Imagine being able to process a batch of thousand pages/images in under five minutes — Automation is a premium feature on ScanRev that allows you to automate your data entry tasks and lets you do just this. When you’re dealing with a ton of documents of a standard format, Rev lets you run custom scripts to index them instantly and automatically. Scripts and Automated Recognition (Barcode Automation) can help you populate multiple data fields for hundreds of documents at one go, and even automate document creation for a batch of scanned images. Here’s how you can use both these features.
How users can run an automated task in REV
Login to REV and navigate to the Indexing screen and add images. Now select the repository where you want to run the automation. Next, click on the automation you want to run from the ‘Automations dropdown’ — for example, considering the image below, it is either ‘script test’ or ‘barcode test’. This will run the automation on your selected documents. Once the automation has completed running on the images, they will get split into separate documents or the data fields get populated as per the instructions of the automation set up by your admin.
Instructions for admin users on how to create, modify and delete automated tasks
1. Creating and Setting up script automation
If you are an admin, the ‘Automations dropdown’ against a repository in the Indexing screen gives you the option to ‘Create new automated task’. This takes you to the Script tab on the Script Edit screen, in which you can write your script and name it. To save your script task, click the tick icon on the top-right.
What is a script?
A script is a piece of custom code that you can add to Rev in order to perform repetitive actions automatically on your documents, based on one or more inputs. A typical script may populate metadata fields for a batch of documents based on one defined field, by extracting the relevant values for each document from a specified database. Rev supports a wide range of database formats.
This can be a huge time-saver when you’re indexing a ton of scanned documents. For example, Rev can populate all the indexing fields of your documents, such as Customer Name, Date, and Invoice Amount, using only the Invoice Number of each.
2. Modifying your script automation
You can go back and make changes to your script task anytime by following the Edit icon next to the task name in the ‘Automations dropdown’ on the Indexing screen. This takes you back to the Script Edit screen where you can make and save your edits.
3. Creating and Setting up Barcode Recognition
Automated or Barcode Recognition automates the task of creating individual documents by scanning barcodes on your scanned images. Every page with a different barcode from the previous page instantly gets saved as a new document when you run this automation. The script can be customized to achieve the workflow you need.
On the Script Edit screen, the ‘Automated Recognition’ tab allows you to select one or more target areas to be scanned for barcodes on your images. Click and drag the crosshairs cursor to assign a target area. In the pop-up box that appears, specify the field it will populate.* Keeping the ‘break field’ option checked will create a new document every time the value of the defined field changes. Click the tick icon to save.
* Form Recognition helps ignore non-standard images in your set. So you don’t have to worry if your batch of scanned images is not homogenous. Specify the information REV should look for to index your images here; if an image lacks this particular information then it will simply not be processed.
4. Modifying your Barcode Automation
As with Scripts, you can always go back and edit an Automated Recognition task. You can change the location and the target scanning area by clicking on the ‘Target icon’ over the currently defined area, and subsequently dragging a new area to be scanned. The ‘Zoom In’ and ‘Zoom Out’ options allow for precise area selection.
To exit the ‘Scripts Edit’ screen without saving changes, click the cross icon.
5. Removing an automated task
You can remove a script task from the repository via the ‘Delete This’ icon next to the script name.