SmartSearch 3.1 – What’s New?
Summary
SmartSearch 3.1 reaffirms our commitment to continuous improvement and enhancement to a product already recognized for its innovative approach and intuitive design. In SmartSearch 3.1 several new feature additions are introduced including enhancements for the management of both images and electronically generated documents.
Most notable in version 3.1 is the introduction of a new Revision Control module which will be included as part of the core SmartSearch product offering. Revision Control provides unique tools for collaboration including the ability to “publish” documents that are completed and ready to be shared with the user community. Combined with the introduction of File XChange, SmartSearch users now have an end to end solution for managing electronic documents from their creation, throughout their editing process and to their eventual archival storage – or destruction.
SmartSearch 3.1 is a cumulative release and therefore includes all feature developments introduced in Service Packs throughout the 2010-2011 development cycles. Collectively this 12 month cycle included more than 40 new feature enhancements which are detailed within this document. We strongly encourage all members of our user community to review what SmartSearch 3.1 has to offer and more importantly how it can help to reach your objective of a paperless office.
SmartSearch 3.1 is available to all customers with an active support agreement. If you have any questions on how to receive this release or to apply the upgrade, please contact your SmartSearch reseller or Square 9 directly at info@square-9.com.
Revision Control
The SmartSearch Revision Control Module
SmartSearch 3.1 introduces a powerful new tool for business collaboration with the release of its Revision Control module. Now working with “living” documents where users need to collaborate while maintaining versions and document controls is easy and intuitive.
Version control means more than just tracking changes to a record(s); it also means enforcing business rules for accessing content. Determining who can see previous versions, whether they can roll back edits and deciding what content is available for public consumption are just a few of the benefits of a collaborative environment. As a result, the SmartSearch Revision Control module allows the organization to define these rules within its standard security model.
Establishing a Revision Controlled Environment
Revision Control settings are selected at the Archive level from the Administration tab during the configuration of SmartSearch. For documents to be version controlled, an administrator must set the property when a new Archive is created.
When an Archive is defined with the Revision Control property (Fig. 1.1), all documents in the Archive will adhere to the controls implemented by this feature.
Fig. 1.1
It is important to note that the stringent security required in a Revision Controlled environment dictates that Revision Control property may not be turned off on an Archive once it is enabled. This ensures that the version history is maintained and secured within the SmartSearch Archive. For the same reason, documents within a Revision Controlled Archive may not be moved to another location within the system where the revision history might be modified.
Securing Revision Controlled Documents
Add/Modify/Delete privileges will still apply to Revision Control documents as they normally would within SmartSearch. In addition, two new feature level security access permissions have been added; View Document Revisions and Publish/Un-publish Documents (Fig. 1.2).
Fig. 1.2
The View Document Revisions permission allows users to expand their access beyond just seeing the most recent or published record by right mouse clicking the record in the Results Grid and selecting view all revisions (see Accessing Revision Control Documents section).
The Publish/Un-Publish document permission allows a user to promote revisions for read only access by the user community without View Document Revisions permissions.
Accessing Revision Controlled Documents
Revision Controlled documents may be accessed just like any other record within SmartSearch; through a stored search or through a document view (when an Archive is selected). Only the most current version of a document or the published version will be available for viewing from the Results Grid.
Viewing Revisions
When the latest or published version is visible in the Results Grid, users with the appropriate access rights will be able to show all document revisions on a separate tab within the Results Grid by right mouse clicking the document record and choosing Show Revisions (Fig. 1.3). This action will open a new tab with all document revisions available based on proper permissions.Users will now be able to access any revisions of the document but only the most recent version may be checked out for editing. To access these Content Management features open the selected document within the viewer and select the Content Management tab.
Fig. 1.3
**Please note that the launch and Launch Copy buttons have been moved to the Content Management tab.
Checking Out Documents:
Revision Controlled documents may be “checked out” so that changes may be made while preserving the previous version. In this process the document is locked within SmartSearch so that no other users in the community can make edits to this revision until it is checked back in by that user.
No other users may check in a document which is checked out (with the exception of the System Administrator) and only the current version of the document may be checked out.
Checking a document out will automatically mark the original record with a status of checked out (Fig. 1.6) and creates a new version when checked back into the Archive.
Fig. 1.6
Checking In Documents:
Once a user has completed their edit process on a document, they must “check in” the document so that it is available for further collaboration or publishing. It is important to note that only a checked out document may be checked in. In addition, a document may only be checked in by the individual who checked it out.
Rolling Back Versions
Users with the proper permissions may roll back to a previous version of a Revision Control document simply by deleting any later versions on file. This will allow users to “undo” any changes to this point and allow them to make edits to an earlier version.
Published vs. Unpublished Documents
Revision Controlled documents may be stored in one of two states within SmartSearch; published or Unpublished. This approach is a cleaner and a more intuitive design than the “major vs. minor” revisions employed by other content management systems. It allows the user to easily designate which version will be accessed by the user community. A published document is a “finished” document where users have completed their collaboration process and now wish to share the content with the rest of the community. Published documents are visible to any user with permissions to that Archive and Archive level feature permissions have been implemented to enable access to document revisions for a particular security group.
It is important to note that documents in a published state will be viewable with standard “View” permissions. In addition, published documents may not be edited. The “published” property will override an Archive’s Modify permission for all users.
An unpublished document is a work in progress and is therefore only viewable by users with access to document revisions. The unpublished document that shows in an Archive or Results Grid will be the last checked in version of the file. Only one version of a document may be published at one time.
A document version can be published or unpublished by any user in a group with Add permissions as well as access to document versions and publish / un-publish rights. A user may only publish the most recent version from the Results Grid but may publish previous versions from the Revisions tab.
Publishing a Revision Controlled Document
Users may elect to publish another version of the document simply by selecting a different version and selecting Publish. When there already is a published version, a notification will appear indicating the published status and confirming the intent to publish this version instead (Fig.1.19).
Fig. 1.19
Note: The file import dialog box within SmartSearch has been modified to include an option to make the imported document published or un-published upon Import or a drag & drop command. This option is only visible on an Archive that is Revision Control enabled.
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Additional SmartCapture Enhancements
Page Count Separation
Page Count Separation has been added as a Capture Workflow activity. To automatically separate images coming into SmartSearch through capture exchange. Create a standard workflow and then drag the Page Count Separation activity into the Sequential Workflow worksheet. When the properties appear simply indicate the specified number of pages where the separation should take place (Fig.2.3).
Fig. 2.3
Indexing Documents
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).
The specific Archive named fields needed for this functionally are:
TO: CC: FROM: SUBJECT: DATE: PRIORITY: ATTACHMENTS:
Please note: The names of the email fields are case sensitive, and the colon is essential.
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New System Generated Fields
Two new system generated field properties have been added to the Field Catalog for logging index data on document edits. Administrators can now create a Last Modified Date field and/or a Last Modified By field to track when a document was edited and who performed it.
This type of data can be extremely beneficial in creating document workflows and can be used in conjunction with Revision Control for automating a collaboration process.
Fig. 2.20
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Searching Multiple Index Fields with a Single Prompt
SmartSearch 3.1 supports the ability to search multiple index fields for a single key piece of data. A common use case for this functionality would be an insurance policy. Suppose multiple fields for social security number exists and one SSN is keyed into each field. A user performing a search does not know which field might contain the SSN and does not want to run the search multiple times or key the SSN into multiple search prompts. By configuring the search for multi-field searching, this problem is easily solved.
To configure a Search for Multi-Field Searching:
You build your search in SmartSearch as you normally would, but make sure the prompt values for each of the SSN fields are the same (Fig. 3.2). Note that normally each prompt value would be different to uniquely describe the data to be searched.
Fig. 3.2
When this search is executed by a user, they will be prompted to enter only a single social security number, but the search will look in all the fields defined in the search with that prompt value for the data.
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OR based searching capabilities
SmartSearch now allows for advanced and/ OR based searches. By default, all searches are currently built using “and” logic. This means a search on two fields with two prompts would search for Field 1 AND Field 2. If either data element is not found, no results are returned. As a result, in certain advanced scenarios there may be a need to have searches use OR logic.
For example: In an invoice approval process, an AP clerk needed to flag any invoices that are above a dollar threshold for a given cost center, a search like the one described below may be defined.
In this example, the search should return any Sales invoice > $5,000 or any IT invoice > $2,500. Using the standard query logic however, this type of search would be impossible. To enable the OR based search functionality; select the “Use advanced grouping options” checkbox (Fig. 3.4).
Fig. 3.4
By default, the search will remain an AND based search. Using a combination of parenthesis as well as OR statements in the grouping options text (Fig. 3.5), we can make the search work as desired:
Fig. 3.5
Simply modify the grouping options text to suit your needs. The grouping works just like any basic algebra expression and follows the same mathematical rules, such as every open parenthesis must have a closing one.
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Copy and Paste Metadata into a Search
A very handy feature of SmartSearch 3.1 is the ability to paste values from Excel into a multi value search. With a multi value search created (check the multi value search box on the advanced screen of search creation/edit) you will see when running the search that the search prompts now have a single column spread sheet appearance (Fig. 3.6).
Fig. 3.6
This allows the user to enter one to many values to be searched for in each prompt. To aid in the entry of data into the search prompts, data can be easily copied from an Excel spread sheet column and pasted into this search box. All pasted values will now be search for in the specified SmartSearch Archives.
Common examples of usage would be to paste invoice numbers from an Excel aged invoice report, paste medical records numbers from an Excel report of patients to be seen for the current day or to paste exhibit numbers of evidence files to be retrieved for a legal case. This can help save allot of time re-keying data and allow users to construct much more powerful multi value searches.
Search Refresh Shortcut
In the event a user runs a search and would then like to re-run the same search from the Results Grid, this can now be accomplished by pressing the F5 key.
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Document Viewing
Opening Documents with a Double Click
One of the most highly requested modifications in 2010, Double Clicking to open a document has been added. Prior to v3.0 SP 2, users were required to select a document check box and then select “Open Document” in order to view it. Users can now simply double click on a row within the Results Grid to open a document. This action can be performed from the Results Grid in an InBox, Archive or Search Results screen.
Note: When double-clicking a document in the InBox, data may be selected anywhere on the grid with the exception of the field name. Double clicking on the field name will prompt you to re-name the file.
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Document Properties Access from the Viewer
Common questions like, document file type, can now be answered quickly by accessing the Document Properties from within the Viewer in Revision Controlled Archives. With Revision Controlled records, not only can the Document Version be determined by accessing the Document Properties, but also who has a document checked out.
Fig. 4.1
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Email Attachment Access
Email Attachment Access introduces a new means for accessing attachments in emails stored within SmartSearch. Previously users were required to launch the email back into its native format in order to access the attachments. A Mail Attachments bar appears whenever an email has resident attachments (Fig. 4.2).
Fig. 4.2
To view the attachments the user simply double clicks on the Mail Attachments bar and opens the document for viewing.
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Document Editing
Document Appending
Document Appending introduces the ability to update multiple documents at a time, along with a bulk process for adding pages to a record. This feature takes what can be a very time consuming common business process and reduces it to a matter of seconds.
To append a document, run a search and select the documents you wish to append from the Results Grid. Select Merge Documents from the Documents section on the Home tab and the Insert Document window will open allowing you to select a record(s) from any InBox. During the append process a SmartSearch icon will appear in the system tray notifying the user of the status. If selected with a right mouse click, users can select to view the progress or exit append.
Fig. 5.3
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Replacing Pages from the Thumbnail View
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 (s) with records coming from the Inbox, TWAIN scanner or from a network directory folder directly.
Fig. 5.14
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Security
Enhanced Feature Level Security
In addition to the new feature level security introduced for viewing document revisions and publishing documents (see Revision Control section), SmartSearch 3.1 introduces more granular controls for document editing (Fig. 6.1) . New permissions include Modify Data and Modify Annotations privileges for individuals with View Only rights.
Administrators can now control whether a person with View only rights should be allowed to edit data or apply annotations without the need to grant them full Modify rights.
Fig. 6.1
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Supported Formats and Operating Systems
Supported Operating Systems
Support for several new operating systems was introduced in the 2010-2011 development cycle, including Windows 7 (server and client) and 64 bit support. Below is a complete list of the supported operating systems for SmartSearch 3.1.
Server:
Microsoft Server 2003 (32 & 64-bit)
Microsoft Server 2008 (32 & 64-bit)
Windows XP Professional (32-bit only)
Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate (32 & 64-bit)
Client:
Windows 7 (32 & 64-bit)
Windows XP Professional (32-bit only)
Vista (32 & 64-bit)
Database:
Microsoft SQL 2005 Express
Microsoft SQL 2005 Standard or Enterprise
Microsoft SQL 2008 Standard or Enterprise
European Date & Currency Format Support
SmartSearch 3.1 has introduced improved non-US currency and date format support. Specific improvements are related to SmartSearch clients and servers existing in different locales and using different regional settings.
Support for Keyboard Shortcuts
There are a number of handy keyboard shortcuts now available for SmartSearch users. Beyond the most common CTRL+A for selecting all documents in the Results Grid for initiating an action and F5 for refreshing a search, there are several very useful shortcuts for navigating from within the document viewer;
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