Oracle Content Capture Engineering Case Study

Introduction

This article describes an end-to-end case study for Oracle Content Management (OCM), where its content capture and asset modeling features are used to organize project documents for an engineering firm.

To learn more about Oracle Content Management, visit the Oracle website or have a look at the documentation.

Use Case Scenario

Supremo Engineering specializes in the construction of new office buildings. They have a need for a new content management solution to help them organize the documents related to the construction and ongoing maintenance of their office building projects. This new content management implementation must enable them to find building details and architectural drawings, and to trace the history of change requests that were issued during construction of a building.

Oracle Content Management offers asset modeling features that can be used to create building project objects with the necessary references to an architect’s original artistic rendition of the proposed building, a collection of floor plan diagrams (one for each floor), and a collection of change requests that were submitted during building construction.

Oracle Content Management also provides content capture features that can be used to manage the ingestion of these different asset types, ensuring that they’re properly indexed and attached to the appropriate building projects.

Personas

The following roles are involved in this project:

Name	Role
Conrad	As an OCM capture manager, I administer the capture procedures at Supremo Engineering to collect the content from various sources and route it to Oracle Content Management.
Andrea	As the OCM content administrator, I develop and maintain the various content and asset types at Supremo Engineering to represent the data in Oracle Content Management.

Project Definition

Andrea and Conrad have had several meetings with the Supremo Engineering building projects team to gather their document collection and storage requirements. They’ve identified different groups which will be producing documents that will need to be stored within their Oracle Content Management (OCM) repository, including real estate, engineering, architects, and builders.

Different teams involved with building projects.

Their next task is to translate these requirements into an Oracle Content Management implementation.

This project covers these areas:

Property selection (with asset synchronization)
Building project initialization (with file import and asset lookup)
Architectural drawings (with email import and barcode extraction)
Change requests (with scanned documents and client lookup)

Process Diagram

This is a visualization of the overall project workflow:

Full process diagram.

Property Selection: Asset Synchronization

The first step in the building process is selecting the best real estate lots for new building projects.

Supremo Engineering’s real estate team finds desirable properties upon which to construct new buildings. They have specialized applications that they use to manage this process. Much of the data collected about the property will also be useful during construction and long-term maintenance of the building. The engineering team would like to have this data available in Oracle Content Management for reference.
Andrea creates an asset repository and then a new content item type in Oracle Content Management to hold this data about the property parcels.
Conrad uses the capture asset synchronization feature to synchronize data from the real estate database to the new property content type that Andrea created.

Diagram that illustrates the three steps described above.

Create an Asset Repository

Andrea must first create an asset repository in Oracle Content Management that will contain all the building project assets to be collected.

In the Oracle Content Management web application, Andrea clicks Content in the left navigation menu and then chooses Repositories in the dropdown menu.
When she clicks the Create button, she’s presented with two repository options:
- Asset Repository—The traditional OCM asset repository, which is designed to support web site management.
- Business Repository—An asset repository that’s intended for backoffice solutions as opposed to high-profile, outward-facing websites.
Andrea selects the business repository type, since it more closely matches the needs of the engineering team.
There are multiple configuration options for a repository, but Andrea only provides the initial name and description at this point. She’ll update the repository later as new components are defined.

Create a Property Content Item Type

Andrea’s next task is to define a content item type to hold the property parcel information:

Andrea navigates to the Asset Types page and clicks Create.
She provides the name and description of the type, and then chooses to create a content item type:
- Content Item Type—A content item type isn’t associated with a specific asset (or file), but it does include metadata fields and references to other content items or assets.
- Digital Asset Type—A digital asset type is always associated with a file. Metadata about the file can also be defined. Asset types don’t support links to other items or assets.
The engineering team has asked for the following fields of the real estate team’s property data to be synchronized to Oracle Content Management for reference:
- LegalDescription—The legal description of the property.
- Code—A unique identifier assigned to a parcel based on the initially developed building ideas.
- Phone—The lowest phone number of a set of phone numbers reserved for a future building.
- CreateDate—The date the parcel was acquired.
- Acres—The size of the parcel in fractional acres.
- PeopleSupport—The number of people (office workers) the local infrastructure (water, electricity, sewage, etc.) can support.
- Address, City, StateProvince, Postal, Country, Region—The address of the parcel.
Andrea adds the various metadata values to the content type using the correct data type for each field. They are all required fields.
After creating the new content type, Andrea goes back to the Building Projects repository and updates it to include the new Property content type.
Andrea lets Conrad know that the Property content type is ready for use.

Set Up Asset Synchronization

Conrad is now ready to set up asset synchronization between Supremo Engineering’s real estate database and Oracle Content Management.

Create a New Content Capture Procedure

Conrad starts by creating a new content capture procedure that defines the various document collection flows for the engineering team.

Visualization of process to create a new content capture procedure called ‘Engineering Projects’.

Obtain Database Details

Next, Conrad obtains the database connection details to the real estate team’s database from which to synchronize the data over to the content type:

Database Machine: realEstateDB.engco.com
Port: 1521
Service: property.engco.com
Credentials: readOnlyUser / ASafePassword

Looking at the database design, there’s a clear mapping of the fields from the real estate database over to the new content type that Andrea created.

Database information in table form.

Start the Import File Agent

Conrad intends to use the asset synchronization feature of the capture file import utility to synchronize the data from the real estate database to the Property content type in Oracle Content Management.

The first step is to download the File Import Agent onto a server machine that’s running in their on-premise data center, so that it will have access to the real estate database.

Content Capture welcome screen, with a download link for the File Import Agent.

Conrad unzips the downloaded file and navigates into capture-agent/bin directory.
He executes the capture -h command to show the command help so he can see all options that are available.
He then verifies that the Import File Agent isn’t currently running, and he starts it:
```
capture status
capture start
```

Create Confidential Client Application

Next, Conrad creates a confidential application within his Oracle Cloud domain instance and grants that application access to OCM Content Capture, so the File Import Agent can communicate with OCM Content Capture.

Conrad navigates to the domain administration page and then opens the domain.

Oracle is in the process of updating Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) regions to switch from Identity Cloud Service (IDCS) to Identity and Access Management (IAM) identity domains. All new Oracle Cloud accounts automatically use IAM identity domains. For existing accounts, you may create the confidential client application in IDCS or IAM, depending on your cloud account status.
He then chooses to add a new confidential application.
He provides the relevant details about the new client configuration. This creates a secure entry point for API-based applications such as the File Import Agent to use the Content Capture APIs.
Conrad collects the following pieces of information from this new application:
- URL: https://idcs-61f5af048a00496383f26169094f0d2f.identity.oraclecloud.com/oauth2/v1/token
- Client Id: 4ab705d7cee04b7eb49ec5c8a81dd862
- Client Secret: 698abaa3-0deb-4b13-8850-26c6ad4df1f0
- Scope: https://73D21C991954BFB8518E73AF0789B73F.cec.ocp.oraclecloud.com:443/urn:opc:cec:all

Connect the File Agent to OCM Content Capture

Conrad now connects the Import File Agent to his instance of OCM Content Capture.

He connects the Import File Agent by running the register-server command (line breaks added for legibility):

C:\CaptureImportAgent\capture-agent\bin>capture register-server oceServer
   -e https://engnrco-oce0001.cec.ocp.oraclecloud.com 
   -u captureService@engco.com 
   -p ALongSafePasswordValue
   -i https://idcs-61f5af048a00496383f26169094f0d2f.identity.oraclecloud.com/oauth2/v1/token 
   -c 4ab705d7cee04b7eb49ec5c8a81dd862 
   -s 698abaa3-0deb-4b13-8850-26c6ad4df1f0 
   -o https://73D21C991954BFB8518E73AF0789B73F.cec.ocp.oraclecloud.com:443/urn:opc:cec:all
Server created with name : oceServer

He then uses the list-servers command to confirm the registration by showing the servers that the agent is connected to:

C:\CaptureImportAgent\capture-agent\bin>capture  list-servers
server name  user                      endpoint
-----------  ----                      --------
oceServer    captureService@engco.com  https:// engnrco-oce0001.cec.ocp.oraclecloud.com

Conrad’s next goal is to link the Import File Agent to the real estate database. Details about the structure of the database will be uploaded to OCM Content Capture for later mapping of database columns to the content type fields.

He uses the list-procedures command to find the identifier of the procedure he created in OCM Content Capture:

C:\CaptureImportAgent\capture-agent\bin>capture list-procedures –s oceServer
name                  id  description                     created by
----                  --  -----------                     ----------
Engineering Projects  7   Document flows for the Buildin  conrad@engco.com 
Invoice flow          4                                   conrad@engco.com

Conrad then uses the register-database command to establish a three-way linkage between the File Import Agent, the real estate database, and his new content capture procedure (line breaks added for legibility):

C:\CaptureImportAgent\capture-agent\bin>capture register-database propertyDB 
-s oceServer
-w 7
-c jdbc:oracle:thin:@//realEstateDB.engco.com:1521/property.engco.com 
-u readOnlyUser 
-p ASafePassword
Successfully registered database connection

He confirms the linkage using the list-databases command:

C:\CaptureImportAgent\capture-agent\bin>capture list-databases –s oceServer
database name  procedure    linked     user                url                                             
-------------  ---------    ------     ----                ---
propertyDB     7            tru        RealEstateSchema    jdbc:oracle:thin:@//dajones.sub…

Create the Data Synchronization

Now that the database has been registered, Conrad can choose which tables he wishes to expose to OCM Content Capture for synchronization to content items.

Knowing that the desired database table name is PROPERTY, Conrad registers the table as one available for synchronization:

C:\CaptureImportAgent\capture-agent\bin>capture register-table
-s oceServer  
-w 7 
-d propertyDB 
-t PROPERTY
Successfully registered table

He now returns to the Content Capture administration UI, selects the Engineering Projects procedure, and opens the Metadata tab.
He scrolls down the page until he finds the Asset Synchronizations section, and then clicks + to add a new one.
Conrad configures the new synchronization.

The Source Database section shows the databases and tables that he registered via the agent.

In the Target Content Type section, Conrad selects the new repository and asset type created by Andrea.

The file agent has also uploaded the details of the columns available in the database table. This allows Conrad to map the database columns to their corresponding asset fields by selecting columns from a dropdown list (which shows only those fields that have compatible data types).

Confirm Data Synchronization

Conrad knows that the agent will start the next synchronization cycle on the given schedule. However, he’d like to confirm things are working immediately, so he chooses to force the update.

Conrad runs the refresh-config command to cause the agent to download the newest configurations from OCM Content Capture, which will include his new asset synchronization definition:
```
C:\CaptureImportAgent\capture-agent\bin>capture refresh-config
Configuration updated.
```

He then uses list-table-sync-jobs to get the unique identifier of his new configuration.

C:\CaptureImportAgent\capture-agent\bin>capture list-table-sync-jobs
server     sync name        id                              online  linked  database      table       asset type
---------  ---------------  ------------------------------  ------  ------  ------------  ----------  -----------
oceServer  Property Databa  fafcb76e-8bb6-4eb7-827e-ba8348  true    true    propertyDB    PROPERTY    Property

Finally, he triggers the data synchronization to start immediately using the trigger-table-sync command:

C:\CaptureImportAgent\capture-agent\bin>capture trigger-table-sync -s ocepmgen2 -a  fafcb76e-8bb6-4eb7-827e-ba8348f3407b
Asset sync job triggered successfully

Check Incoming Property Content Items

Conrad opens the Building Projects asset repository in the Oracle Content Management web application, where he can see the new content items coming in.

Building Projects asset repository in the Oracle Content Management web application with new content items.

Building Project Initialization: File Import and Asset Lookup

In this stage, the building project is initialized, and the files associated with the project are captured and stored in Oracle Content Management.

When the real estate team identifies a property, they engage the engineering team, who evaluates the property. If they see potential, they work with an architect firm to prepare initial building designs. The architect team provides an artistic rendition of the future building. If the real estate and engineering teams approve, the land purchase proceeds.
Once the land purchase has been finalized, the real estate team’s application will generate a file of relevant metadata along with the artist rendition in a directory.
Conrad uses the Content Capture list file import feature to monitor the directory. Each new file initiates a building project capture flow.
The building project flow uses the building identifier from the inbound metadata to perform an asset lookup against the Property content items that are now being created by the asset synchronization process. The lookup produces a reference to the Property content items.
Conrad will add a commit step to the flow to save the artist’s rendition as a new asset and to create a new Building content item.
Andrea will need to define the new Building Project content item and the Artist Rendition asset.

Building project initiation process, as described above.

Create the Artist Rendition Asset Type

Andrea worked with the engineering team to define the metadata to be collected.

There will be a new asset type to hold the artist’s rendition of the proposed building. This custom asset type, copied from the default system ‘Image’ type, will include the building code as a metadata field.

In addition, there will be a primary Building Project content item, which will represent the project. It will have links to various other artifacts collected during the project:

A media reference to the artist’s rendition asset type
An item reference to the Property content item that was synchronized from the real estate database.

The Building Project content item will have the following metadata fields:

Building Code (a coded string used to reference the building)
Building Name
Proposed start date
Proposed completion date
Number of floors
Data center present (true/false)

Building metadata with references.

Andrea starts by creating the new artist’s rendition asset type. This asset will always be in an image format (jpg, png, etc.).

Andrea navigates to the Asset Types area in the Oracle Content Management web application.
She selects the Image type, and then proceeds to copy this asset type.
She then provides the new name of the asset type: Artist-Rendition.

By copying the default Image type, she gets all the common image file types associated with the new asset type.
Andrea then switches to the Definition tab for the Artist-Rendition asset type to add the BuildingCode field.
She saves the new asset definition.
She then navigates back to the repositories and modifies the Building Projects repository to include assets of type Artist-Rendition. She saves these changes as well.

Visualization of the process of adding the BuildingCode field to the asset type.

Create the Building Project Content Item

Andrea then creates the Building Project content item. This process includes adding multiple fields of the appropriate data types, including Building Code, Building Name, Location Code, etc.

The last two fields are the references to other objects:

The Artist Rendition field contains a reference to the new asset type that Andrea just created.
The Property field contains a reference to the Property content item that gets created by the asset synchronization process. Once the new content item type is created, Andrea adds this type to the repository as well.

Definition of the Building-Project content type.

Set Up Content Capture File Import

Andrea conveys the details of the new content types to Conrad.

Conrad’s next goal is to set up a Content Capture file import definition to accept the files being generated by the projects team. The projects team has placed some sample files in the shared directory they will be using to transfer the content to capture.

Folder listing, including Austin.txt, along with the various columns in this file.

Conrad opens the Austin.txt file and sees that it contains multiple metadata values separated by a vertical bar character.

Column 1 = Building name
Column 2 = Building code
Column 3 = Project start date
Column 4 = Estimated completion date
Column 5 = Planned number of floors
Column 6 = Data center to be present
Column 7 = A file path to the artist’s rendition.

Conrad then proceeds to set up the Content Capture file import:

Conrad opens the Content Capture administration interface, selects his Engineering Projects procedure, and then opens the Metadata tab.
He scrolls down to the metadata fields area and clicks + to add each of the field values to be collected from the source file.
He creates each field of the appropriate type, including a field of type ‘Content Item Reference’, which will hold the link to the Property content item to be associated with the building project.
After defining each field, they appear in the Metadata Fields table.
After entering the fields, Conrad opens the Classification tab to define a document profile to be associated with the artist renditions.
He clicks + in the Document Profiles area to create a new document profile.
Conrad gives the document profile a name and then includes all the fields defined so far.
The fields selected here are those that will appear on the Content Capture desktop client when indexing documents. Conrad doesn’t expect to use the Oracle desktop client for this purpose. However, the client can be used to view the status of a document flowing through Content Capture. He therefore includes the fields so he can check on them later.
He then clicks Submit to save the profile.
Conrad now navigates to the Capture tab to define the new file import.
He clicks + in the Import Processor Jobs area to create a new file import.

Capture page with the Import Processor Jobs section.

Conrad gives the import job a name.
He defines a batch prefix so he can differentiate the batches flowing in from the Property group from those arriving from the other sources.
He selects the input source to be ‘List File Source’, which indicates a file of metadata including a path to an asset.
Conrad clicks Next to move to the subsequent configuration tab. Although this tab provides options to manipulate the image, Conrad accepts the images as originally provided, and clicks Next again.

Import Processor Jobs page.

Conrad indicates that documents flowing in through this import definition should be assigned the Artist Rendition document profile.
Conrad maps the column data based on position from the input file to the target fields. While mapping the Project Start Value, he selects the value of column 3 to fill this field. He also selects the format of the dates to be found in the input file, so they are parsed correctly. When he’s done, he clicks Next.

Import Processor Jobs page.

Conrad changes the file mask so that Content Capture looks for files ending in .txt.
He indicates that the separator between the data values is a vertical bar (|).
He indicates that column 7 is the location where the path to the corresponding image file will be. Since this data is also available from the Property system, he feels comfortable allowing Content Capture to delete the list file and the image file after they are successfully imported, since it could be recovered.

Import Source Settings page for import jobs.

Configure the File Import Agent

Conrad’s next step is to configure the File Import Agent to monitor the file folder that the property team will be exporting their content to.

Conrad must first get the unique identifier of the import job to configure the folder, so he uses the list-import-jobs command to display the available import jobs.

C:\CaptureImportAgent\capture-agent\bin>capture list-import-jobs
server      name        type       online  id                                     enabled   local folder path
----------  -----       ------     -----   -------------------------------------  --------  -----------------
oceServer   PropertyTe  List File  true    c146cb18-3f78-4d7d-8d77-0943430d83ea   false     <not set>

He can then use the configure-import-job command to link the import job to a specific directory.

C:\CaptureImportAgent\capture-agent\bin>capture configure-import-job -s oceServer -i c146cb18-3f78-4d7d-8d77-0943430d83ea -p “S:\InterDep\EngProj\Property"
import folder path set to S:\InterDep\EngProj\Property

Next, he lists the configuration again and notices that the enabled setting is still false.

C:\CaptureImportAgent\capture-agent\bin>capture list-import-jobs
server      name        type       online  id                                     enabled   local folder path
----------  -----       ------     -----   -------------------------------------  --------  -----------------
oceServer   PropertyTe  List File  true    c146cb18-3f78-4d7d-8d77-0943430d83ea   false     S:\InterDep\Eng...

He executes the configure-import-job command again to enable it, which tells the File Import Agent to begin monitoring the folder.

C:\CaptureImportAgent\capture-agent\bin>capture configure-import-job -s oceServer -i c146cb18-3f78-4d7d-8d77-0943430d83ea -e
enabled import

When listing the configuration again, Conrad now sees the import job is enabled.

C:\CaptureImportAgent\capture-agent\bin>capture list-import-jobs
server      name        type       online  id                                     enabled   local folder path
----------  -----       ------     -----   -------------------------------------  --------  -----------------
oceServer   PropertyTe  List File  true    c146cb18-3f78-4d7d-8d77-0943430d83ea   true      S:\InterDep\Eng...

He then uses the trigger-import-job command to cause the File Import Agent to immediately look for new work and process it.

C:\CaptureImportAgent\capture-agent\bin>capture trigger-import-job -s oceServer -i c146cb18-3f78-4d7d-8d77-0943430d83ea
import job triggered successfully

Conrad executes the status command to confirm that the agent has begun monitoring the directory, and he confirms that it has picked up the single test list file he provided with one document.

uptime - 1 hours, 23 minutes, 3 seconds

----------------
 IMPORT SCHEDULE
----------------
server      job         next scheduled run
----------  ---------   ----------------------
oceServer   PropertyTe  in 2 minutes, 36 seconds

--------------------
 TABLE SYNC SCHEDULE
--------------------
server      job         next scheduled run
----------  ---------   ----------------------
oceServer   Property D  in 37 minutes, 21 seconds

----------------
 IMPORT ACTIVITY
----------------
date / time        server      job         user                       status     batches  documents     
-----------------  ----------  ---------   -------------------------  ---------  -------  ---------
5/17/21 1:28 PM    oceServer   PropertyTe  captureService@engco.com   COMPLETED  1        1

Create a Client Profile

At this point, Conrad realizes that he didn’t create a commit step in the new procedure to send the data to Oracle Content Management. He decides to configure a simple client profile, so he can use the Content Capture desktop client to see the document that was just imported. He enters minimal information in the general settings, document indexing settings, and security settings.

Conrad then submits the client profile.

Set Up the Content Capture Desktop Client

Conrad proceeds to set up the Content Capture desktop client:

Conrad navigates to the application download page in the Oracle Content Management web interface and downloads the Content Capture desktop client.
After the install completes, he enters the service URL shown on the download page into the connection dialog.
He then enters his user credentials into the login dialog.
The Content Capture client opens showing the batches and documents that were imported by the File Import Agent.
Conrad verifies that the metadata matches what was provided by the property team, and that the artist’s rendition is correct.

Screenshot of the Content Capture desktop client.

Create an Asset Lookup

The next step is to find the matching property content item that was synchronized into Oracle Content Management, so that the new building project object has a link to the corresponding property item.

Conrad opens the Metadata tab and navigates to the Asset Lookup section. He clicks + to add a new lookup.
He configures to search using the Building Code field mapped into Content Capture from the list file to search the Property assets using the Code field defined there.
He expects that the building code values provided in the list files will always be correct, so he selects to perform an exact match.
The data to be returned from the lookup is the link to the property content item. This will be saved in the Property Item Reference field created in Content Capture.
A lookup can be presented to a user via the Content Capture desktop client, or it can be performed in the background via a lookup processor. Since no user involvement is expected in this flow, Conrad chooses to perform the lookup in the background.
Conrad opens the Processing tab, navigates to the Asset Lookup Jobs section, and clicks + to add a new asset lookup job.
He gives the processing step a name, selects the corresponding document profile, and selects the property lookup he just defined.
There should always be only a single property content item that matches, so he chooses the selection option to ensure that only one is found, and that one is always found.
He leaves the post-processing step unconfigured temporarily, which means that the document will flow back to the client so he can verify that the lookup worked.
Conrad navigates back to the file import profile, so that he can connect it to the lookup processor.
He opens the Property Team Import job and navigates to the Post-Processing step. He selects ‘Asset Lookup Processor’ as the next type of step in the flow, and then he selects ‘Property Lookup’ as the specific batch processor job.

Screenshot of the Asset Lookup Job screen.

He submits the changes to the import job.
Conrad then copies the sample data from the property team back into the input folder to test the lookup processor.
The same property list file is processed a second time.
After the lookup is performed, the content capture batch is routed to the client.
This time Conrad sees the Property Item Reference field having a value. This confirms that the lookup step was successful.

Screenshot of the Content Capture desktop client.

Create a Capture Commit Step

Conrad now creates a commit step in the Content Capture procedure to send the property team data into Oracle Content Management.

Conrad returns to the Content Capture administration interface, and clicks + to create a new commit profile.
He provides a name for the new commit profile.
He selects the destination to be a business repository, since that’s the repository type that Andrea created. Then he clicks Next.
Conrad selects the Building Projects repository.
He also selects to create a parent content item of type ‘Building Project’. That parent item will have links to the other supporting assets, such as the artist rendering. He opens the inner Assets tab.
A default asset configuration is provided, which will cause all objects flowing through this commit to be sent to Oracle Content Management to the appropriate default asset type based on the file format.
Conrad uses the X button to remove the default asset mapping. Then he click + to create a new asset mapping.
For this commit step, he’s only interested in mapping the Artist Rendition documents, so he selects that from the dropdown menu.
Then he picks the Oracle Content Management asset type that Andrea created earlier specifically for the artist renditions.
He combines the building code, name, and projected start date together to form the name of the asset, and then maps the building code into the asset.
When he’s done, he clicks OK to save the new mapping.

Screenshot of the Add Asset Type Mapping screen.

Conrad continues to the Parent Content Item tab and configures the metadata mappings from the Content Capture fields to the Building Project content item type.
The Artist Rendition content item field is a media reference type which points to other assets. When Conrad defines this mapping, he’s presented with a list of the assets that are defined on the Assets tab (currently only ‘Document – Artist Rendition’).
The Property content item field is an item reference type. When Conrad defines this mapping, he’s presented with a list of Content Capture fields that are also the item reference type.
Conrad then submits his new commit processor.

Screenshot of the process of configuring metadata mappings.

Add the Commit Step to the Asset Lookup

Conrad returns to the Processing tab so he can modify the asset lookup step to route to the commit step rather than the client.

He modifies the asset lookup.
He opens the Post-Processing tab and redirects the flow toward the commit processor.
When he’s done, he submits the changes.

Screenshot of the process of adding the commit step to the asset lookup.

Test the Process

Conrad now copies the sample data files from the property team back into the Capture File Agent input directory. He then monitors the Assets view in the Oracle Content Management web interface to confirm that the new asset and content item are created.

Screenshot of the Assets view in Oracle Content Management.

Conrad opens the content item to confirm that there are links to the asset and the property content item.

Screenshot of a content item.

Architectural Drawings: Email Import and Barcode Extraction

Conrad now maps out the flow of documents that Content Capture will need to collect.

The architects receive the approval and begin producing detailed designs. As each floor plan is completed, they email a new copy of the design to the engineering team. It can take multiple attempts to get the designs right.
Conrad configures a Capture Email Import profile to monitor an email account that the engineering team has set up to receive new floor plans from the architects.
Each floor plan has two barcodes on it: one barcode has the building identifier, and the other is the floor number.
Conrad configures a Capture Recognition Processor step which will identify and extract the barcode values.
The building identifier and floor number are used in the commit step to link the floor plan asset back to the building content item.

Visualization of the architectural drawing process, as described above.

Create the Floor Plan Asset Type

Andrea defines an additional custom asset type that will store the image of the proposed floor plan, along with metadata fields for the building identifier, the floor number, and the email address of the sender.

Definition of the custom asset type for floor plans.

Andrea starts by creating the new Floor Plan asset type. This artifact is always going to be a digital image from the architects.
Similar to the artist rendition, Andrea copies the base Image type to create a new custom asset type called ‘Floor-Plan’.
The engineering team has an agreement with the architects that the building identifier and the corresponding floor number will be printed on each page.
Andrea adds the Building Id field, the Floor Number field, and the Architect Email Address field to the asset type.
The Floor Number field is a text field, because Content Capture’s barcode extraction logic produces text values (since barcodes can be alphanumeric).
Andrea saves the new custom asset type.
She now navigates back to the repositories and modifies the Building Projects repository to include assets of type Floor-Plan. She saves these changes as well.

Set Up Mail Import

Conrad goes to the Content Capture administration interface, opens the Engineering Project procedure, and then navigates to the Metadata tab.
He defined the Building Code field type before, but he needs to add two new fields:
- the floor number
- the sender’s email address
He clicks + for each of the new fields, defines the attributes, and then submits them.
Conrad now opens the Classification tab.
He clicks + in the Document Profiles area to create a new document profile for the floor plan documents.
He provides a name for the new document profile: Floor Plan.
He adds the building ID, floor number, and architect email address fields to the document profile.
When he’s done, he submits the new profile.
Conrad navigates to the Capture tab.
He clicks + in the Import Processor Jobs area to configure an email monitoring job for the floor plan documents.

Creating an import job.

Conrad provides a name for the new job: Floor Plan Email.
He provides a batch prefix.
He selects Email Source as the import source, and then clicks Next.

Creating an import job.

Conrad won’t need to manipulate the scanned images as they were imported, so he skips the Image Settings page.
On the Document Profile page, he indicates that the documents flowing into Content Capture through this source should be of type Floor Plan.
He also maps the From Address attribute of the email to the Architect Email Address metadata field, and then clicks Next.

Creating an import job.

Conrad’s company has set up a specific email account to receive the floor plans. They use the Google Mail cloud service to manage their email accounts. Conrad must define an OAuth Application entity within Google to represent Content Capture.
Conrad creates the new entity, which provides him with the necessary connection details.
He clicks + in the Email Accounts to Process table to add a specific email account that he’d like to monitor.
He must confirm with Google that this is a valid connection.
Once the access is confirmed, the email account is added to the list and the status indicates that the account has been verified.

Creating an import job.

Conrad navigates to the Message Filters tab of the Import Source Settings page. On this tab, he can define filters to select relevant emails, but filters are not required in this use case.

Creating an import job.

Next, he opens the Processing tab of the Import Source Settings page. On this tab, he can define various options to control whether the email body should be preserved and which attachments are relevant. In this use case, no additional criteria are required.

Creating an import job.

He navigates to the Post-Processing tab of the Import Source Settings page. On this tab, he defines what happens after the email has been imported by Content Capture.
Eventually, Conrad will delete the email messages after they’ve been imported, but he chooses to move them to a folder named Processed until he’s finished testing the flow.
He specifies to move emails to a folder named Failed if there are errors while importing emails at any point of time.
He clicks Next to continue to the next page.

Creating an import job.

Conrad decides not to configure settings on the Post-Processing page so that the post-processing flow will default to the Content Capture desktop client, which will allow him to confirm the email import.

Creating an import job.

He updates the client profile so he’ll be able to see the floor plan documents as well as the artist renditions.

Creating an import job.

Conrad drafts a sample email in his work email client addressing it to the target email box. He attaches a sample floor plan diagram and then sends the email.
He signs in to the Gmail account and verifies that his email made it to the target email box.

Creating an import job.

Conrad returns to the Content Capture administration interface. He notices that the Floor Plan Email job is currently offline.
He clicks the Online/Offline icon to enable it.
He then clicks the Check email icon to check for new email.

Creating an import job.

Conrad opens the Content Capture desktop client to see if a new floor plan has arrived.
The email did arrive and the floor plan attachment was extracted, which created a new batch containing a single document.
The sender’s email address was saved in the desired field.

Creating an import job.

Set Up Bar Code Extraction

Now that Conrad is receiving the emails, he needs to use the bar code recognition processor to extract the building identifier and the floor number from the drawings.

Conrad navigates to the Processing tab and clicks + in the Recognition Processor Jobs area to create a new recognition processor job.
He provides a name (Detect Building and Floor) and a description for the new job, and then clicks Next.
Conrad defines the kinds of bar codes he’s expecting, which in this case is type Code 128.
He also provides details about how many he’s expecting to find on the page: the building identifier and the floor number.
He measures the sizes of some of the samples he has and provides the dimension details.
He clicks Next to continue.
On the bar code definition page, he defines two new bar code formats.
The Building Identifier bar code is always an 8-character code. It can be a mix of alphanumeric characters (letters and numbers). For this bar code, Conrad specifies only a length criterion.
The Floor Number bar code is always going to be a 2-digit numeric value, so he uses a mask indicating two digits for this field.
He clicks Next to continue.