Kofax Release Script

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The official documentation is at: http://docs.alfresco.com

Third Party Extensions
Kofax Image Products (in operation since 1985) is headquartered in Irvine, CA. In 1999, it was acquired by DICOM Group (DCM.L). The company manufactures and sells computer hardware, software, and services.

Kofax claims that their Products and Services help accelerate business processes by collecting paper documents, forms and e-documents, transforming them into accurate, retrievable information and delivering it into business applications and databases. (YT)

Integrating Kofax and Alfresco provides complete Content Management support including capture, management and publishing of Content.  Kofax captures content from all kinds of sources usually via scanning & OCR.  The captured information is then 'released' to Alfresco, for it to be managed in an ad-hoc manner or via pre-defined business processes.

The Kofax architecture provides a plug-in point for deploying a 'Kofax Release Script' which is responsible for mapping and transferring the information captured by Kofax to the destination application or database.

Table of Contents

• 1 Functionality
  
  
  
  • 1.1 Release Script Administration (Setup)
  
  
  • 1.2 Advanced Administration
  
  
  • 1.3 Release Script
  
  


• 2 Implementation Approach


• 3 Installation Environment Prerequisites


• 4 Installation


• 5 Feedback

Functionality

The intention is to provide the following capabilities in the first version of the Release Script.

Release Script Administration (Setup)

The following information will be captured via a UI Dialog allowing configuration of the Release script.

1. Alfresco Server Connection Details (username, password, repository instance)
   
2. Destination Alfresco Folder where Kofax captured information should be placed
   
3. Mapping of Kofax captured information (meta-data, tiff, ocr and pdf renditions) to Alfresco Content Model
   
   • Kofax Document Class -> Alfresco Content Type (Content or sub-type of Content)
     
   • Kofax Index Value (as extracted from document by Kofax) -> Alfresco Property (of appropriate data type)
     
   • Kofax Tiff, OCR or PDF document -> Alfresco Property (of binary data type)
     

Advanced Administration

Note that advanced configuration such as security policies to apply, versioning behaviour, workflows to start, sub-folders to create etc will be kept outside of the Release Script.  The control of this behaviour is deferred to Alfresco rules on the destination folder where they can be managed centrally and shared across all import channels.

Release Script

1. Connect to Alfresco (using supplied connection details in Administration dialog)
   
2. For each supplied Kofax document�
   
   1. Start Transaction
      
   2. If document does not already exist in destination folder, create using Content Type as defined in Administration), otherwise update existing document
      
   3. Apply appropriate Aspects (as defined in Administration dialog)
      
   4. Set Property values (as supplied from Kofax using mapping defined in Administration dialog)
      
   5. Set Content (as supplied from Kofax using mapping defined in Administration dialog)
      
   6. Return new Content Id to Kofax providing cross-reference between systems
      
   7. Commit or Rollback Transaction based on success or error
      
3. For each document that could not be processed (due to error etc)�
   
   1. report error back to Kofax so that some form of quality control can take place
      

Implementation Approach

The Kofax interface point for Release Scripts is Microsoft COM based.  This means it�s natural for the release script to be implemented against Alfresco�s Web Services (repository, content and dictionary api�s) as they are accessible from any environment.  The script will be implemented in .NET (C#).  This is an approved and tested Kofax configuration.

One advantage of using Web Services is that the release script may be downloaded and easily deployed to Kofax without requiring the installation of other Alfresco dependencies.

Installation Environment Prerequisites

The Kofax Release Script for Alfresco has the following prerequisites:

Kofax Ascent Capture Version 7.x

Note: Kofax 7.0 requires Service Pack 3

Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0

This can be downloaded from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0856eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5&Displa...

Web Services Enhancements (WSE) 3.0 for Microsoft .NET

This can be downloaded from:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=018a09fd-3a74-43c5-8ec1-8d789091255d&Displa...

Installation

Installation steps

1. Unzip the release script zip to any directory on your machine.
   
2. In the Kofax Administration module, click on Tools | Release Script Manager.
   
3. From the Release Script Manager dialog box, click Add and then browse to the directory of the unzipped files.
   
4. Select �alfresco.inf� and click open.
   
5. Select �Alfresco Release�. Click Install.
   
6. Click OK, and the release script is registered.
   
7. Close the open dialog boxes to complete the process.
   

Feedback

We welcome your feedback on the intended functionality of the Alfresco Kofax Release Script and, in particular, any use cases you have that this integration ideally suits.