, admission forms etc. are often printed in booklet format.
To split the folded booklets in individual pages with MetaServer, the booklets simply need to be unstapled and unfolded. After scanning the unfolded booklets with a wide duplex scanner, you end up with A3 (297 × 420 mm) or Ledger sized images (11″x17″), in case the folded booklet is A4 or letter size, containing 4 pages per sheet (2 on the front and 2 on the back) in an awkward sequence.
MetaServer’s Split Booklets action will split the unfolded pages in two and put them in the correct sequence.
To demonstrate the Booklet Splitter, we added a new workflow called: CB – BOOKLET SPLITTER
- Samples are available in: C:\META-DEMO\MFP\BOOKLET-SPLITTER
- Copy them in: C:\META-IN\MFP\BOOKLET-SPLITTER to split them
- The result will first be displayed in the Organizer to show the result during a demo, and after approval the result will be placed in PDF format in C:\META-OUT\MFP\BOOKLET-SPLITTER
NEW #575: VRS DESKEW AND AUTO-ROTATE IS NOW INCLUDED WITH TEXT EXTRACTION: New and existing MetaServer licenses that have the Text Extraction module enabled also get access to VRS Deskew, Auto-Rotate and fixed Rotate options.
For existing MetaServer licenses, you simply have to refresh your license to enable the VRS Deskew & Rotate option. Auto-Rotating and deskewing your scanned images before extraction helps improve the OCR read rate. It is just a matter of adding a VRS action and only enable the deskew and one of the Rotate options.
Converting to black & white requires the full VRS option, so make sure that VRS is configured in color mode.
Version 3.1(7) | 2020-10-20
If you require a translation for an unlisted language, please contact us for a localization kit.
Confirmed languages for next build:
– German
– Italian
– Portuguese
– Spanish
NEW #162: PDF MRC: This new option is now complete and fully implemented. PDF MRC reduces the size of a 300 dpi JPG image with about 90 to 95%.
We also made it possible to compress images using JPEG 2000 (J2K). This results in excellent image quality with a file that is about 70% smaller than a traditional JPG compressed image.
NEW: #522: VALIDATE – TEXT: BLACKLIST VALUES: you are now able to blacklist values in the Validate Text setup.
This list can be made in the Blacklist setup or you can specify a field containing a list (the values need to be separated by a semi-colon).
NEW #530: VALIDATION: STICKY VALUES: When a validation field is specified as “Sticky”, then the last value is saved and presented automatically as the value for the next document.
Common Use-Cases for a Sticky Value:
1) The operator validates all documents of a box. It introduces the box number when he starts validating the first document, then the box number stays the same for all following documents until he changes it when starting the validation for a new box of documents.
2) The operator enters the contract date for a series of a contracts with the same date. He enters the correct date on the first contract and it stays the same on all following contracts until he changes it again.
The sticky value is stored per station, per workflow and per sticky field.
When the operator closes the Operator Client or Admin client, and opens it again, the last-used value is presented again in the sticky fields.
NEW #532: VALIDATE – TEXT: DOUBLE-ENTRY: “Double-entry” or “Double-Keying” is a process used by operators when they need to enter important information twice. The two entries are then compared with each other to ensure that they match.
When the operator presses ENTER or navigates to the next entry, then the first entry is obfuscated. This is a safety measure for the operator so that they are not tempted to just read the value from the first entry but is forced to look at the document again to enter the second value. It is not possible to Copy / Paste the values.
NEW #543: Make it possible to forget a server. Previously, every selected MetaServer was listed in the Select Server drop-down. However, it was not possible to remove a server from that list. Now, you can right-click any of the servers and select “Forget This Server” to remove it from the list.
NEW #562: CHANGE DATA DRIVE: Modern servers have relatively small SSD drive to hold Windows and key software. The data is kept on a large secondary internal hard drive.
It is now possible to move MetaServer’s data that holds all queued documents, MetaServer databases, workflows, logs, etc. to another drive than the C drive. Typically to a larger internal hard drive. In the server tab, you have a new function called “Data Drive“. It lists all available internal drives. For each drive, you can see the total size and its free space. You can also check the space taken by MetaServer’s data folder.
You simply select the drive you want to move the data folder to and press “Move…”
A warning message will pop up:
When pressing Yes, all data will be moved. Depending on the size of your data folder, this can take some time.
At the end of the process you can decide to keep the original data folder intact or delete the files in the original data folder.
NEW #561: BOOKLET SPLITTER: Booklets or saddle stitched books can be easily produced with modern digital copiers. The copier automatically prints pages in the right sequence, folds the paper and staples the book in the middle delivering a nice booklet in the output tray.
This booklet format is often used by attorneys or notaries to produce contracts, deeds, statements or notarial acts. Also surveys, exams, admission forms etc. are often printed in booklet format.
To split the folded booklets in individual pages with MetaServer, the booklets simply need to be unstapled and unfolded. After scanning the unfolded booklets with a wide duplex scanner, you end up with A3 (297 × 420 mm) or Ledger sized images (11″x17″), in case the folded booklet is A4 or letter size, containing 4 pages per sheet (2 on the front and 2 on the back) in an awkward sequence.
MetaServer’s Split Booklets action will split the unfolded pages in two and put them in the correct sequence.
To demonstrate the Booklet Splitter, we added a new workflow called: CB – BOOKLET SPLITTER
- Samples are available in: C:\META-DEMO\MFP\BOOKLET-SPLITTER
- Copy them in: C:\META-IN\MFP\BOOKLET-SPLITTER to split them
- The result will first be displayed in the Organizer to show the result during a demo, and after approval the result will be placed in PDF format in C:\META-OUT\MFP\BOOKLET-SPLITTER
NEW #575: VRS DESKEW AND AUTO-ROTATE IS NOW INCLUDED WITH TEXT EXTRACTION: New and existing MetaServer licenses that have the Text Extraction module enabled also get access to VRS Deskew, Auto-Rotate and fixed Rotate options.
For existing MetaServer licenses, you simply have to refresh your license to enable the VRS Deskew & Rotate option. Auto-Rotating and deskewing your scanned images before extraction helps improve the OCR read rate. It is just a matter of adding a VRS action and only enable the deskew and one of the Rotate options.
Converting to black & white requires the full VRS option, so make sure that VRS is configured in color mode.
Version 3.1(6) | 2020-09-03
NEW #540: WORKFLOWS – HIGHLIGHTER TO ORGANIZE WORKFLOW ACTIONS: The Workflows tab now features a highlighter tool to mark up actions belonging to each other in the same color.
The tool is also available in the context sensitive right-click menu for each of the actions.
The tool is useful when working with complex workflows containing distribute trees and conditional actions.
NEW #544: CONVERT TO JPG: You can now convert any imported file format to JPG. You can also set the JPG quality level.
When importing JPGs, you also need to go through a Convert to JPG action if you want to output the processed documents (separated / rotated / blanks deleted) in JPG format. To output the processed JPGs, select Processed JPG as the File Source in your export action.
NEW #507: NEW VARIABLE { Document File Type }: this new variable can be equal to one of the following values:
– JPG
– PNG
– TIF
– PDF
– PDF AcroForm
– PDF Image
– PDF Image with Text
– PDF Text
– PDF XFA
– Unknown
You would typically use a Set Field Value rule to populate a field with the Document File Type. Next, you can use a Distribute action to handle each File Type individually.
NEW #517: EXPORT TO BOX – USE BOX ID FOR SUBFOLDER: This new option allows you to provide a direct Box subfolder ID to accelerate export to Box with structures containing 10000s of subfolders.
The subfolder ID must be contained in a MetaServer field and should be selected as the Box ID in the setup. If the Box ID does not exist, MetaServer will fall back using the subfolder structure as defined in the Name entry of the setup.
To disable the feature and define all subfolders in the Document name entry of the main setup as before, just leave the Box ID field empty.
NEW #526: EXTRACT – SUPPORT TO USE ADDITIONAL CORES: So far, MetaServer used only 1 Extraction processing queue. It is now possible to purchase additional queues to leverage systems with multiple cores and increase performance.
Tests on a quad core system tripled the Extraction speed when going from 1 Extraction queue to 4 Extraction queues.
Please note that, if you have a workflow that already uses Kofax VRS, Convert to Searchable PDF, etc. these actions were already using their own queues and consume CPU resources. This means that you won’t get the same performance increase compared to a system mainly used for Extraction of metadata.
ENHANCEMENT #558: SERVER – IMPROVED WARNINGS WHEN THE CLIENT IS NOT CONNECTED TO A METASERVER: If the user prematurely interrupts the MetaServer discovery when they open the Admin or Operator client for the first time, a warning message is displayed:
When the user opens the backstage to activate or check his license without a MetaServer connection, the activation fields are grayed out and a big red warning message indicates: “”No MetaServer connected! Please go back to the main window and select a MetaServer.”
Version 3.1(5) | 2020-07-21
This patch is automatically installed from this version on. Technically VrsSdkPatch.exe is ran automatically in quiet mode at the end of the MetaServer and Admin installation.
ENHANCEMENT: VALIDATION DEFAULTS: We changed “View” and “Zoom” defaults to “Input (manual navigation)” and “Page width” which are the most commonly used settings.
ENHANCEMENT: EXPORT TO BOX CACHE ENHANCEMENTS:
1) We now store all folders in cache during parsing even those that we don’t need for the current document
2) We now adjust the “parse item count” automatically based on what Box reports as the maximum parse count. Previously, it was set to a fixed value of 100 items, but, apparently, Box typically allows a maximum of 1000 items, reducing the number of Box calls with a factor 10.
FIX: EXPORT TO FOLDER: Previously, the Export to Folder action failed when setting the folder to a server path without subfolders.
When the export folder just contained a server name, like “\\\\LOCALHOST”, and when you exported documents in subfolders under this server path, and those subfolders already existed, then multiple copies of the same file got exported indefinitely. This has been fixed.
FIX: EXPORT TO ENADOC: The user name was not saved correctly, causing export failures.
Version 3.1(4) | 2020-07-10
NEW: EXPORT TO ENADOC: Enadoc is a cloud-based or on-premise DMS that provides user-friendly features to manage large document libraries. The key features of the solution includes enterprise search, on screen document viewers, custom metadata, ability to implement multiple security levels at user and document level, document retention policy management, records management, integration with external systems and disaster recovery capabilities.
For more info, please visit www.enadoc.com
The Export to Enadoc action allows you to export documents to a specific Enadoc library using a Tag profile of choice to set the document’s security level. It also includes the possibility to set a document link that can be shared via email (using an Export to Email action) or include as a hyperlink in a CSV, XML file or database table.
NEW: EDIT – ADD EXTERNAL DOCUMENTS: Use the Add External Documents action to append or prepend additional documents that already exist on disk to the document processed by MetaServer.
For example, you can process a check with MetaServer, read the invoice numbers covered by the check with an extract action and store them in a field called Invoice List.
Next, you use an Add External Documents action to append these invoices already stored on disk and named after their invoice number to the check.
ENHANCEMENT: KOFAX VRS: SHOW FILE SIZE BEFORE AND AFTER VRS PROCESSING: We now show the file size of the page above the viewers before (left side) and after (right side) processing.
ENHANCEMENT: EXPORT TO BOX: You can now also see the field type in the field mapping table (string, date, float or enum). If the field is of the enum type, you can also see the allowed values in Box through a drop-down.
Version 3.1(3) | 2020-06-19
You can map MetaServer fields with Box metadata attributes for precise searching. You can also generate searchable PDFs (or PDF/A) to perform a search on any word in your scanned documents stored in Box.
Once your documents reside in Box, they also become mobile. Box apps are available for Android, iOS and Windows smart phones and tablets. And if you want to store documents on your local system or server, install the Box sync software to keep a local replica of your documents as well.
We spend a lot of time optimizing the export to BOX for speed to handle large document volumes, we accomplished this by caching folder IDs and by using multiple export threads.
You can use the Box connector with any of Box’ subscription plans. However, Metadata & custom templates are only available starting from the Business Plus plan.
NEW: CONVERT – KOFAX VRS: with this new Convert action you can improve image quality. Here are some of Kofax VRS’ key functions:
Perfect Images: Get process-ready images enhancing faint text enabling better recognition and OCR extraction rates.
Color Detection: Detect and retain color in mixed batches of color and black-and-white documents without presorting. Black-and-white documents are stored as very compact files.
Automatic Deskew: Automatically crop and deskew each image based on the content of the original documents.
Auto Orientation: Automatically rotate a page that is scanned in a non-standard orientation.
Blank Page Deletion: Intelligently delete blank pages.
Hole Punch Removal: Eliminate hole punch markings with the surrounding page color.
Cloud-Friendly Images: Suppress noisy backgrounds and shaded areas, resulting in ultra-compact image files that are ideal for display and rapid retrieval over the web.
In the below screenshot, you can see Auto Orientation, Automatic Deskew, Faint Text Enhancement and Hole Punch Removal in action.
If you install MetaServer with the full installer, which you can download from the MetaServer product page, a number of demo documents will be placed in:
“C:\\META-DEMO\\MFP\\KOFAX VRS”
These demo documents are perfect to experiment with the different VRS settings.
NEW: CONVERT TO PDF/A: with the Convert to PDF/A action, you can convert standard PDF files to archivable PDF files for long-term preservation (PDF/A).
NEW: IMPORT EMAIL – DISK SOURCE: you now have two import sources in the Import Email action: IMAP and Disk. When you select Disk as a source, you can import .eml and .msg files from a watched folder instead of watching an email inbox through IMAP.
NEW: IMPORT EMAIL: Replace invalid files / password protected files with a warning image.
Before, invalid / corrupt attachments and password protected attachments were moved to the errors tab and valid attachments continued to be processed. With these new options enabled, the files will be replaced with warning images. This makes it visually clear that some attachments were corrupt or password protected.
The final PDF will look like this:
NEW: VALIDATION: HYPERLINK VALIDATION RULE: We added a new View option with the Hyperlink validation rule. This validation rule opens external files in an associated program.
In Validation, Hyperlinks show as “read only” fields with a hyperlink button. Pressing the hyperlink button opens the file in the associated program.
If the value is not a file but just a folder, then the hyperlink button will open the folder in Windows Explorer.
NEW: ORGANIZER / VALIDATE: OPEN DOCUMENT LIST – FILTER: You can now filter the documents in the document list. Just click the filter icon in the column you want to use for filtering and only check the values you want to display in the list. You can combine filters of multiple columns.
Version 3.1(2) | 2020-04-24
NEW: EXPORT TO EMAIL: INSERT IMAGES AND PAGE THUMBNAILS IN HTML EMAIL BODY: It is now possible to insert one or more pages of the document or up to 5 images from disk in the email body.
You can define the dimensions (by default, we fit the images in a 600 x 600 rectangle) of your page thumbnails and images through the Document Thumbnail or Image From disk setup.
You can use different variables in your HTML code to set the image source (page thumbnail or image from disk) and the width and height. You can also select a predefined full HTML code option to insert the correct HTML code to insert a thumbnail or image.
Document Thumbnail
Variables for document thumbnails:
{ Document Thumbnail, 1 }
{ Document Thumbnail Width, 1 }
{ Document Thumbnail Height, 1 }
The number indicates the document’s page number for the thumbnail, so you can specify which page you want to insert as a thumbnail.
For example:
– Enter 1 for the 1st page
– Enter -1 for the last page
– Enter -2 for the page before the last page
– Etc.
You can also use the “Full HTML” option to generate the correct HTML code to insert document thumbnail of page 1. Simply change the page number if you want to display another page number:
<p>
<img src=”{ Document Thumbnail, 1 }” width=”{ Document Thumbnail Width, 1 }” height=”{ Document Thumbnail Height, 1 }” alt=”Document Thumbnail, 1” title=”Document Thumbnail, 1“>
</p>
Images from disk
You can insert JPG, PNG, static and animated GIFs to your email body. These can be selected and mapped to the image variables during setup by first copying them to the following folder:
C:ProgramDataCaptureBitesProgramsMetaServerDataImages
Variables for images from disk:
{ Image From Disk, 1 }
{ Image From Disk Width, 1 }
{ Image From Disk Height, 1 }
The number indicates the image number.
You can also use the Full HTML option to generate the correct HTML code to insert Image From Disk, 1. Simply change the image from disk number in the HTML code if you want to display another image from disk:
<p>
<img src=”{ Image From Disk, 1 }” width=”{ Image From Disk Width, 1 }” height=”{ Image From Disk Height, 1 }” alt=”Image From Disk, 1” title=”paid stamp”>
</p>
You can also select the “Full HTML including Hyperlink” option to insert a clickable image pointing to a hyperlink:
<p>
<a title=”CaptureBites Software Development and Consulting” href=”https://www.capturebites.com/“>
<img src=”{ Image From Disk, 1 }” width=”{ Image From Disk Width, 1 }” height=”{ Image From Disk Height, 1 }” alt=”Image From Disk, 1” title=”cb logo”>
</a>
</p>
If you want to insert another image than image 1, just replace the number with the desired image number.
Version 3.1(1) | 2020-03-27
NEW: ONLINE LICENSE ACTIVATION:
IMPORTANT: After upgrading to MetaServer version 3.1.1, a pop-up window will ask you to request a serial number. If you haven’t received a serial number already, please press the “Request a Serial Number” button and fill out the form. We will send you your serial number as soon as possible.
Please also note that old MetaServer activation codes (e.g. “K-123F0-12345-123B4-CD12B-C0D12-E1EB2”) are not compatible with this version and future releases of MetaServer. You can apply for a replacement serial number through our online request form.
Previously, customers had to install MetaServer first before we could provide the activation code. With this new licensing system, the customer immediately receives a unique serial number when he orders MetaServer that he can use to activate his license.
The new licensing system features following capabilities:
1) Online Activation: Just enter the serial number and press Activate. A serial number can only be used on one machine. To reuse it, it needs to be deactivated first. A detailed guide on how to activate MetaServer can be found here.
2) Online Deactivation: liberates a license serial number so it can be used on another machine.
3) Online Refresh: the customer can order additional MetaServer modules which are linked with their existing serial number. To enable these additional modules, the customer simply needs to open the license tab and press Refresh to activate them.
4) Offline Activation: if your system does not have a network connection, you can activate / deactivate your license manually on another device with an internet connection. A detailed guide on how this works can be found here.
NEW: ORGANIZER: Organize a document before all thumbnails are created. This means that thumbnails are now only created when you need them, making it possible to interact with the document sooner.
ENHANCEMENT: FIND WORD – ACCEPT WORDS FROM DB: If you try to test a document with an empty DB table (= zero records), you get a warning message: “Rule X, Find Word with Mask / Words: Accept words from database: table ABC is empty. Please add records to your table.”
Version 3.1(0) | 2020-03-13
NEW: ONLINE LICENSE ACTIVATION: This is a limited Beta version.
Version 3.0(32) | 2020-03-02
NEW: EXPORT TO DOCUWARE: DOCUMENT LINK: You can now generate a direct link to a document exported to DocuWare. You can then use that link in an email message (for example, to send a notification email), export the value to a database or include it in an index file.
In the Export to DocuWare setup, you simply select a MetaServer field to hold the Document link. To disable this, you just need to select nothing in the fields drop-down list (default).
NEW: FIND WORD – DB LOOKUP: MAP MULTIPLE HITS: It is now possible to return multiple hits to mapped fields.
For example, if you first extract an invoice number related to a number of shipments, you can use that invoice number to find all container numbers in a database related to that invoice.
The new options are located in the Field Mapping tab of the “Accept words from database” setup. You’ll find a drop-down with all possible actions to take if the search resulted in multiple hits:
– Skip mapping: the current default behavior and returns “{ Multiple hits }” in the mapped fields.
– Keep first match: returns the first hit. This is useful if your database contains duplicates.
– Keep all matches: generates a list of all matched values in each of the mapped fields, including duplicate values
– Keep unique matches: generates a list of all matched values, removes the duplicates from the combined values of all the mapped fields and populates each mapped field with their values.
Version 3.0(31) | 2020-02-20
ENHANCEMENT: VALIDATION: Input (manual navigation): A Validation field in Input (manual navigation) mode, now auto-focuses and loads the correct page if the data is extracted automatically (i.e. there is a pink rectangle).
Only when there is no value / pink rectangle, it does not do anything and it will stay on the current position in the document. Previously, it did not focus on the extracted value if there was one.
Version 3.0(30) | 2020-01-15
ENHANCEMENT: CONVERT TO FORMAT: The Convert to Black & White setup now features 2 viewers:
ENHANCEMENT: The Measure Tool is now always available in all viewers. It also shows the total page size in pixel and cm or inch (depending on your region settings).
FIX: { Document Page Number } is a variable that you can use in conjunction with a multi-line field.
For example, if you define a Set Field Value rule and set a field “Line items” equal to:
{ Document Page Number } of { Document Page Count },{ Field, Line items }
Then each line item will be preceded with the page number where it comes from.
The issue was that the line numbers were not updated correctly during Testing of the Extraction rules and always showed as Page 1.
Version 3.0(29) | 2020-01-07
NEW: EXPORT TO SAP – ADVANCED HANDLING OF BARCODE MISMATCHES:
When the barcode on a document does not match the object in SAP, users often generate a new open barcode number in SAP and write that number on the page under the original barcode. The original barcode will be recognized but will fail the barcode check during Export to SAP.
When this happens, the Barcode mismatch condition becomes active and the document can be sent to validation or email export or both.
We updated the sample CB – LATE ARCHIVING workflow to send barcode mismatch documents to a special validation screen where the operator can enter the handwritten number instead of the barcode and resubmit the document to SAP.
NEW: PAGE SIZE VARIABLES TO SEPARATE ON PAGE SIZE:
We added 3 new variables in the Document and System variables category:
{ Document Page Width }: returns the width of a page in cm or inch depending on the windows region.
{ Document Page Height }: returns the height of a page in cm or inch depending on the windows region.
{ Unit of Length }: returns “cm” or “in” depending on the windows region. You can use this to make your separation rules region independent and compare with correct dimensions depending on the detected Unit of Length.
Version 3.0(28) | 2019-12-02
NEW: EXPORT TO DOCUWARE ACTION
With the MetaServer Export to DocuWare action, you can export documents to DocuWare Cloud and On-Premise. Basically, DocuWare stores documents in File Cabinets. Each document can be categorized using multiple index fields. In the Export to DocuWare action, you can directly connect to your DocuWare system and list all available File Cabinets.
After a File Cabinet is selected, the associated index fields are listed and can easily be mapped with MetaServer fields and values. If you use index fields as DocuWare workflow triggers, then you can start a workflow automatically by feeding the trigger index field the correct value directly from MetaServer.
We can also export documents to DocuWare Document Trays. Consider a Document Tray as a generic inbox for documents that need some human interaction like manual review and classification. Document Trays don’t feature index fields because the purpose is to assign them to a File Cabinet in DocuWare manually or by using automation inside DocuWare. You can configure the document name displayed in the Document Tray by using a variety of MetaServer metadata fields and values.
You can apply for a 30 day DocuWare account free of charge here.
Version 3.0(27) | 2019-11-21
NEW: { EMAIL BODY TEXT } VARIABLE: We added a variable { Email Body Text } that contains the flat text of the imported email body. You can set a field equal to { Email Body Text } to extract data from it.
For the moment, you cannot load EML or MSG emails for testing. The easiest way to test extraction from the email body, is to create a special workflow to import emails, convert the body and export the body as PDF. You can then use those body PDFs for testing.
Alternatively, export the { Email Body Text } as a File Index in *.TXT file format, open the .TXT file in Word for Windows, save it as PDF and use those PDFs for Testing.
In the future, we plan to support *.EML and *.MSG files in the test viewer populating the email metadata variables such as the { Email Body Text } based on the selected email MSG or EML file in the Test viewer.
NEW: IMPORT OPTION: ONLY IMPORT FROM SUBFOLDERS: Some customers place PDF files in a sub folder of the MetaServer’s watched folder. The subfolder’s name is actually the batch name and is used to name the final CSV or XML with the metadata of all documents in that subfolder. In these cases, the subfolder is mandatory, otherwise there is no batch name and we cannot name the CSV file. Hence the need to avoid that users put files directly in the root of the watched folder.
If the option is ON, files that are placed directly in the root are ignored.
Version 3.0(26) | 2019-11-14
NEW: IMPORT: SUPPORT FOR PNG: You can now import and process PNG files in the same way as we already did with TIF and JPG files. Refer to the release notes of Version 3.0(25) for more details.
ENHANCEMENT: IMPORT: BETTER SUPPORT FOR SMART PHONE GENERATED JPG AND PNG FILES:
Documents captured with a smart phone in JPG or PNG format often do have incorrect, too large page dimensions causing data extraction and viewing problems.
Enabling this option reduces these very large JPG or PNG files to A4 or Letter Size. Image quality is preserved, only the paper size is updated. JPG and PNG images with small dimensions such as receipts or business cards remain untouched.
You can enable this correction in the Import Email and Import from Folder action. By default, the paper size is Letter Size for US and A4 for other regions. The setting is not only applied during import, but also during testing in Extraction and Separation actions.
Version 3.0(25) | 2019-10-30
NEW: IMPORT FROM FOLDER AND IMPORT EMAIL: MetaServer can now import TIF and JPG from folder and TIF and JPG email attachments.
NEW: IMPORT FROM FOLDER: CREATE A DOCUMENT PER SUBFOLDER: You can now create documents from subfolders in the watched folder containing TIF and JPG files each representing a page of the final document.
A typical input structure would be:
WATCHED FOLDERDOCUMENT001 01.JPG
…………………………………… 02.JPG
…………………………………… 03.JPG
WATCHED FOLDERDOCUMENT002 01.JPG
…………………………………… 02.JPG
…………………………………… 03.JPG
…………………………………… 04.JPG
The output would be 2 PDFs with the first PDF containing 3 pages and the second PDF containing 4 pages.
In the Export actions you can select following source types:
Imported TIF: These are the original imported TIFs
Imported JPG: These are the original imported JPGs
Imported PDF: These is the PDF derived from the imported TIFs and/or JPGs before any separation or other processing. If the PDF is the result of a subfolder of JPGs or TIFs, then { Import File Name } = the name of the input subfolder.
Processed PDF: The PDF after processing actions such as document separation, searchable PDF conversion, scaling, etc.
Currently we don’t support TIF or JPG yet for testing during setup. So, to test and set up your extraction rules, first convert your JPGs and TIFs to PDF. Once your workflow is configured with PDF samples, you can import and process TIFs and JPGs.
Version 3.0(24) | 2019-10-10
FIX: Documents were time stamped with local time stamps. This could cause issues in the unusual case that an operator or admin client accessed a MetaServer in another time zone. This is now fixed and time stamps are always in UTC format.
FIX: Incorrect handling of “invisible” preprocessing actions (introduced in version 3.0.22) if a workflow had more than one import action and if documents were in the queue at the moment of upgrading to version 3.0.22 or 3.0.23.
Version 3.0(23) | 2019-09-23
ENHANCEMENT: PDFs only containing vectorized representations of text which is not real text but rather a drawing of text objects which is not searchable, are now also converted with OCR. The text in PDFs containing real text (TrueType fonts) is still directly extracted and no OCR is used.
Version 3.0(22) | 2019-09-19
NEW: PASSWORD PROTECTED PDFs: When opening a password protected PDF in Extraction Setup or any other setup, the passwords as defined in the import action(s) of the selected workflow are used to open the PDF. If none of the passwords work, a message opens: “Unable to open password protected file: XYZ.pdf. To use this PDF, enter its password in the Import Action(s) of this workflow.”
NEW: EXPORT TO ALFRESCO: We added a new method to authenticate using Alfresco’s “Basic Authentication” method. This makes the connector work with Alfresco 6.x as well. The new option is called “CMIS 1.1 – Basic Authentication” and can be selected from the Protocol selection list.
ENHANCEMENT: ERROR LOGS: If a file fails to export, the path and name is registered in the Error Logs in C:ProgramDataCaptureBitesProgramsMetaServerDataLog
Version 3.0(21) | 2019-09-11
NEW: ENABLE / DISABLE “SELECT WORKFLOWS” IN THE OPERATOR CLIENT: You control this setting from the Server tab in the Administration client. With this new option, you can make sure that documents of specific workflows are validated on specific workstations.
For example, HR documents can only be validated on PCs in the HR department. You first select the workflows that are accessible by each Operator Client, then you disable the “SELECT WORKFLOWS” option. The “SELECT WORKFLOWS” button will still be available but the selected workflows will be displayed in read only mode and selections cannot be modified in the Operator client.
NEW: IMPORT FROM FOLDER AND EMAIL ACTIONS: PDF Password(s): [ XXX, YYY, ZZZ… ]. If you want to import password protected PDFs, you can now enter all possible passwords in a list.
If none of the passwords work when importing a PDF, the document will be moved to the Errors tab.
Select “Processed PDF” in your export action to export a version of the PDF without password.
Select “Imported PDF” in your export action to export the original version with password.
ENHANCEMENT: OPTIMIZED METHODS FOR PUBLISHING CHANGES TO A WORKFLOW:
– It is never required anymore to restart MetaServer when making changes to workflows, considerably speeding up publishing changes.
– We now show a progress message when publishing changes to existing documents in a workflow if there are more than 50 documents requiring an update.
– We detect the presence of documents per workflow when publishing changes.
Version 3.0(20) | 2019-09-02
FIX: System.Runtime.Serialization.SerializationException error in Separate action when the Find Word with Mask / Words rule uses “Accept words from database” with a MetaServer database
FIX: When exporting a Date / Time to Alfresco, the Date / Time is sent as UTC (was local)
Version 3.0(19) | 2019-09-02
ENHANCEMENT: Log files: date format in the file names is dd-MM-yyyy_… (was MM-dd-yyyy …)
FIX: Convert to Black and White could report “Access denied”
Version 3.0(18) | 2019-08-21
FIX: Convert to Black and White of images at DPI lower than 100: “Value does not fall in the expected range”
Version 3.0(17) | 2019-08-14
NEW: EXPORT TO SHAREPOINT: With the MetaServer Export to SharePoint action, you can export documents to SharePoint on premise or SharePoint Online.
You can construct the folder structure and file name using fixed elements and variables or metadata fields.
Select a library and content type and map variables or metadata fields with its columns.
The export connector makes use of SharePoint’s versioning feature and when a document with the same name is exported a new version of the document will be created.
FIX: If C:META-DEMO did not exist and you opened an Extract action, opened an Extract Text rule and pressed OK, you got an error “System.Exception: Trying to delete a file with a very short path:”.
Version 3.0(16) | 2019-08-12
NEW: EXPORT TO ALFRESCO: With the MetaServer Export to Alfresco action, you can export documents to the Alfresco Community Edition or the Alfresco Content Services Enterprise Edition.
You can construct the folder structure and file name using fixed elements and variables or metadata fields.
Select a custom document type and map variables or metadata fields with its properties.
The export connector makes use of Alfresco’s versioning feature so, when a document with the same name is exported, a new version of the document will be created.
NEW: LOAD BALANCING OPTION: If you watch the same folder(s) with several MetaServers, you need to keep your Import queue low so the documents are evenly imported among all servers. If lots of documents end up in in Validation, all servers become idle. To avoid this, you can now enable the new Load Balancing option in the server tab and set the load balancing limit which does not take documents in validation in consideration. The import limit is an absolute limit including documents in validation.
In summary, the Load Balancing option is all about keeping all servers busy by ignoring documents in validation.
Both limits consider imported documents” before separation”. So a document that is separated in 10 documents only counts as one.
For example:
– Import limit = 20
– Load balancing limit = 5
6 document sets (a document set is a document before separation) are imported and each document set is separated in 10 documents.
8 documents are processed automatically and 2 stay in validation. As soon as all 8 automatically processed documents leave the system and the document set only has documents in validation, that document set is not counted anymore for the load balancing limit.
If all 6 imported documents only have documents, MetaServer can pull in 5 other document sets because the 6 in validation don’t count anymore.
The total number of document sets in the system will be 6+5 = 11, 5 are actively processed and 6 are sitting idle in validation.
If the number of document sets with only documents in validation exceeds 20, the server will pause until documents are validated and some document sets completely disappear from the system.
Version 3.0(15) | 2019-07-25
NEW: TASK SCHEDULER MODULE. This is a new module to run repetitive tasks automatically triggered by one or more timers.
The functionality of the new Tasks feature is fully documented in the MetaServer Online Help.
The Task Scheduler is a separate module in the price list with the following product code:
CB-META-TASK: MetaServer Task Scheduler
Currently there are two main use cases:
1) Syncing a MetaServer database with an external database such as Ms SQL table and cleaning up inconsistent values with replace rules and dedupe records.
2) The automatic deletion of outdated processed document backup files or any other backup files.
TASK SCHEDULER – USE CASE 1:
The first use case is for the automatic synchronization of any type of database table (MS SQL, ODBC, MetaServer) with a MetaServer database. The sync action allows to sync all columns of the source table or only a selection of columns.
In the process, one or more columns of the resulting MetaServer database can be cleaned up, using following cleanup rules:
– Replace: E.g. Replace all “Inc.” and “Incorporated” at the end of all company names. Or replace all periods “.” with nothing in all VAT IDs.
– Remove Spaces: E.g. Remove all spaces between digits in IBAN numbers and TAX IDs.
– Sort by Column rules: E.g. Sort a table by company name.
– Delete Records by Value: E.g. Delete all records where the field type = TEST or Delete all records where the field type = { No Value }
– Delete Duplicate Records: E.g. Only keep records with unique Client IDs.
– When the source database of a MetaServer sync task is not available, the task is skipped until the next scheduled trigger and an email alert is sent if email alerts are enabled for that task.
To check the result of your database sync and cleanup task, you can use the Run Now function and after the task has finished, open your database directly from the Task ribbon. Press the Open Database button to select a database from a list of all MetaServer databases on your system. The button’s drop down shows recently opened databases for quick access.
The MetaServer database will open with the Windows program associated with *.csv files. If there is no associated program defined for *.csv files in Windows, the “How do you want to open this file” Windows dialog will be displayed. Using that dialog, you can associate a default program with the *.csv file type. If you want to change the default program associated with *.csv files, right-click such file in Windows File Explorer and select Open with… / Choose another App / … Select your preferred *.csv Application and select the [ X ] Always use this app to open .csv files.
Version 3.0(14) | 2019-06-22
– NEW: CHANGE TO THE QUEUE LIMIT: The Queue Limit defined in the Admin Server tab is renamed to Import Limit. Previously the queue limit was considering documents after separation. Assume that your queue limit was set to 100 and you would import PDFs which were separated in 200 individual PDFs, then this would cause the MetaServer to pause importing until 101 of the separated 200 PDFs would be exported before importing another document.
The new Import Limit which replaces the Queue Limit works differently and checks the number of imported files and disregards any separation action after import.
In our example with an Import Limit of 100, importing a PDF which is separated in 200 PDFs will not pause importing anymore and will continue to import until 100 PDFs are imported. Of course if each of these 100 PDFs would be separated in 200 PDFs, your MetaServer queue would grow to 100 x 200 = 20.000 documents which is too high. So adjust you Import Limit and avoid exceeding 10.000 documents (after separation) at one time in the MetaServer queue. Ideally you never have more than 1000 documents in the queue.
In the client’s status bar and the document counters window, you can see at any moment how many documents are imported and how many are in the queue.
This is an important change implemented for load balancing where multiple MetaServers are watching the same watched folders. The new Import Limit will make sure that all servers will import an equal amount of documents regardless of any separation action.
Version 3.0(13) | 2019-06-19
– ENHANCEMENT: Direct SQL Server Lookups and Export to Database: We now also list views in the tables list and you can search in views.
– ENHANCEMENT: Workflow ON / OFF button: If the workflow is switched ON, the power icon is now green instead of red. If it the workflows is switched OFF it is red instead gray.
– ENHANCEMENT: We added “Copy DB Connection Settings” to copy all DB connection settings (not the lookup and mapping) from one rule to another regardless the type. So the settings can easily be copied between Find Word, Find Word Group, Validation DB Lookup and DB Export. We already did this with SMTP settings and it made sense to do the same with DB settings.
– ENHANCEMENT: SELECT SERVER: When the operator presses the menu part of the select servers button, show previously connected servers to do fast switching between MetaServers without having to wait for the discovery.
Version 3.0(12) | 2019-06-13
– ENHANCEMENT: ADMIN CLIENT: SERVER TAB: Added 4, 25, 50 and 75 as possible values for the server queue. This in context of watching the same folder with multiple MetaServers.
– FIX: VALIDATION: Required option in combination with Check if blank ON or Always check ON made the field non-required if the field was not pre-populated.
– HELP UPDATE:
– Organizer tab
– Validate Action
– Organize Action
Version 3.0(11) | 2019-06-08
– ENHANCEMENT: Import from Folder: “Move file to” option: If the file already exists (locked or not locked) in the “Move file to” folder, the moved file generates a new file with a sequence number (x). This avoid errors when the file is locked and will also show if a file with the same name is imported multiple times.
– ENHANCEMENT: DB LOOKUP: More efficient handling of multiple DB Lookups.
– During Find Word. If the search field is looking up in an empty Source field, no lookup is done at all.
– During Check Validity: Identical lookups are only performed once.
– When Validation is opened: Field evaluation is not repeated right after Check Validity
Version 3.0(10) | 2019-05-30
This version requires .Net Framework 4.6.2 or higher on both the server and the clients. In case your .Net Framework version is not up to date, you can download the latest .Net Framework from here:
https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-framework
– NEW: Find word with Type and Validate: NEW TYPE (Check Digit): Numéro d’identité Luxembourg. You can now extract “Numéro d’identité Luxembourg” using a Find Word with Type rule. We make use of the check digit in the “Numéro d’identité Luxembourg” to locate it. You can also use the same check in a validation rule and only numbers that have a valid check digit and length will be accepted. The “Numéro d’identité Luxembourg” is printed on les “Feuilles d’Impôts” (Tax Declarations) and makes extraction of this number extremely reliable.
– NEW: Find word with Type and Validate: NEW TYPE (Check Digit): KBC Bank Mod97 Checksum. You can now extract KBC Customer IDs using a MOD97 check (check digits 00 = 97) using a Find Word with Type rule. We make use of the check digit to locate it. You can also use the same check in a validation rule and only numbers that have a valid check digit and length will be accepted.
– NEW: RESERVE FILES DURING IMPORT FOLDERS: This makes it possible to watch the same folder with several MetaServers for load balancing. For example 2 or 3 servers could watch the same folder to convert scanned PDFs to searchable PDF.
Version 3.0(9) | 2019-05-17
– NEW: REPLACE “TAB” (Long Space) WITH THE REPLACE TEXT RULE: Sometimes redundant TABs need to be removed from extracted text.
For example if a total amount is printed like this:
1000 . 00
The OCR result may result in this output:
1000→.→00
This makes it impossible to extract the complete amount 1000.00 because it’s spread over different word groups. You can now fix such anomaly by using a Replace Text rule replacing “{ Tab }.{ Tab }” with “.”. This will remove the TABS surrounding the decimal point and leave any other TAB in the text untouched.
– NEW: VALIDATION – NEW OPTION TO DISABLE POP-UP BALLOON MESSAGES: If you use the field labels to explain what the user should enter, then you can now disable the pop-up validation error messages (e.g. This field is required. It cannot be left blank.) by disabling the option “[ X ] Show pop-up error messages during validation” in the Validation action.
– FIX: ORGANIZER JUMPED TO FIRST PAGE AFTER SEPARATE: When separating documents, the selection always jumped back to the first page of the document set making it hard to look for the next separation point.
Version 3.0(8) | 2019-05-15
FIX: DOCUMENT SEPARATION: If the last page of a document set was a separator to be separated “after the page”, an error occurred.
Version 3.0(7) | 2019-05-07
– ENHANCEMENT: SEPARATE DOCUMENT: 2 METHODS ALLOWED: We now allow 2 different separation methods in a single separate document action. For example you can separate on a barcode on the first page and separate on a barcode on the last page.
– ENHANCEMENT: ADMIN CLIENT: Remember last selected workflow: We remember the last selected workflow you worked on when re-opening Admin. Before the first workflow was always selected in the Workflows tab when opening the Admin client.
– NEW: HELP FILE: Edit – Calculate Time Span
– FIX: IMPORT FROM EMAIL: When moving emails to an IMAP folder after processing, they were correctly moved to the defined IMAP folder but only marked for deletion in the inbox. However, they were not purged from the inbox resulting in processed emails both showing up in the processed folder and the inbox. Moved emails are now correctly purged from the inbox.
– FIX: ADMIN & OPERATOR CLIENTS: MetaServerValidation.CBMSVSettings and MetaServerAdmin.CBMSVSettings are used to save information relevant to the clients, such as last used workflow, test folders, position of windows etc. When these files were damaged, the corresponding client would not start anymore. This is now fixed and we keep a backup of these files which we restore when the *.CBMSVSettings is damaged. If the backup is also damaged, we load the client with the default settings.
Version 3.0(6) | 2019-05-01
– FIX: Import from Folder: Before, when files were placed in the MetaServer watched folder(s), they could not be deleted or renamed anymore. Also opening them in a PDF viewer would make MetaServer fail. This version handles these conditions gracefully.
1) Deleted files are now ignored.
2) Renamed files are imported under the new name.
3) Locked files (for example when a PDF file is opened in a PDF viewer) are skipped until they are unlocked.
– ENHANCEMENT: Find Word, Validation DB Lookup, Export to Database and Stored Procedure: MS SQL uniqueidentifier field type is now supported in the mapped fields and stored procedure.
– ENHANCEMENT: SELECT SERVER: The Select Server list now also shows the API version. You can only connect with a MetaServer with the same API version as the client. If the API versions don’t match, the MetaServer will be listed but marked in gray.
Version 3.0(5) | 2019-03-22
– NEW: Multiple Conditions in Set Field Value rule: You can now set up to three conditions combined with “AND” to set the value of a field conditionally. For multiple “OR” conditions, just define several SET FIELD rules like before.
Example 1: set “EMAIL TO” equal to “manager@company.com” if:
TOTAL AMOUNT is greater than or equal to 10000.00
AND
CUSTOMER is equal to NEWCUST
In that case the manager will only be notified for orders >= 10000 that come from customer NEWCUST.
Example 2: Document type detection using keywords. If for example you find keywords that classify a document both as ACKNOWLEDGMENT and OFFER then you can force this combination to for example OFFER with these settings:
Set DOCUMENT TYPE equal to OFFER if:
DOCUMENT TYPE 1 is equal to ACKNOWLEDGMENT
AND
DOCUMENT TYPE 2 is equal to OFFER
Version 3.0(4) | 2019-03-18
– NEW: MULTI-SELECT PAGES IN THE ORGANIZER: You can now select multiple pages using the CTRL-CLICK or SHIFT-CLICK technique, or select all pages with the CTRL-A shortcut. Once multiple pages are selected you can apply a function to all selected pages (documents), such as separate, merge, delete and rotate.
– FIX: When doing a MetaServer install without any of the sample workflows or demo files, C:META-DEMO was not created. This caused problems when creating an Extract or Separate action pointing to C:META-DEMO as the Test Folder. When MetaServer is now installed, it will create C:META-DEMO automatically if it does not exist.
Version 3.0(3) | 2019-03-13
– NEW: UTF-8 BOM and UTF-8 option in Export to Folder: The file index can now be encoded in UTF-8 BOM or in UTF-8 format. Default is UTF-8 BOM. For more info about the byte order mark (BOM), see here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_order_mark
– NEW: Help button added to Find Number Extract Rule:
https://www.capturebites.com/metaserver/help/extract/120-240/
– NEW: OK ALL BUTTON IN VALIDATION: This makes it possible to validate all green fields (valid but forced check) with a single click. The OK All button is optional and is by default disabled in the Operator Client. To enable it, open the Admin client and enable the OK All option in the Server tab.
– NEW: The last selected test document folder is now saved as part of the workflow: If you now create an installer and include the last selected test document folder, it is automatically selected as the test folder on the target system. If the target system had a previous version of the workflow with another test folder already selected then the test folder does not change.
– ENHANCEMENT: In Validation, the Drop Down List now automatically opens as you type in a database lookup field.
– FIX: better handling of changes to test document folders: When previously used test document folders for testing extraction or separation rules for a given workflow were deleted or renamed, the test results were deleted on unexpected moments.
Version 3.0(2) | 2019-03-04
FIX: Find Word with Mask / Words in combination with the Keep All Matches did not work correctly anymore in 3.0.1 and concatenated all words found on the same line of text. Also finding words containing a string did not return the whole word but only the set string.
Version 3.0(1) | 2019-02-18
– NEW: EXPORT TO SAP R/3: This connector requires its own activation code. SAP Transport files are placed in C:CaptureBitesMetaServerSAP Transport.
Help is directly accessible from the setup and is located here.
Export to SAP R/3 exceptions are handled as follows:
1) BARCODE EXCEPTIONS: No open internal barcode (late archiving) or already existing external barcode (early archiving). A Document causing such barcode error is moved to the errors tab. However this does not stop the Export to SAP R/3 export action and documents with correct bar codes will continue to be processed. To solve the issue, adjust the barcode value in SAP and retry the documents in the Errors tab. Or delete the documents from the Errors tab and scan them with a correct barcode.
2) THE EXPORT TO SAP R/3 IS NOT LICENSED. Documents exported to non-licensed connector, are moved to the errors tab and the Export to SAP R/3 is halted (red state), documents in the MetaServer queue stay on hold until the problem is resolved. Apply for a license (https://www.capturebites.com/trial). Activate the connector and publish and apply the changes to the current documents in the queue. Documents in the system will be correctly exported.
3) THE EXPORT TO SAP R/3 IS NOT CONFIGURED CORRECTLY. A wrong configuration typically causes an “unable to connect to SAP” error. The document is moved to the errors tab and the Export to SAP R/3 is halted (red state), documents in the MetaServer queue stay on hold until the problem is resolved. Resolve the configuration issue and publish and apply the changes to the current documents in the queue. Documents in the queue and in the Errors Tab will be correctly exported.
4) THE SAP R/3 TRANSPORT IS NOT CONFIGURED CORRECTLY. This will cause an “unable to connect to SAP” error. The document is moved to the errors tab and the Export to SAP R/3 is halted (red state), documents in the system stay on hold until the problem is resolved. You can find more documentation here.
Select the error document and retry the action to rety the export to SAP R/3 action. Documents in the MetaServer queue and Errors Tab will be correctly exported.
– NEW: IN WORKFLOWS TAB: DISABLE EMAIL ALERTS – We added an option to disable email alerts. In environments with unknown smtp settings, email alerts can now be disabled until correct SMTP settings are provided. The default for new workflows = Email Alerts OFF (no alerts). When the email alerts are switched off, the Alert icon in the workflows tab is gray. When email alerts are switched on, the icon is red.
Version 3.0(0) | 2019-01-11
– NEW: SEPARATE ADMINISTRATION CLIENT – All Admin functions have been removed from the Validation client (now called Operator Client) and moved to an all new MetaServer Administration Client.
MetaServer Administration Client
MetaServer Operator Client
– NEW: The Validation client is renamed to MetaServer Operator Client. You will now find two icons on the desktop:
MetaServer Admin:
MetaServer Operator:
– NEW: All functionality of the Admin and Operator clients are organized in a ribbon UI consisting of 6 tabs in Admin between 1 to 3 tabs (depending on hidden or exposed functionality) in the Operator Client.
Version 2.0(24) | 2018-12-12
– NEW ACTION: Convert -> To Black and White
The setup of the Convert to Black and White action is similar to the Extract Text setup viewer but only showing the black & white conversion settings.
The pages selection and conditional settings make it possible to conditionally convert specific pages or documents to BW based on index values. For example If the field “document type” is equal to vendor “FUZZY PRINTING INC”, then those documents will be converted to black & white.
As usual, the result would be exposed as Processed PDF or Processed TIF in the exporters.
Version 2.0(23) | 2018-12-12
– ENHANCEMENT: When you test extraction rules, the OCR result is saved as a *.ExtractTxt file. These files are now using a new .XtrTxt file extension. If you sort them by extension the are placed on the bottom of file list so you cannot accidentally copy them in place of the PDF files when testing your workflows.
– FIX: Extract: Extract Text Rule: The image was not displayed in black and white anymore when doing TEST. The test result is also not reused anymore.
– FIX: Convert to Format: Convert to TIF: Failed on Black and White PDFs or ePDFs containing images in black & white (eg signatures in electronic Floating data documents).
Version 2.0(22) | 2018-12-10
– ENHANCEMENT: Improved .Net Heap Memory management. Important for systems handling many documents per day.
– ENHANCEMENT: Moved Apply Separation action to a seperate *.exe to improve memory management.
– FIX: Opening the document list is now much faster.
– ENHANCEMENT: Updated Email and FTP libraries to Rebex 2018 R3 Build 6874.
Version 2.0(21) | 2018-11-20
– ENHANCEMENT: Reset the windows garbage collector every 100 lookups.
– ENHANCEMENT: Possibility to decrease the MetaServer queue to a lower value than 250
– FIX: Document set locking to avoid concurrent use.
– NEW: MFP Panel updated with Questionnaires instead of POD workflow
This version was never made public and only tested in beta at some customers (CLL & EAD).
Version 2.0(20) | 2018-11-14
– ENHANCEMENT: Improved prority handling of separated documents. Previous versions could cause a slow down or complete shut down if large volumes of documents were separated.
– ENHANCEMENT: Better error handling: Find / Lookup / Stored Procedure: list procedures: report error if a parameter data type is unexpected
Version 2.0(19) | 2018-11-14
– ENHANCEMENT: Improvement in the way delayed validate is handled. Delayed validate is used to allow a validation operator to go back one document to make correction.
Before documents were processed chronologically and got delayed even if the delay was already expred because following a document being delayed. Now documents are processed according to their delay expiration time and documents cannot get held up anymore because there is a document before being delayed.
– FIX: Apply Organize: Assign a copy of the field values to the new documents (fix for “Collection was modified; enumeration operation may not execute.”). MS_Workflow.Document.WfDocument.SerializeFieldValues(TextSerializer writer, IDictionary`2 fieldValues)
Version 2.0(18) | 2018-11-09
– ENHANCEMENT: The Convert to Searchable PDF is now running multi-threaded and runs 4 converter threads. Expect a speed enhancement between a factor 2 to 4 depending on the peformance of your processor.
– ENHANCEMENT: Better overall memory management
Version 2.0(17) | 2018-11-08
– FIX: SQL Direct: DB Lookup: Fixed a problem handling integers.
– NEW: Conversion of email body to PDF is now possible. However, this works with limitations. You can import emails, convert the body to PDF and export those PDFs to folder. You cannot do anything in between.
In the Export to Folder action, select Email PDF as the File Source to export the email body as PDF.
You cannot extract or validate after a “Convert Email Body to PDF” action. You would need to export the converted PDFs to another workflow’s watched folder to do extraction and validation etc.
Version 2.0(16) | 2018-11-07
NEW: We added a direct connection to SQL Server for all functions using a DB connection in MetaServer:
– Find Word using words from database
– Validation Database Lookup
– Export to Database.
When you use a direct SQL Server connection, you don’t require the setup of an ODBC data source anymore on the server or on any of the validation clients.
Because the communication with the SQL server is direct, searching and updating SQL tables is also more efficient.
Currently, only MS SQL Server is supported.
Version 2.0(15) | 2018-11-05
– FIX: Validation: DB Lookup: If a lookup was used with the option “check if multiple hits” and the lookup was filtered, then, even if filter returned a single hit, the field still stopped in Validation because of multiple hits.
– FIX: Extraction: Stored Procedure: If no Stored procedure was selected, the Connect button did not open the Stored procedure tab. This typically happened when you had defined a stored procedure rule from scratch.
Version 2.0(14) | 2018-11-01
– NEW: Lookup with Stored Procedure. You can now call MS SQL or My SQL stored procedures and use the returned results in MetaServer. This action can be found under the Find rules.
For example, if you have a list of expected documents for each case in a SQL table, then you can create a Stored Procedure that checks presence of a scan date for each document. If a scan date is present for all documents, the procedure can then return a value TRUE for completeness, if any of the expected documents don’t have a scan date, the procedure returns a value FALSE for completeness.
Based on the returned value, you can then trigger a notification email if all documents have been scanned.
Version 2.0(13) | 2018-10-22
– NEW: Integration of a new version of the OCR engine used for Text extraction. This version can recognize an extended character set including characters used by East European countries and Russia (Cyrillic).The new OCR engine also uses the selected language to improve OCR accuracy.Because the previous version of the OCR engine did not have a language setting, we use the Windows language to set the language when converting existing workflows to the new version. We recommend the settings of your “Extract Text” rules to be sure the adjusted settings match your configuration.
Version 2.0(12) | 2018-10-08
– NEW: Convert / Convert to Format action. With this action you can convert PDF files to Multipage TIF. The Multipage TIF output is exposed in the Exporters as “Processed TIF”. This to be roadmap compatible when we introduce importing TIF files. The original imported TIF will then be accessible as Imported TIF in the Exporters.The TIF format is available in the Export to Folder and Export to Email actions.We will add TIF support to future connectors as they get releases.
– NEW: Edit / Scale Page(s): With this new action, you can first extract data from a 300 DPI or 400 DPI scanned document, create a searchable PDF and at the very end scale it to a lower resolution for storage. In other words the high resolution version will be used to get the best OCR result and when all data extraction is done including creating the PDF searchable text layer, the image size is reduced. This only affects color scans and does not touch black and white scans or electronic PDFs. The Scale Page(s) action also allows to set the JPG Quality factor. Default JPG Quality = 82
– ENHANCEMENT: Export to Database: This version includes up to 5 DB connection retries if the connection fails, with a 0.5 sec delay between them.
– FIX: Export to Email: When the user did not put a file extension in the email attachment name, the MetaServer showed an error because of the missing MIME type. Since this version, the mime type comes from the selected file type if there is no extension specified.
Version 2.0(11) | 2018-09-28
Convert to Searchable PDF: We adjusted the logic to determine if a PDF should be converted to searchable PDF.
The logic is now: If the PDF only contains a single image and no text, a searchable PDF will be generated.
That means that:
– Text based electronic PDFs are not converted and remain untouched
– PDFs that are already searchable are not converted and remain untouched
– MRC (Super Color Compressed) PDFs contain multiple layers of images instead of a single image and are not converted and remain untouched.
For Extract Text to determine if a PDF is image only, nothing has changed except of considering a bit more margin (+1mm / -1mm) of the scanned image versus the PDF page size.
Convert to Searchable PDF: If nothing is entered in the page range, “Page(s): All” is displayed in the Actions list, otherwise the selected page range is displayed.
Version 2.0(10) | 2018-09-21
– NEW: Convert to Searchable PDF action: You can now convert image based (scanned) PDF files to searchable PDF files.
To get access to the feature, you need to install the MetaServer Searchabe PDF module which can be downloaded from here:
https://www.capturebites.com/downloads/CaptureBites_Windows_MetaServer_-_Searchable_PDF_3.0.exe
You basically add a Convert to Searchable PDF action to your workflow before Export. In the Export action, you then select “Processed PDF” as the PDF you want to export.
Version 2.0(8) | 2018-08-28
– NEW VARIABLES IN THE DOCUMENT SECTION: “Document Number” and “Document Count” in set. A set is a single PDF with multiple documents. After separation, manual with the organizer or automatic with a Document Separation action, these variables are updated with the total number of documents after separation and the document number of each document.
– FIX: Find Word with Mask / Words in combination with “Accept words from database” was not accent agnostic, requiring to put all variations of accented words such as: PROCÈS-VERBAL, PROCES-VERBAL, Procès-Verbal in the DB. The search is now accent agnostic and you only need to put one variation. However this is only valid for MetaServer databases.
Version 2.0(6) | 2018-08-27
– FIX: Document Separation: If you add a separation point manually after automatic separation a red error occurs.
– FIX: Field values were lost after going through the organizer.
Version 2.0(5) | 2018-08-21
– Enhancement: Mark Detection: Faster processing when multiple mark detection rules are defined on the same page. Example: A questionnaire with 80 questions with each 5 options (a total of 400 check boxes to evaluate) took about 200 seconds to process before and now takes 35 seconds.
Version 2.0(4) | 2018-07-23
– New: Mark Detection: Mark detection allows to detect check marks or detect pixels in a large box like in a signature zone.
To get familiar with this new extraction rule, please try out the new CB – QUESTIONNAIRES and CB – PARKING VIOLATIONS demo workflows. Online help will follow soon.
Version 2.0(3) | 2018-07-19
Fix: Validation text selection tool on electronic PDFs did not work correctly anymore in 2.0(2). Selecting a zone, selected all the text on the page.
Version 2.0(2) | 2018-07-18
– New: New option in the Separate Document / Process action: “Rotate page like text in field…”. Just select a field with extracted text by means of OCR or bar code recognition and the page will be rotated according to the orientation of the majority of the text contained in the field.
– New: In the About tab in the backstage you now have a Version History button which opens the online version history page
– Enhancement: Separate Document / Process Page: When a new action is added, delete and separate options are now set to none by default.
Version 2.0(1) | 2018-07-16
– New: Separate Document action: The Separate Document action is renamed to Separate / Page Processing and now includes additional page level processing options:
– Delete Separator: Allows to delete all pages detected as separator. Only “real” separators are deleted. That means if the first page of a set is not detected as a separator according to the separator rules but only is a separator just because it is the first page of the set, it is not deleted. This situation happens when scanner operators don’t put as separator page on top of the set because the first page is a document by default. Documents inside the set will have separators and those will be deleted.
– Delete “if value of field…” or conditional deletion: allows to delete a page based on the content of a field.
– The “Separate every page” is now “Separate every n pages” where n is an integer. By default it is 1 but can be set to any other value like every 2 or 3 pages…
Version 2.0(0) | 2018-07-10
– New: Export to Folder: If file exists, Append or Prepend new pages to the existing PDF. Exception flow if the file is locked (typically when the to be updated PDF is open in a PDF viewer).
Exceptions can be handled in two ways:
1) The file name contains a “file sequence number” variable. If the file is locked, a new version is created using the file sequence number containing the pages of the locked PDF + the new PDF. The File locked condition applies and an email export can be used to warn the user about the lock issue and the creation of a second version.
2) The file name does not contain a “file sequence number” variable. If the file is locked, nothing happens, the File locked condition applies and an email export can be used to warn the user about the lock issue, the file that could not be appended or prepended can be attached to that email.
– Enhancement: More logically grouped Setup variables menus in all windows where variables can be picked from a Setup menu.
Version 1.0(30) | 2018-06-18
– New: MetaServer System Variables: Current Date & Time. These are useful to calculate the time span between two actions to log in a statistics DB or CSV file. You can calculate the time from before until after extraction for example or from workflow start time to final export time.
– New: MetaServer: Calculate Time Span: New Rule to calculate the time between two times. With this rule you can caculate the number of days between dates. If you also include a time element, you can calculate the time span with a precision to the second.
– New: Delayed Validate and Delayed Organize: You can now set a delay (default 10 seconds). During this time the last validated document remains available for further corrections. This is handy when the validation operator hits the ENTER key too fast by accident and realizes some more adjustments need to be made to the last validated document. With the Last Validated button the operator can go back to the last validated document and make further changes to the document and its metadata.
Version 1.0(29) | 2018-06-11
– New: Export to Folder: If the export folder is set by a field and the field is empty, the document is not exported. You can then conditionally export a document by leaving the export folder empty, similar to exp. to email with empty email.
– Performance: The rules processing speed is considerably improved during both testing and run time
– Enhancement: ExtractTxt files, generated during testing of extraction rules and introduced in version 1.0.25 to speed up testing, are now automatically deleted when placed in a MetaServer watched folder.
Version 1.0(28) | 2018-06-07
– New: If an action locks up because of mistakes in the workflow settings. You can know restart that action without having to restart the complete server. Just fix the mistake and then click on the red action in the Server tab, and press the Restart queue button. The action restarts instantly. Only red import action errors cannot be restarted individually, you still need to restart the server to restart import from folder and import from email actions.
– Fix: Field cells and type cells were editable instead of display only in DB Lookup mapping panels and in DB Export mapping panel.
– Fix: When importing email attachments, { Import Source File Full Name } and other import variables were empty during Extraction. They were correct when used during export.
Version 1.0(27) | 2018-06-04
– New: Export to Database: Export metadata to an ODBC compliant database. If you also want to update a field holding the path to the exported PDF file, use a Export to Folder action first followed by an Export to Database. Map the export path with any of your fields in the DB. You can have multiple Export to Folder actions in your workflow which each will update the export paths and each can be followed by their own Export to Database action. The Export to Database also supports the time element in DateTime fields. In that way it is possible to update a database table registering time of import and time of export of each processed document. The export to database is thoroughly tested with a variety of field types using MS-Access, MsSQL Server, MySQL Server and Excel.
– New: Extract: Replace Text: Fields are added to the setup menus of replace fields.
Version 1.0(26) | 2018-05-21
– Fix: Extract: Electronic PDFs or Searchable PDFs disappeared in the text extraction rule viewer when extracting text in version 1.0(25). If you defined extraction rules with version 1.0(25), you may need to redefine them.
– Fix: Export to Email: MetaServer locked up when and invalid “email to” address was used or incorrect SMTP settings were configured. In this version, the erroneous export email action will turn red, the document that cannot be sent leaves the workflow and an error is emailed to the specified email address in the report error setup.
Version 1.0(25) | 2018-05-17
– New: Set Field Value: It is now possible to add the page number next to each line of a text extraction result. This is useful info if you need to know the page number where each line is located. For example to find all pages potentially containing a signature.
– New: Extraction: Test function: Save text extraction result. If text extraction settings don’t change, the text extraction rules are not rerun, speeding up testing.
– If you delete an *.ExtractTxt, it will be recreated when a test is run on that PDF.
Version 1.0(24) | 2018-05-11
– New: Request Trial Function: If MetaServer is not licensed and user goes to backstage, we now show a message: “MetaServer not licensed. [I have an activation code] – [Request a Trial] – [Cancel]. “Request a trial” brings the user to a form with the computer ID pre-filled.
DB Lookup fixes and enhancements
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– Fix: When a lookup field was not the first field to check, and the lookup field was required or always check, validation did not stop on the lookup field.
– Fix: If you edited an existing DB Lookup rule and you changed the lookup field, then the mapping list was not updated. The selected field was still in the list and the previously selected field was not exposed.
Version 1.0(23) | 2018-05-07
– New: Set Field: New option: Replace line separators with [ ]. This allows to replace line seperator with a character of choice. The option is disabled by default and when enabled, the default replacement character is SPACE.
– New: Workflow Setup: Last used test images folder is now saved per workflow.
– New: Open Document: New option with check box: “Hide reserved”. This hides all items reserved by others. This setting is remembered per validation client. By default, it is enabled.
Version 1.0(22) | 2018-04-27
– New: Set Field: New option: Replace line separators with [ ]. This allows to replace line seperator with a character of choice. The option is disabled by default and when enabled, the default replacement character is SPACE.
– New: Workflow Setup: Last used test images folder is now saved per workflow.
– New: Open Document: New option with check box: “Hide reserved”. This hides all items reserved by others. This setting is remembered per validation client. By default, it is enabled.
Version 1.0(21) | 2018-04-24
– There is a new version of the API between MetaServer and the client. You can see this API version in the About tab of the backstage.
– A previous version of the client is not allowed with this version of MetaServer and vice versa.
– For File names, CSVs etc, tabs are always replaced using this logic: TABs around values without pink rectangles are suppressed, other TABs are replaced with SPACE even if all objects in the file name have positional data.
Version 1.0(20) | 2018-04-16
– New Find Word: From MetaServer & ODBC Database: It is now possible to map fields with the lookup results if Keep first or Keep last match is selected. Thanks to this, you can instantly see the lookup result during Validation and if necessary use the looked up value to set other conditions.
– New: Find Word: From MetaServer Database: It is now possible to load a MetaServer data source from a field to dynamically switch Database in the same workflow.
– New: Validation: Database Lookup: It is now possible to load a MetaServer data source from a field to dynamically switch Database in the same workflow.
Version 1.0(19) | 2018-04-11
– New: Export to Folder: Index files can also be updated on an FTP server.
– New: Export to Folder: New Overwrite option to overwrite existing PDF files or File index files instead of creating copies.
– New: Separation and Extraction: You can now read Patch Codes with the Extract Barcodes rule.
– New: Separation and Extraction: Set Field Value: It is now possible to select a range of segments based on one or more separators for example select from 2–1 (the 2nd segment until the last) based on SPACE as the separator.
Version 1.0(18) | 2018-04-06
– New: Update File Index in Export to Folder when it has the same name. This makes it possible to put all index data of a group of documents. For example all index data originating from the same scan batch or scanned the same day.
– Fix: When a document ended with a separator, the separator was deleted.
Version 1.0(17) | 2018-03-23
– New: Document Separation: Unattended document separation: You can now peform document sepration without an Organize action for fully unattended document separation.
– New action: Edit / Delete pages: With this action you can delete pages from PDF files. Typically, the action is used to delete the first page and get rid of the separator page. If all pages are deleted, there is a separate flow to process PDF without pages. The PDF without pages still contains the pages before the delete action. Deleting any of the pages does not affect the document index.
– New: Document Separation: If you separate every page, it is now also possible to extract data from each of the pages in the separation action. Previously it was required to run a separate extraction action to do this.
Version 1.0(16) | 2018-03-19
– Added TEMPLATE WORKFLOW that can serve as a basis when creating a new workflow
– Export to Folder: Export file index to FTP is now implemented.
– Fix: Calculate Number / Date: Location of the extracted date (pink rectangle) is lost after a calculation.We now take over the coordinates of the source field and if it doesn’t have any, we take over those from the field used in the calculation formula.
Version 1.0(15) | 2018-03-16
– New: Document Separation Action – Document Separation can currently only be used if followed by Organizer action to view the result of the Document Separatio.
– Improved Bar Code Setup – Zonal Barcode – Conditional barcode reading – Reading barcodes only on specific pages.
– New bar code defaults: Default Skew Tolerance is now 5, Selected types are: 39, QR and 128
– New: Extraction – Edit – Calculate Number rule to add, subtract, divide and multiply values.
Version 1.0(14) | 2018-02-16
– Fix: Time out error when publishing workflows
– New Extraction Rule: Find / Find Line with Number
– New: You can now search in the text result when testing extraction.
– Validation Select Text Tool: You can now select more than one line with the Select text tool and the lines are correctly concatenated in the field.
– New better defaults when creating a new workflow.
Version 1.0(13) | 2017-01-15
– Email Import can be used to import PDF attachments via IMAP.
– After import the PDF attachments are processed in the same way PDF files imported from folders.
– Once all attachments are processed, the corresponding email message is archived. The archive action can be configured to keep the processed email in the inbox, move it to another IMAP folder or delete it.
– Emails without PDF files or only containing non-PDF attachments are always rejected. Rejected emails can be processed with other actions.
Version 1.0(12) | 2017-08-18
Includes:
– Floating Data Workflow
– DPE (Diagnostic Performance Energetique) workflow with Doc. Sep and DB Lookup