SmartSearch 3.0 – What’s New?
Summary
As has been our practice for many releases, SmartSearch 3.0
was developed with a strong emphasis on customer requested enhancements.
We regularly poll our
customer base to understand how we can improve SmartSearch to fit their evolving
needs. Examples of customer requested enhancements in version 3.0 include
features like Field Ordering, Column Sizing, Document Merging and the
ability to email
PDF files with an index field as a filename. Additional highlights include
a range of tools for enhancing the search capabilities within SmartSearch,
support for Windows 7 and support for 64-bit architecture on both client
and server operating systems.
Below you will find a full list of the features now available
in SmartSearch 3.0 SP 3. We encourage everyone to take advantage of these
new features and to
continue leveraging the power of SmartSearch to automate your document
intensive processes.
Custom Stamp Creation
Service Pack 2 introduces the ability to create custom stamps either at the local user level or globally as an administrative function.
Stamp Management – The process to manage stamps is identical whether acting as a local user or as an administrator. The only difference is where the functionality is accessed from;
Accessing Stamp Management as the Administrator
To manage stamps as the administrator, navigate to the settings section on the administration tab (far right of toolbar). All stamps created, deleted or edited here are impacted globally for all users.
After clicking on the manage stamps icon, a window will appear which contains a list of the currently available stamps. To the right are three buttons for selecting whether to add a stamp, edit a stamp or delete a stamp.
As an option, variable data can be inserted into the custom stamp text. Options include the Users Name, Today’s Data, Today’s Time or Today’s date and time.
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Email Attachment Access
Service Pack 3 introduces a new means for accessing attachments in emails stored within SmartSearch. Previously users were required to launch the email back to its native format in order to access attachments.
With Service Pack 2 a bar now appears conditionally whenever an email has an attachment resident. To view the attachments the user simply double clicks on the attachment bar and opens the document for viewing.
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File XChange
File XChange is being distributed as a part of the “core” SmartSearch feature set with the release of version 3 SP 3. File XChange provides deep integration with the Windows file system allowing users to capture documents directly to SmartSearch using a Save command, through drag and drop or when printing through a Tiff/PDF printer like Acrobat Distiller or the Microsoft Office Document Image Writer. When the Save command is initiated, SmartSearch will appear as a drive letter within Windows Explorer with the archives listed below. Once an Archive is selected, the SmartSearch Index Window will appear allowing users to describe the document being captured.
Accessing SmartSearch File XChange is as simple as saving a document. SmartSearch does not even need to be open at the time of document capture.
1) From your application, select the Save As command
2) SmartSearch File XChange will appear as another drive within your computer.
For more detailed information about File XChange, click here
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Page Count Separation
Page Count Separation has been added as a Capture Workflow activity. To automatically separate images coming into SmartSearch through capture exchange:
1) Create a standard workflow and then drag the Page Count Separation activity into it.
2) When the properties appear simply indicate the specified number of pages where the separation should take place.
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PowerPoint Support
While SmartSearch has always support the cataloging of PowerPoint records, we have added the ability to view all PPT formats natively through our viewer. This includes all Office versions from 97-2010 whether in .ppt or .pptx format.
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Replace Page from Thumbnail
As a frequently requested customer feature, the ability to replace a page from the thumbnail view has been added. This feature collapses the add page/delete page commands into a single process and includes the ability to replace a page or pages with records coming from the Inbox, Scanner or from a network directly.
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Wild Card Searching
Wild Card searching adds a highly effective means for finding records when you are not sure how they are spelled or suspect they might have been misspelled when indexing. Unlike a Contains Search which returns everything containing the data you entered, Wild Card Searching allows you to be more granular or to open the search up wider if you wish. This is done by inserting an asterisk in the location of the missing character.
For example:
A search for app*ed would return results including Appleseed, applied, appropriated, etc.
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Annotation Formatting
Service Pack 2 introduces the ability to customize your annotations including the color of the highlighter
and color of a note along with its font and border. These preferences are easily configured through the
introduction of a new “Styles” menu on the toolbar ribbon.
To adjust the annotation style, simple apply an annotation by selecting either the Highlighter or
Note from the Annotation Types section and draw it onto the document with your mouse.
With the annotation activated, select the preferred style such as:
• Font Style
• Font Color
• Font Size
• Fill Color
• Border (On Y/N)
You may optionally elect to make the selected style your default for that annotation by selecting
“Set Default”.
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Reaction Color Change
As with annotations, redaction color can also be changed to the preference of the individual or the
organization.
*A Note on Redactions - This feature is especially useful in applications where large redacted areas are
drawn as with medical Explanation of Benefits forms (EOB’s). EOB’s are highly sensitive records which
contain information on multiple patients and are frequently redacted prior to distribution so that only
the pertinent information for a single patient is reflected.
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Document Bursting
Document Bursting has been enhanced to support deleting pages from the source document. As one or
more pages are pulled from the thumbnail viewer via a drag and drop operation, those pages will be
removed from the source document. This modification streamlines the ability to scan documents in a
batch without separator pages and manually “burst” the document into multiple documents.
• A new user setting has been added to the Viewer Window tab of the Application Settings
screen. Check the “Delete pages from source during Drag & Drop Burst” check box to tell
SmartSearch that pages should be deleted by default during a burst operation.
Note: Regardless of the default setting, users have the ability to easily decide whether or not pages
should be deleted from the source document at the time of capture. The Import Documents window
now has an additional check box to let the user determine whether pages should be deleted from the
source file or not. This checkbox will default to checked only if the user setting described previously is
checked.
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Automatic Population of Email Index Fields
Outlook Email message (*.msg, *.eml) files, either imported or drag-and-dropped into SmartSearch, will
automatically populate specifically named Archive Fields with the respective information from the file
itself.
• If only one file is being imported, the information will be displayed in the Data Tab of the Import
Document Form.
• If more than one file is being imported, the information for each file will be displayed in the
Main Form after the files are imported.
• Any information placed in the Import Document Form by the user will be used instead to index
the file(s).
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Dynamic Pick Lists
Dynamic Pick lists allow users to filter drop down fields in a pick list based on information selected in a
related field. For example: A user selects “Ford” for the Manufacturer in one pick list and a selection of
Ford models will appear in a second pick list. If the users selects “Honda” in the first list than a
completely different list of models will appear.
A Dynamic Pick List field is defined just like we defined a standard pick list field with one step extra to
define pick list table.
There are 2 levels of dependency that we can specify for a conditional pick list field. The first
level is required while second level is optional. First dependant level contains a list of regular
pick list fields (only). Second level may have conditional pick list fields besides regular pick list.
After select dependant fields, click on Build List to build list table:
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Enhanced Data XChange
Data XChange in SmartSearch 3.0.1 has been greatly enhanced through its ability to update from one or
more external data sources. Any data source accessible through an OLEDB data provider can be
accessed. This includes CSV files, or data from a 3rd party application using SQL Server or Oracle. Prior to using this feature, external sources need to be configured in SmartSearch on a per archive basis.
This setup can only be performed by an administrator. Once configured, the source will be available to
all users with access to the specified archive.
To utilize the new Data XChange source, from an open document, enter the key field that will be used to
look up other data in data source. In the example, the key field is Invoice Number. Key the invoice
number into the appropriate field and click the drop down arrow to the right of the Data XChange
button.
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Integrated Scanning Interface -SmartCapture
In addition to an enhanced release of SmartCapture, Service Pack 1 also brings scanning directly within
the main SmartSearch interface. To access SmartCapture simply click the icon located in the Capture
section of the Home Page. If SmartCapture has not been purchased as an option, the icon will be grayed
out automatically.
Enhanced Features within SmartCapture
SmartCapture has been enhanced to provide a better solution for production class batch scanning
through a dedicated capture device. The new interface provides a variety of benefits including:
• Easy to use interface with the familiar look and feel of the SmartSearch viewer
• Twain based scanning support
• Batch based capture with the ability to Scan, Edit & Save
• Certified with Canon, Kodak, and Fujitsu Scanners
• Image Preview & Editing available
• Pre-Index records at the time of Scan
• Direct Access to Inboxes or Archives through standard SmartSearch Capture Workflow Processes.
By linking SmartSearch Archives and inboxes directly with our Capture Workflow processes,
configuration time is greatly reduced while dramatically improving ease of use through pre-defined
scanning processes.
Additional SmartCapture Enhancements include:
Pre-indexing Documents at time of Scan – Documents can now be indexed at the time of capture. By
selecting the capture destination you define the index fields to be used for capture. Documents scanned
to an Inbox can also be named at capture.
Key Free Indexing – The highly popular KeyFree Indexing feature has been included within SmartCapture
so that scanned images can be indexed as they are within SmartSearch through the use of OCR assisted
indexing.
Full Viewer Functionality – Images can be manipulated, enhanced and rotated after capture but prerelease
to SmartSearch. This is achieved through the familiar tools found within our standard document
viewer.
Thumbnail Image Manipulation – cut, copy, paste or delete pages from a scanning image prior to
releasing to SmartSearch. Users can also re-order pages by dragging and dropping the thumbnails.
For more information on SmartCapture click here.
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Enhanced Search Capabilities
• Root Level Searches – you can now create queries at the root
level of SmartSearch allowing you to search on content in any and all
archives with the results being presented in a tabbed interface.
• Present Tabs with Results Only – with this feature enabled,
the results grid will only present tabs which represent archives where
a result was found. This eliminates the need to open each tab to determine
whether the search found a match.
• Select Archives to Search – by permitting the user to select
the Archives to be searched, the ability to customize queries and generate
document reporting is greatly enhanced.
• Multi Value Searching – if you have ever wanted to search on
multiple values within a single search prompt than this feature will
help you accomplish that task. A virtually unlimited number of values
can be entered into a single prompt (such as vendor name) and all matching
results will be returned.
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Document Merging
An added boost to productivity is now available with the Merge
Documents feature. Any records within an Inbox or Archive can be
merged into a single record which can then be easily distributed.
Simply select the documents you wish to merge from the results grid
and click the Document Merge button. You will be prompted on where
the new document will reside and the merge will be initiated using
the index data from the first record selected as the index data for
the new record.
Field Ordering
A long requested feature has been added, providing a major enhancement
to the way the Field Catalog is presented during Archive creation or
modification. The new interface allows users to select fields from
the field catalog and reorder them using the provided up and down arrows.
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Column Sizing
With the 3.0 release, columns within the result grid can be sized
as in previous versions but now can be saved per individual user
preferences.
Emailing a Record with a File Name
Records emailed from SmartSearch can now be named using an index
field for that record. Users can also use the default setting of square9-000.pdf
as the filename if a field value is not designated.
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Document Views
The Document Views feature automatically sub-categorizes the contents
of an Archive based on a pre-determined field value (i.e. status) to provide
business intelligence. These fully customizable views deliver a quick “snapshot”
of document activity and can be easily exported to Excel for reporting
purposes.
Work XChange - Document Workflow
The SmartSearch Content Management suite now delivers a new tool
for document process automation through its Work XChange document workflow
component. As an optional module within SmartSearch 3.0, Work XChange
takes a graphical approach to creating and maintaining workflow automation
through a highly intuitive drag & drop
design tool featuring Workflow Activities.
Document Workflow activities include rules based:
- User Initiated & Automated Workflow
Actions
- Notifications & Escalations
- Document Routing
- Document Checkpoints
- Metadata Updates
User Initiated & Automated
Workflow Actions
Work XChange features two types of workflows for process automation:
User Initiated Workflows require a physical “Action” by the
user to trigger an event. These fully customizable actions are integrated
directly
into the SmartSearch Document viewer and feature a conditional
display, which only presents Actions when a pre-determined criterion
is met. User
Initiated Workflows may also be executed from the results grid
allowing for the processing of multiple transactions.
Automated Workflows run in an unattended manner based on pre-determined
criteria. These processes require no user intervention and happen
automatically behind the scenes. Automated Workflows can be used in
tandem with User
Initiated Workflows to address a number of workflow activities
including:
- Document retention scheduling
- AP Invoice Routing & Approvals
- Human Resources Credentialing
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Participants
Users designated as part of the workflow process are defined as
participants within Work XChange. The participant may also be a group of
users or an individual who are selected for automated notification whenever
a workflow action is required. In the event a participant is out of the
office, a delegate can be defined so that notifications can be re-routed.
Notifications & Escalations
Work XChange provides automatic email delivery through SMTP based
on a condition being met. Outbound messages can be custom formatted and
even include embedded SmartSearch metadata within the message.
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Document Routing
With this activity, documents are routed automatically to the
appropriate party based on either a user initiated action or a condition
being met. Documents can be routed based on a simple rule or more complex
rule with multiple conditions and actions.
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Document Checkpoints
Document checkpoints search an Archive or Multiple Archives for
validation that all criteria have been met in order to initiate the workflow.
A prime example would be in a loan process
Has the loan application been received?
Has the flood certification been received?
Has the appraisal been received?
- If all conditions have been met the document could be automatically
routed to underwriting to begin processing.
- If all conditions have not been met the documents would
wait in queue with status notifications or escalations being managed
through Work XChange.
Metadata Updates
Metadata updates automatically change a field value based on a
condition being met. Metadata updates support both pick lists and date
math (i.e. Set Date Approved Field to @today).
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SmartSearch v3.0 Technical Notes
Certifications
SmartSearch 3.0 is certified to run on the following Operating
Systems:
Server:
Windows XP Professional (32-bit only)
Microsoft Server 2003 (32 & 64-bit)
Microsoft Server 2008 (32 & 64-bit)
Client:
Windows 7 (32 & 64-bit)
Windows XP Professional (32-bit only)
Windows Vista (32 & 64-bit)
Database:
Microsoft SQL 2005/2008 Express
Microsoft SQL 2005 Full Edition
Microsoft SQL 2008 Full Edition
Important Tech Notes for Version 3.0
Users running Windows Server 2003
On Windows 2003 server, the settings to allow SmartSearch to
work on 64-bit versions of this OS require a server change that will
make all
applications using IIS to run in 32-bit mode. Customers should
only make this change if they are sure that no other applications will
be impacted
by running in 32-bit mode. In layman’s terms, if you have
a 64-bit server running web applications on the 2003 server OS that requires
64-bit processes,
you cannot run SmartSearch on this server or it will not allow
the other applications to function correctly.
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