Data Capture

In Part 3 of our short Data Capture videos, Malcolm Wilkes discusses the benefits of different types of Data Recognition software:

• OCR (Optical Character Recognition) – software reads machine produced text/characters (in defined zones of documents if required).  Simple solution and very accurate.
• ICR (Intelligent Character Recognition) – ‘intelligent’ software capable of reading hand written information as well as machine produced text.  Not infallible as hand written information can often be difficult to decipher, i.e. Doctor’s prescriptions!
• IDR (Intelligent Document Recognition) - highly ‘intelligent’ software ideally used post document capture to classify documents in advance of a business process, e.g. Digital Mailroom.

In part 2 of our short series of data capture videos, Malcolm Wilkes explains why choosing to send some documents overseas for manual entry makes good economic sense.

• Labour costs are less
• ‘Double-Keying’ improves accuracy
• Confidential information (data fields) can be split and entered by different people – added security as nobody sees the ‘complete picture’
• Quick – different time zones mean your data can be entered overnight so it is ready for you the next working day

Malcolm Wilkes, Avanquest Solutions:

When we published one of our first blog posts – The Multiple Methods of Data Capture – in May 2009, we had no idea the subject was that popular.  It has proven to us that Data Capture is something that organisations want to find out more about, so we have put together a series of short videos which will help explain.  The first one is clickable at the bottom of this post.

Data Capture might at first be thought of as merely a method of obtaining data for a computer.  It can be that simple, but when you start asking questions like:

• How much data do I need to capture?
• What type of documents do I need to capture?
• How much can I afford to capture?

….. Data Capture becomes a minefield.  The more you find out, the harder it is to make the right decision.

Avanquest can help and advise you on the best method(s) of data capture for your organisation – listening, identify the problems with you, then coming up with a data capture solution that fits in with the way you do business and your budget.

It shows just how far the humble barcode has come in the last few years as Google chose today’s anniversary of the invention to honour the inventors with a special ‘doodle’ – see image capture below…

Bernard Silver and Norman Woodland invented barcodes having overheard a local food business boss asking for a system to help read product data automatically.

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Following on from the previous post ‘How does OCR and ICR software know which data to extract from documents?’, we thought this simple flow chart might help you identify what type of documents you have.

Still not sure? Contact us and we will try to help.

You apply ‘rules’,  and tell it what to do!

Malcolm Wilkes, Avanquest Solutions:

OCR (Optical Character recognition) and ICR (Intelligent Character Recognition) software  ‘reads’ and extracts words and text from a document (paper or electronic) and then exports the data, along with the document, to another electronic system.  This could be your everyday line of business system, a data storage or document management repository, or a contact database such as excel, access or SQL.

OCR extracts data from structured documents.  ‘Intelligent’ and ‘thinking’ ICR technology is used when you need to extract information from the more challenging semi-structured and unstructured documents.

Depending on the types of documents you are trying to capture, rules are used to configure the extraction process.

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Although not easily interpreted by people, bar codes are easily ‘read’ by computers.

They are a great way of capturing paper based information into electronic format, for importing into your document management system.

Barcodes are used prior to scanning in several ways:

1. Pre-printed on the document to give a unique ID
2. Pre-printed on separator pages to indicate that a document is ending and a new document is beginning
3. Printed on labels (either pre-printed or printed on demand) and affixed to documents with unique values.

Capture software is able to read barcode information really quickly with amazing accuracy.  Reducing the number of errors means you can get the job done speedily, and no more manual indexing!

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Avanquest frequently gets asked about the different methods of data capture.  Malcolm Wilkes explains them simply.

Business Process Automation projects have to begin with capturing the data.

• Capturing data from business systems has long been considered the cheap easy option to start a process, because the data is there, it’s free!
• But how did it get there in the first place?
• In many cases the data has been input from unstructured, semi structured and structured sources (letters, invoices, email, fax, forms etc).
• When you consider the effort required to manually key the information, is it free, really?
• The good news is that there are lots of ways to capture data from documents which can save you a lot of money!
• The cost saving that can be achieved for your business is likely to be more important than the cost of the method employed.
• This is a general guide, which will hopefully outline the choices and help you decide which capture method or methods are best suited to populating your business process automation projects and your budget.
• The £ symbol against each method is a very basic indicator of the cost associated.
• The more £’s, the higher the cost of the method!

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