IBM® FileNet® Capture provides the capability to add documents to the object store or Image Manager repository. You can use various document capture methods including scanning, faxing, and importing files. You can automate the document entry process to provide production-level capabilities.
You can use a wide variety of scanners from low volume personal scanners to high volume production scanners. In addition, the FaxEntry portion of the Capture product provides an automated method for automatically capturing inbound faxes. The Capture File Import capability provides a method to import existing documents from user directories.
The following diagram illustrates a simplified architectural view of Capture:
As shown in the following diagram, Capture uses a SQL Server database as an intermediate repository for batches of scanned images and indexes that are then committed to an object store. The separate database for batches allows most capture processing to be performed with little impact to performance. The diagram also shows how Capture workstations can be distributed to handle higher image throughput requirements.
The following diagram illustrates the flow of documents during the Capture process.
- Document classes and File Plan information are retrieved from the object store into the Capture repository.
- Images or documents enter the Capture system (through scanning, inbound fax, or import) and are grouped into batches for further processing.
- Various Capture functions can be performed on these batches, including assembling, indexing, document processing (such as de-skew and de-speckle), selecting file plans, and assembling the images into documents. These Capture functions are performed on the batches in the Capture repository and do not affect the performance of the object store.
- After all necessary Capture operations have been performed, the batches are moved to the object store by using the Content Engine COM API. During this process, all the documents in a batch are moved to the object store and the appropriate document class properties are set.
- If an IBM Enterprise Records File Plan has been specified, then a record is also created in the File Plan Object Store (FPOS) and associated with the created document.
- After the documents are moved to the object store, they can be accessed (viewed, searched for, and so on) from FileNet P8 client applications.