7/18/2017 Knowledgebase | Brainware: Perceptive Intelligent Capture Technical Overview

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Author: Susan Cook

Document ID: 174160
First Published: 5/4/2016 12:10 PM
Last Modified: 5/4/2016 12:10 PM
Last Published: 5/4/2016 12:10 PM
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Brainware: Perceptive Intelligent Capture Technical Overview

Table of Contents

Overview
Technical requirements
Terminology
Questions to ask
Information to capture
Processing workflow
Workflow states
Related articles
Technical diagram (Internal Only)

Overview

Perceptive Intelligent Capture (PIC) is a document processing system that combines optical character recognition
(OCR), automatic data extraction from any document type, and data validation in order to perform auto-
processing to ECM systems and other core business applications. It includes the following applications:

Perceptive Intelligent Capture Designer

Perceptive Intelligent Capture Runtime Server
Perceptive Intelligent Capture Verifier
Perceptive Intelligent Capture Web Verifier

Technical requirements

The following recommendations are based on a standard accounts payable project with the following properties:

TIFF documents of one to three pages

Document resolution of 300 dots per inch (DPI)
An average TIFF file size of approximately 80 KB
An average WorkDoc size of approximately 21 KB
A project size of less than 5 MB and less than 10 document classes
Clean-up of exported batches within one to three days

Hardware requirements

A server class system is required to run PIC in an enterprise environment. The process power of this server
directly impacts performance. Minimum hardware recommendations vary based on the number of documents to
be processed daily.

Note: For optimal performance, it is recommended to use 3.0 GHz processors or faster. Slower processor speeds
will work, but performance and throughput are better with higher speeds. Increasing RAM to 4 GB per core or
higher will also help increase performance. For version-specific requirements, refer to the applicable version's
technical specifications document.

Volume level Minimum recommendation

Low volume (500 pages per day) Server class CPU with a minimum
of two cores
4 GB RAM (2 GB per core)
20 GB hard disk

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Volume level Minimum recommendation

Medium volume (5,000 pages per day) Server class CPU with a minimum
of four cores
8 GB RAM (2 GB per core)
100 GB hard disk

High volume (10,000 pages per day) Server class CPU with a minimum
of eight cores
16 GB RAM (2 GB per core)
200 GB hard disk

Operating system requirements

Operating system Supported platforms/versions

Microsoft Windows Server Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-bit)

Windows Server 2008 R2 (32-bit)

Other .NET Framework 3.5 SP1

Accessibility requirements

A network minimum of 100 Mb/s configured at full duplex (or auto-negotiation) is required for PIC Server and the
database server. If possible, a 1 Gb/s network provides optimal performance.

Terminology

Batch – A batch is a collection of documents that are grouped together and processed as a single unit. Each
document in a batch is independent, but the collection itself is treated as a whole.

Classification, Extraction, and Export – These are the primary steps in the PIC
workflow. Classification classifies a document to a specific class, such as Invoices or Vendors, which are
customizable depending on an organization's specific requirements; Extraction extracts data from a document;
and Export exports the extracted information to a defined destination.

Designer – Designer is a PIC component that enables the customization of automatic processing of incoming
documents, such as which document classes are relevant, what information to extract from classified documents,
and how to verify the results. Project files (with an .sdp extension) are opened using the Designer application.

OCR – OCR is the acronym for optical character recognition, the process by which PIC reads text from
documents.

PIC – PIC is the acronym for Perceptive Intelligent Capture.

PICI – PICI is the acronym for Perceptive Intelligent Capture for Invoices, which is a customer accounts payable
process designed to extract relevant information from invoice documents.

Runtime Server (RTS) – RTS is a server process that runs unattended in the background and ensures that the
system is stable and can recover from most error situations. Multiple instances of RTS can be started
simultaneously in a network or on a single machine. These instances cooperate and allow for optimal load
distribution.

Verifier – Verifier is the quality assurance utility of the PIC suite. There are two types of Verifier: a desktop
version called Thick Verifier (TVC) and a web version called Web Verifier (WVC). End users employ the use of one
of these versions to manually correct classification and extraction results in the event the system cannot identify
document elements.

Questions to ask

These are the basic questions to ask during any investigation of a Perceptive Intelligent Capture issue.

Question Reason

Were any changes made recently? This helps pinpoint configuration or

environmental issues.

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Question Reason

Are some or all users affected? This can determine whether the issue is
with a PIC component or a specific user.

Has it ever worked? This helps pinpoint configuration or

environmental issues.

Is the Runtime Service (RTS) started? If the batches are not moving to the
next state, the RTS might not be
running.

Have any logs been captured? The logs will pinpoint most simple
workflow step issues.

How often does the issue occur? This helps determine if the issue is
occurring on a sporadic or consistent
basis.

Information to capture

File/Information Description

Project materials: SDP and INI files
The SDP file is the main project file, and
the INI file contains the project
configuration. Both files are located in
the PIC installation
directory's Global folder.

Train and Pool folders The Train folder contains the project's
learnsets. The Pool folder contains the
vendor, employee, and other pool data.
These folders are located in the PIC
installation directory's Global folder.

Log files Log files are stored in [drive]:\[PIC

installation folder]\bin\log.

Processing workflow

PIC offers a complete document processing system, described as follows:

The Import step brings images into PIC from a defined import directory and performs the pre-processing of
the documents.

Text is read on the document in the OCR step using one of a collection of engines (some are pure OCR
engines and some are not) available in PIC. These engines are licensed and bundled as part of the PIC
package.

Documents are sorted in the Classification step according to predefined project settings. At this point,
documents are assigned to classes such as Invoices, Vendors, Generic, or Intercompany.

Relevant pieces of information from classified documents are captured in the Extraction step. During this
step, if the system fails to extract any of the required data from any document in a batch, the entire batch
is sent to Verifier for manual verification.

During the Export step, the extracted dates, together with the documents, are exported.

The Clean Up process ensures that only batches that have exported successfully are deleted from the
Runtime Server. Once batches are cleaned up, they are removed from PIC. There are no success or fail
states for this step.

With the exception of Clean Up, each workflow step has two states associated with it to identify the status of
batches within the step. Generally, a state ending in 00 denotes success, while a state ending in 50 indicates a
processing failure. See the Workflow states section in this article for additional information.

A batch is assigned the state value that is equal to the lowest state value of any documents contained within the
batch. For example, if a batch has 10 pages with one page set to failure state 550, the entire batch will be set to
state 550 even if the other nine pages can be successfully processed.

Input and output states for each workflow step can be altered within projects to better suit specific business
needs.

Note: States 600 to 699 are not listed as either a success or fail state for any process within the workflow

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because they are reserved as exception handling states. Whether or not these states are used depends on the
rules of the organization where PIC is installed.

Workflow states

The following table lists the default states that are assigned to a batch during the workflow process. Other
customized states may be added as needed.

Step State

Import Failed – 50
Successful – 100

OCR (optical character recognition) Failed – 150

Successful – 200

Classification Failed – 250

Successful – 300

Extraction Validation Required – 550

Successful – 700

Export Failed – 750

Successful – 800

Related articles

Knowledgebase articles:

Verifier Technical Overview

Types of log files in Perceptive Intelligent Capture or Brainware Distiller
Distiller compatibility overview
Perceptive Intelligent Capture for Invoices Technical Overview
Web Verifier Technical Overview
Intelligent Capture (Intellicapture) Technical Overview

Product documentation:

Perceptive Intelligent Capture Designer Guide

Perceptive Intelligent Capture Verifier User Guide
Perceptive Intelligent Capture Web Verifier User Guide
Perceptive Intelligent Capture Runtime Server Guide
Perceptive Intelligent Capture Product Licensing Guide
Perceptive Intelligent Capture Installation and Setup Guide
Perceptive Intelligent Capture Technical Specifications
Perceptive Intelligent Capture for Invoices Installation and Setup Guide

Technical diagram (Internal Only)

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