Do you have piles of forms to be scanned and indexed? Consider starting off the new year automating your standardized forms processing with Laserfiche Quick Fields. In this article, CDI Consultant and Trainer, Kyle Knebel goes in depth on the features, benefits, and some real-life examples of how companies are using Quick Fields today.
Quick Fields is a solution often overlooked but is beneficial for many organizations, saving users hours in document identification, capture, and indexing. Learning more about the solution is a great place to start our conversation with Kyle and discover what Quick Fields offers.
What is Laserfiche Quick Fields?
“Quick Fields,” Kyle tells us, “is a powerful and highly customizable data capture solution that uses automation so that you can identify and capture documents, extract information, sort and index the documents, and store documents in a Laserfiche repository.”
Can you describe the out of the box functionality available with Quick Fields?
There are extensive options when it comes to the Quick Fields solution. Kyles shares, “Without installing additional ‘add-ons,’ Quick Fields comes with the following Image Enhancements:
OmniPage OCR - Obtains text from an image and then stores and associates it with the image.
Universal Capture - Captures image files from a computer or network drive.
TWAIN scanning - Captures images from a scanner.
Laserfiche Capture Engine – Captures images and PDFs from a Laserfiche repository.
Text Extraction – Extract text from electronic documents (not from image files).
Page Size Identification – Based on the dimensions of a page, identifies and assigns these pages to a document class.
Page Removal – Removes a blank page or a specified page (like page 1) from documents.”
With so many organizations frequently processing high volumes of forms, can you explain which Quick Fields add-on processes might be advantageous?
Enhancing the Quick Fields solution with the following add-ons, Kyle shares, “can significantly turbo-charge the processing volume of structured documents.
OmniPage ZoneOCR – This process generates text from a specified area of an image. It does not associate any text with the document. It just reads and gives you access to what it reads in a token. If you want text associated with the document, use OmniPage OCR.
Form Identification – This process matches an image being scanned with a master form to determine whether the page should be assigned to a document class. If you need to process many applications that have a distinctive layout, this add-on process can enhance the accuracy of the identification.
Real-Time Look-Up – This process allows Quick Fields to take a value (or values) extracted from a document and use it to match information in a third party database. When a match is found, data can be used in Quick Fields for page identification, field population, document naming, and document storage.
Retrieve PDF Form Content – When dealing with a PDF form with fillable fields, we can use this process to retrieve some of the form values as tokens. These values can then be used in other tasks in the session, like naming the document, populating fields, or storing the document.
Barcodes - Many people use barcodes on slip sheets to identify and categorize documents or use barcodes in conjunction with “Real-Time Lookup” to accurately populate many fields based on a number encoded in the barcode that refers to an item in an external database.”
What is the importance of image enhancement features like Form Alignment (formerly called Form Registration) and Form Extraction when it comes to Quick Fields Processing?
Kyle explains, “These two image enhancements work together to reposition an image so that it is aligned with a master form and then removes the form outline/text so only the typed user input remains. When used with OmniPage Zone OCR, these three processes make data extraction very accurate.”
What new feature is available for users in Quick Fields 10.3?
“The new multi-value field group names in Laserfiche 10.3 are supported in Quick Fields and Quick Fields Scanning, allowing users to label the related groups,” Kyle says.
Can you give an example of how organizations are implementing Quick Fields solutions for Forms today?
“Many of our clients deal with quarterly statements and invoices.” Kyle tells us, “We frequently build Quick Fields sessions to process these types of documents. These installations produce a quick return on investment since it significantly reduces the hours needed to process such documents.”
What benefits do organizations receive when implementing a Quick Fields solution?
According to Kyle, “Implementing Quick Fields provides benefits like reduced employee time spent on manually indexing and filing documents into Laserfiche and increased accuracy with barcode and real-time lookup. Time spent on quality control of the (already separated and indexed) documents, speeds up the intake of documents and make it easier for staff to do their jobs. Quick Fields makes a painstaking task effortless by automating most of the work.”
The functionality of Workflow has expanded over the years, can you share some key reasons why an organization would implement Quick Fields and how it differs from Workflow?
Looking at the two applications side by side they are very different. Workflow functions on entries once they are in Laserfiche, whereas Quick Fields processes documents during capture. Kyle says, “Although Laserfiche Workflow does have a ‘Retrieve Document Text’ activity that can be combined with ‘Pattern Matching,’ it’s not the same as the Zone OCR module in Quick Fields. Quick Fields is an excellent solution when used on structured documents that have information in the same place on each document. Invoices are a good example. If you need to scan hundreds of invoices, and have values like Vendor Name, Amount, Date and Invoice number pulled from the page; then Quick Fields is an excellent solution for this scenario.”
While the needs of each organization vary, there are definite advantages to implementing a solution like Quick Fields when you have standardized documents. Having information pulled correctly from your forms initially, allows documents to easily trigger workflows and creates an even more expansive use of the solution. If you would like more information on Laserfiche Quick Fields contact the Team at CDI.