Importing existing files for processing.
Disable StopFile
If you have many different users running SimpleIndex on different computers saving to the same Output folder, the STOPFILE from one can cause another user to not be able to export to the folder while the original user is outputting to the folder. In this case the STOPFILE can be disabled, so this no longer happens.
This will not work if you have anyone that needs to add files to an existing file in the output folder, so make sure that won’t happen.
Instructions:
- Close SimpleIndex entirely
- Open the Windows Registry by going to the Windows Search and searching for “RegEdit”
- Go to this location in the Registry Folder Tree: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\SimpleIndex\Misc
- In the right section of the Registry window Right Click in the white space and select New>String Value
- Name the new key “StopFile”
Create Unique Batch Name
SimpleIndex creates a Batch ID each time you run a SimpleIndex Job Configuration, which creates a new batch.
The Batch ID is the Date and Time that the batch was started.
EX. 2020-01-23@145419
In this example 2020 is the Year, 01 is the Month, 23 is the Day, 14 is the Hour, 54 is the Second and 19 is the Millisecond that the batch was started.
When running SimpleIndex as a Windows Service using the Server Add-on or using the Windows Task Scheduler you can set-up multiple Job Configurations to run on different time frames and have them all running at once. This can lead to a very small possibility that two different Job Configurations will start at the same Millisecond, especially when the Job Configurations are set to run on the same time frames. This can lead to errors or missing files during the process.
With the following option you can make every batch name unique in case there are multiple batches that are created at the exact same Millisecond, which can occur with multi-thread processing on the same Input folder.
Instructions for Unique Batch Name:
- Open the Windows Registry Editor by searching for “regedit”
- Find this location in the Registry Editor:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\SimpleIndex\Misc - Right click in the right and select New>String Value
- Name the key the following: GUIDBatchNames
- Open the key and set the value to the following: 1
Continue with Post Process Command Line if Input Folder is Empty
When running multiple jobs in a row or chain with the Post Process Command Line it is possible that an earlier Job in the process won’t have any files. This will stop the Job before reaching the Post Process step and cause later jobs not to run.
This can be corrected by adding an option directly to the XML text of the Job Configuration. This will tell it to keep going to the Post Process step even if there are no files to process in the Job.
Instructions:
- Right click on the Job Configuration file (.sic file format) and select Open With..
- Select Notepad or some other text file opening software.
- Search for this in the text of the file: <POSTPROCEMPTY>false</POSTPROCEMPTY>
- Change the word “false” to the word “true” in that section.
- false = Stop immediately if there are no files to process.
- true = Run the Post Process Command Line even if there are no files to process
- Save the file and close it.
How do I limit the number of files pulled from the input folder?
The Max File/Batch setting on the Batch Options tab lets you limit the number of files to process in each batch.
In the wizard it can be found under the Advanced File Input Settings section.
- Published in Import
How do you select what types of files to process?
You can tell SimpleIndex what types of files it should process and which file types to ignore.
This is done by clicking “Job Options” On the “Batch” tab you will find a field labeled “Input file types or mask”. These are the file types that SimpleIndex will input files from. The default types are:
TIF,PDF,JPG,GIF,BMP,DOC,XLS,PPT,DOCX,XLSX,PPTX,VSD,DWG,AVI,MP3
To process all files, enter *
SimpleIndex will ignore any file whose extension does not appear on the list.
In SimpleIndex 6 or above you can enter file masks to filter input files. Some examples are:
abc*.pdf (PDF files starting with “abc”)
ab??ef.* (All files starting with “ab”, 2 characters and “ef”)
It is possible to have some file types open automatically in their default application. This can be done by inserting a pipe “|” into the list. Any file types after the pipe will be opened in their default application. For example:
TIF,PDF,JPG|WAV,MP3,WMV,AVI
will cause SimpleIndex to display image files and open sound and video files in the default media player.
- Published in Import
Can the original image filename be used as part of the output filename?
The input filename can be specified automatically by configuring a field of type “Filename”. The input file path may also be parsed by the SimpleIndex dictionary and template matching algorithms to extract data fields from the folder and file names.
- Published in Export, Import, Indexing & UI
SimpleIndex Walkthrough
What Is SimpleIndex?
SimpleIndex is a tool to organize your documents automatically, whether they are scanned or digital.
It provides the advanced OCR automation features of enterprise-class software, with an interface and workflow that is optimized for the desktop user.
It can work as a standalone document manager, or a capture front-end to any app, database or cloud storage solution.
What Makes SimpleIndex Different?
Document capture applications fall into 3 main categories — Desktop, Enterprise and SDKs. SimpleIndex is a hybrid of all three.
Desktop scanning and OCR software require you to manually organize your files, which adds many hours of extra work over time, even if you only scan a few documents a week.
Enterprise solutions are designed to distribute documents to multiple servers and operators and keep hundreds of working batches in a queue, with all the extra setup time and license costs associated with them. (If they’ll even sell you a permanent license!)
APIs and SDKs make you re-invent the wheel. While you have direct integration with your app, any capabilities and UIs you want to have need to be coded.
SimpleIndex puts powerful Enterprise automation and integration features into app that is designed and priced for desktop users.
The SimpleIndex command line interface lets IT and information workers who aren’t programmers integrate scanning, OCR and data capture into third party apps and RPA Bots.
How Does SimpleIndex Work
SimpleIndex is designed around a single batch processing model, performing all the stages of the document capture workflow in one sequence of steps.
These steps are:
- Import (scan or read existing files)
- Process (cleanup, OCR, barcode recognition)
- Index (QC review images and OCR, assign index field values)
- Export (save documents and index data to files and/or database)
SimpleIndex is designed to quickly scan and index a single batch by performing each stage automatically in sequence, without the operator having to click extra buttons or launch a different application. This design makes SimpleIndex much faster and easier to use, while lowering setup complexity and cost.
SimpleIndex replaces the series of individual commands required by some applications with a single “Run Job” button. This one click executes all the user-configured settings and batch steps.
SimpleIndex Jobs
Each type of document has different parameters for each processing stage that are used to capture and file the images. In SimpleIndex, a particular set of these parameters is called a Job.
When configuring a job, you must specify how you want SimpleIndex to perform each of the processing stages from Import to Export. When a job is executed, SimpleIndex automatically launches all the processing stages in sequence according to the settings you specify.
The settings for a job are saved to a SimpleIndex Configuration File (*.sic). Any configuration file can be launched from Windows Explorer by double-clicking its icon just like any saved document. Doing this will start SimpleIndex and execute the job automatically.
Jobs can even be configured to perform all indexing automatically and hide the SimpleIndex user interface altogether. You can run them interactively while you work in other applications, or run them unattended on a server.
Processing the Sample Jobs
The best way to get started with SimpleIndex is to check out the sample configuration files that come with the trial download. These sample configurations demonstrate some of the key features of SimpleIndex and provide a starting point for configuring various types of jobs.
Several online videos are available to guide you through this process, or you can schedule an online demo and have us show you personally!
- Sample Job Videos – demonstrations and presentations
- Simple Software University – how to configure jobs
- Get an Online Demo – let us show you in a Zoom!
RTFM (Read The Fantastic Manual)
The Simple Software Wiki has extensive documentation and how-to guides for all of the features and usage scenarios, all in a Wiki format that lets you get additional information and context for any topic when you need to know more.
Core concepts and features have their own pages, with links to all of the settings and user interface options that relate to each one. Related training videos are embedded as well.
- Creating Jobs
- Running Jobs
- Scanning
- OCR
- Bar Code Recognition
- Database Integration
- Index Autofill
- Pre-Index Batch Jobs
- PDF Processing
- Imprinting
- Fixed fields and preset values
- Distributed Capture
- Unattended Processing
- Command Line Interface