Uploading Large Files with ILINX Capture and IIS

From time to time I receive questions about large file uploads with ILINX Capture. ILINX Capture can upload files of any size. The limitation is within Internet Information Services(IIS) and or the amount of memory installed in the web server. This is not only true for ILINX Capture, but and ASP or ASP.Net application.

Depending on the architecture of the ASP or ASP.Net application files being uploaded to the web server are typically streamed into the web server’s memory during the upload process before being written to disk. Depending on the number of user concurrently uploading files and the size of the files being uploaded will determine how much physical memory should be installed in the server. By default IIS has a 200KB size limit for uploading a single file. This can be increased, but not any higher than necessary or you may risk overconsumption of the web server’s memory.

Configuring File Upload Size in IIS 6

1. Open Internet Information Services Manager by clicking the Windows Start Menu and Run. Type inetmgr and click OK.

2. Once IIS Manger opens navigate the tree and right click the server name and click properties.

3. From the server properties window check the Enable Direct Metabase Edit checkbox and click OK.

4. Browse to the C:\windows\system32\inetsrv directory and edit the Metabase.xml file with a text editor such as Notepad.

5. Search for the attribute AspMaxRequestEntityAllowed and edit the value to the size in bytes that you want to allow for a maximum upload size. Save and close the Metabase.xml file.

AspMaxRequestEntityAllowed=”204800″

6. Open the Registry editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSSOAP\30\SOAPISAP.

7. Modify the MaxPostSize key. Set the decimal value to the maximum upload size in bytes and click OK.

8. Reboot the web server to ensure the changes have taken effect.

Configuring File Upload Size in IIS 7

1. Open Internet Information Services Manager by clicking the Windows Start Menu and Run. Type inetmgr and click OK.

2. Navigate the tree to the Virtual Directory that you would like to enable large file uploads.

3. In the Features View pane double click ASP.

4. In the ASP setting pane edit the Maximum Requesting Entity and Response Buffering Limit columns. Set this to the maximum file upload size in bytes and click Apply.

 

5. Open the Windows Command Prompt and enter the following command. Change the maxAllowedContentLength to your maximum file upload size in bytes and hit enter to execute the command.

C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\appcmd set config “Default Web Site” -section:requestFiltering -requestLimits.maxAllowedContentLength:104857600

9. Open the Registry editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSSOAP\30\SOAPISAP.

10. Modify the MaxPostSize key. Set the decimal value to the maximum upload size in bytes and click OK.

11. Reboot the web server to ensure the changes have taken effect.

Bryan Wilhelm
Senior Systems Engineer
ImageSource, Inc.

Oracle Content Management – IPM 11g Links

Looking for some useful links to information about installing Oracle IPM 11g?  We have been performing successful Oracle IPM 11g implementations and will be providing useful information, as well as, tips and tricks on this blog.

Here are the main links that have been leveraging for some valuable information related to this next generation ECM Suite:

Oracle Content Management Description	URL
Overview	http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/content-management/overview/index.html
Downloads	http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/content-management/downloads/index.html
Documentation	http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/content-management/documentation/index.html
UCM 11g Downloads	http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/content-management/downloads/index-085241.html
IPM 11g Downloads	http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/content-management/downloads/index-ipm-088963.html

Ryan Keller

ImageSource, Inc.

Nexus 2010

I recently attended the Technology conference put on by my company. Nexus®, as it is dubbed, is where we try to bring in all the local and national minds in our ECM space together. On the vendor side we had both hardware and software manufacturers represented. On the standards side we had credits offered for PMI, ARMA, AHIMA, and IAPP just by attending. There was pre-conference training on  Oracle I/PM 11g, a risk management course, and an AIIM ECMp course. For the user community we had attendees from Fortune 50 companies  down to small government agencies and everything in between. Sounds great right? It was.

As with any conference, you have to make it to the break out session that relate to you, and make connections with people that you can relate to. The latter was easy of course, we are all living and breathing the ECM world. Even if your content is different, the pain points are nearly always the same. It’s great to connect with others and find out their resolutions to similar issues, their approach to common problems, and to hear their success stories. Besides giving a presentation on our product ILINX® Integrate (something I have blogged about in the past), I also attended sessions on advanced document capture, ILINX Content Store, Oracle I/PM, and sessions on project management.

The breakout sessions had real value for me. The sharing of knowledge is essentially what Nexus is all about and the break outs are core to that. In years past, I have attended Nexus but allowed myself to do project work or provide technical support for the conference itself during the breakout sessions. This year I made it a point to attend as many sessions as possible and only missed two. I am confident I took the right approach.

I attended Shon Mueller’s presentation on advanced capture solutions and it was great. He was dynamic and brought a wealth of experience in his years at Kofax, ImagesSource, and other ECM technology companies. Jon Sutherland’s presentation on ILINX Content Store was informative for me as well. As a system’s engineer that’s busy in the field I haven’t had as much time as would like to work with our latest product offering. ILINX Content Store is a real solution for content management and I am quite confident we will see and hear more about it. Les Harris’ session on upgrading to Oracle I/PM 11g was an eye opener. I have worked extensively with the I/PM product line for many years and the new product accomplishes the same functions as all previous versions, but with an entirely new architecture. For those planning on sticking with the product it is time to start planning your upgrade path now. I also attended a session on project management in which Dennis Brooke discussed how to use Web 2.0 technologies to streamline project management and enhance project morale. The session sparked lots of questions form the audience and I could see the wheels turning as people thought how they could use these ideas in their own corporate structure. I worked with Dennis for many years and it was great to hear about some of the lessons learned and successes.

I have linked to all the presentations, please feel free to review them and all the other’s on the Nexus site.  All in all Nexus 2010 was a success and I can’t wait to see what ImageSource puts together for next year.

  

ILINX Content Store Rocks

ImageSource has created a new distributed Scan, Store, Retrieve imaging system called ILINX® Content Store. Content Store will be demonstrated at the upcoming Nexus® 2010 ECM Conference (Nov 4-5 in Bellevue, Washington http://www.nexusecm.com/index.htm).

ILINX Content Store provides the means to import images and universal documents that have been indexed and released into a folder from multiple scanning solutions. Documents can also be manually indexed into Content Store from its interface. The system is accessed via a web browser and uses Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation as the user interface. This allows a modern functional interface into the system. Content Store can be accessed from MS Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome.

ILINX Content Store is perfect for small to large document storage needs. Imported documents are stored within a database making backup, security, and scalability straightforward.

I’ll take you on a quick tour of the product. We’ve wired up ILINX Capture, an advanced distributed capture solution to scan a document into ILINX Content Store. Advanced versions of Content Store will also provide simple direct scanning mechanism.

First I log in to ILINX Capture using Internet Explorer in order to scan a document. ILINX Capture and ILINX Content Store are running off premises on a company web server so I can access them via the internet.

ILINX Capture Login

Next, I select a scan source and application, scan a document, then release it to the backend system.

ILINX Capture Scan

At this point, I could delegate indexing to another staff member but will do it myself. I select the Index tab in ILINX Capture and open the document, index it, and Complete it.

ILINX Capture Index

Now the document resides in ILINX Content Store with my index values. I can now go view the document from my web browser. After logging in to ILINX Content Store in Internet Explorer, I choose the application containing my document, enter a search criteria, and execute the search.

Content Store Search

My document is retrieved and displayed.

Content Store Display Image

Universal documents such as Microsoft WORD, Excel, etc. display right in the ILINX Content Store interface using the native application. Any document can be opened and viewed if the computer opening the document has the correlating application installed.

Content Store with WORD

ILINX Content Store is an easy to use, streamlined solution for quickly ingesting content using distributed techniques. Come check it out at NEXUS 2010!

Clint Lewis
Senior Systems Engineer
ImageSource, Inc.



  

Oracle IPM Invoice Processing Accelerators

Oracle is rolling out best-practice ERP AP invoice processing solution accelerators as part of their 11g Fusion Middleware offering. Called “adapters”, these ERP software components are available for Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, and Siebel.

 The accelerators are a mechanism to ensure scanned invoices reach a backend ERP system for final handling even when there are issues in the invoice data gathered using OCR forms recognition during scanning. This allows for minimal user exception handling or intervention prior to each invoice arriving in the ERP system. The idea is to simply load the scanner with invoices, press a button, and then handle the invoices once they arrive in the backend.

 In order for this approach to work, Oracle’s solution accelerators use XML documents to contain header and line invoice data. The XML documents are combined with business rules in an Oracle BPEL Process Manager workflow that automatically massages the data into a format that will be accepted by the ERP import functionality such as the Oracle EBS open interface table import. The invoice image resides in the Oracle IPM system.

 In the case where data can’t be massaged sufficiently for insert, the invoice is keyed from image from within the BPEL workflow. Invoices that directly insert into the ERP system arrive either ready for validation, matching, payment, coding, etc., or are placed on hold with a hold code and a hold reason code. Some sample hold and reason codes are:

FIELD	VALIDATION	HOLD	HOLD REASON
Purchase Order	PO must be valid and open. PO vendor must match invoice vendor.	IPM_INVALID_PO_HOLD	INVALID PO NUM INACTIVE PO INCONSISTENT PO SUPPLIER
Supplier	Supplier is required. Supplier must exist in vendor master. Supplier ID and supplier site ID must match.	IPM_INVALID_ SUPPLIER_HOLD	NO SUPPLIER INVALID SUPPLIER INCONSISTENT SUPPLIER

 There are many more business rules that operate on each invoice inside of workflow that meet the requirements of the ERP system.

 Oracle has created a flash demo of a scan to EBS process at:

 http://bit.ly/aHaNwl

 Oracle has also created a PDF document that highlights the E-Business Suite Adapter:

 http://bit.ly/b4pGFa

 As an Oracle partner, ImageSource has begun to implement these solutions in the field.

Clint Lewis
Senior Systems Engineer
ImageSource, Inc.

  

ILINX Product Suite

I am not usually out to promote specific products on this blog, but I have been getting really excited about the latest advancements in the ILINX Product Suite.  It is an area that I, among other experienced ECM technologists, have utilized our expertise in creating and refining solutions that can provide real world value for businesses implementing or utilizing ECM solutions.  Take a minute to read this quick post and judge for yourself the value that ILINX Products can provide for your organization.

You may be hearing the word ILINX used in Enterprise Content Management circles more and more these days.  From the humble beginnings of a simple release script connecting a document capture system to an ECM repository the ILINX Product Suite has grown into a set of powerful, easy to use products that provide quick ROI.  There are multiple levels to the ILINX Product Suite ranging from a full blown web client based document capture system (ILINX Capture) or an ECM Repository (ILINX Content Store) to variety of middleware products that can provide time savings and productivity boosting results like ILINX Integrate.

If you are not familiar with all that the Product Suite has to offer, check out the ILINX website for the details and product demos.

-Ryan Keller

Oracle I/PM and TIFF Requirements

However far we move away from the imaging side of ECM, it is still the largest part of the industry. More often than not, the solutions I deploy revolve around some sort of mechanism to scan, store, and retrieve documents. Imaging is the gateway into Business Process Management (BPM), Records Management (RM), Electronic Reports Management (ERM), and a whole string of Line of Business applications (LOB). I often work with Oracle Image and Process Management (I/PM) as the ECM component and we integrate it with many different applications. There are a few caveats with I/PM and I ran into one issue recently that has come up many times in the past.

Oracle I/PM version 10G (and earlier) has a list of requirements for TIFF images. That’s not to say that the system can’t handle any object, because it can. You can file anything into an I/PM system, but you might not be able to view it within the software. For example: you could file a .zip file into the system, it just wouldn’t render in the viewer. The TIFF requirement list has to do with the image viewer built into the system. So if you want to be able to view what you file into an I/PM system with the I/PM viewer, you better be sure your TIFF images meet the requirements. The main reasons to limit access solely to the I/PM viewer are:

• Limit access to documents within the I/PM system only. This simply means you don’t want users to be able to view the object outside of I/PM.
• To take advantage of the I/PM annotation capabilities.

The TIFF requirements as listed in the I/PM documentation are as follows:

• Tagged Image File Format (TIFF)
• Group IV Compression
• Group VI Compression (Original Microsoft TIFF standards, not the Wang hybrid)
• 200, 300 or 400 dpi
• X resolution equal to Y resolution
• Non-tiled
• Non-stripped (i.e., Lines per strip equal to total lines. Stripped and LZW formats are not supported.)
• Image widths which are a multiple of 8
• Fill order of 1 or 2
• Tags at the top or bottom of the file
• Single-plane (monochrome) / Bi-tonal
• Single page or multi-page TIFFs.
• Intel Format (II) are supported. Other formats, such as Motorola format (MM) are not supported. Group 7 TIFF are not supported.

That might seem like a long list when you first glance at it. But it is pretty simple to modify an image and render it compatible with the I/PM viewer. There are plenty of tools out there to standardize TIFF images. ImageMagick or a couple of different tools by Informatick would do the trick. With ImageMagick there is a compress function that can standardize the image. Simply execute ImageMagick with the ‘-compress Group4 –density 200×200’ command and the image output will meet all the I/PM requirements.

From experience, most scanning applications meet the I/PM requirements so this isn’t an issue. Documents coming out of Kofax Capture, Oracle Document Capture, or ILINX Capture all meet the I/PM TIFF requirements. Where the I/PM TIFF requirements becomes an issue is when migrating documents from an old legacy ECM application that stored or captured images in a non-standard format. Just be aware that the requirements are there and that the images have to be modified before being archived into I/PM if they don’t meet the specifications.

John Linehan

Senior Systems Engineer

ImageSource Inc.

Match Fields Early when Designing an Imaging Solution

When building an enterprise level imaging system, one of the most important early tasks is matching up the fields in the solution. A typical ERP imaging solution has fields in the following functional areas:

Scan and validation
Image repository
Workflow template
Temporary tables for line items and custom forms
EBS tables

Looking at the big picture, the entire imaging solution is simply a transportation system for meta data stored in table columns (fields) at various stages from paper scan to workflow, to voucher creation. Fields carry information that tie to a specific image document.

Many fields map across each step of the process and must have the same data types. Some fields are used uniquely during scanning, image retrieval, workflow, or in the ERP backend. It is very difficult to begin a project until all these fields are well-known and understood.

One of the challenges of matching up fields is that each area may refer to a field data type (string, integer, etc.) in a slightly different way. An experienced architect and solutions implementor will resolve the type quirks during implementation.

I’ve found the best way to understand how the fields map across the solution is to create a single table with a common set of fields names and data types with columns indicating areas of use, rather than creating separate tables spread throughout the project plan for each area.

Since project plans are lengthy, having a single field mapping table makes it much easier to create the necessary fields, templates, and tables during project implementation since you don’t have to jump around in the project document to find the needed information. Also, having a single table prevents incorrectly mapped fields between functional areas because the big picture view is simple to understand.

I like to use color to highlight specific logical field groupings and keep notes for each field. I tend to continuously revise the master table as the project unfolds and additional information is discovered and then email each revision to the key project players so that everyone is working from the same assumptions.

Here is a link to a sample field mapping table. The table can be improved by adding a column that contains realistic sample data for each field. I use basic field type nomenclature and convert the types as needed in each functional environment.

If you are responsible for putting together a project plan for an imaging system deployment, or work in a company with an imaging system, I encourage you to have a table like this that matches your system. It’s very useful.

Clint Lewis
Senior Systems Engineer
ImageSource, Inc.

  

Oracle IPM 11g Released!

For those of you who have not heard Oracle has released the next generation of their Enterprise Content Management Software, Imaging and Process Management (IPM) 11g.  This version is the first major step that Oracle has taken to tightly integrate the product into Oracle’s overall software architecture…IPM 11g has been completely overhauled to be part of the Fusion Middleware (FMW) tech stack.  From the ECM perspective, Oracle now has a complete seamlessly integrated end to end offering that includes the storage repository, document management, business process management, library services, web publishing, records management, reporting/monitoring and application integration.  This creates many advantages for customers that use or plan to use other Oracle products in their workplace, as well as, integrating and leveraging existing investments in non-Oracle software.

I have been working as a Systems Engineer and Project Manager with the IPM software base for over 8 years, through the Stellent IBPM acquisition, all the way back to the Optika Acorde and eMedia days.  A couple major differences in implementing the latest Oracle 11g version are the requirements for Oracle Universal Content Management (UCM) for the storage repository and Oracle WebLogic Server for the application/web server.  I look at both of these requirements in a positive light.  UCM and WebLogic Server are powerful robust products that provide standard approaches to managing content storage and applications, respectively, from the FMW perspective.  With that said, if you do not have experience with either UCM or WebLogic, you will need to get up to speed with them to succeed in an IPM implementation.  Neither of these products can be installed through the “Next, Next, Next, Finished!” approach, so careful upfront planning and architecting is required to ensure a successful implementation. 

Let’s talk about the new user interface a little bit.  Oracle has followed suit with the rest of the major players in the ECM world by creating a complete web based interface for performing all administrative and end user functions.  This makes administration duties of the system much easier than in past versions that require administration to be done through the “thick” client.  Also, by moving to the WebLogic Server the full featured web interface is now much more browser agnostic than in the past.  The image viewer comes in two flavors that support over 400 file formats; a zero footprint view only version and the a re-written java applet that allows for full annotations, annotation security, and server based conversion/rendering for access speed.  The following are a couple of screen captures of the user interface from IPM 11g:

The Client Interface

The Zero Footprint Viewer

The Java Applet Viewer

Lastly, I would like to touch on a feature that is often overlooked when implementing ECM solutions, application integration. Oracle has done a great job in IPM 11g to provide some powerful capabilities for leveraging investments into Oracle and non-Oracle applications through integration.  For a process where users are assigning metadata to a record in their business application, through application integration this data can be pushed to and associated with the document stored in IPM 11g. Another example of integration would be the image enablement of a business application.  In this case a user could be accessing records in their ERP system a hotkey, menu item, or button in the application screen can retrieve and display the document from IPM without the user ever having to leave their business application.  These capabilities can create significant efficiencies in an organization through increased user productivity, the reduction of training and the simplification of support and administration. 

All in all I see the changes that Oracle made in IPM 11g as great additions to an already strong platform.  Oracle has a product that not only adheres to their architecture model, but also will provide many benefits to the customers that use it.  Stay tuned to this blog for more information related to our experiences with Oracle IPM 11g.

Ryan Keller

Project Manager

ImageSource, Inc.

  

The System Engineer Tool Belt and Problem Solving

Quite often, System Engineers are called upon to solve unusual problems. The greater our depth of knowledge about various technologies, the greater our problem solving ability.

My primary technology tool belt consists of knowledge in document capture, business workflow, enterprise content management, web development, .NET programming and web services, ERP Accounts Payable systems, and several other useful technology tools and systems.

Recently, a customer came to ImageSource with a problem. We had taught the customer how to use the PAWSER Oracle Imaging and Process Management (IPM) web SDK capability. What PAWSER makes possible is a specially constructed URL that can securely call an IPM system and retrieve a specific stored image. The P in PAWSER stands for “public” meaning there is no need for the calling user to log in to the imaging system. 

For example, consider the following URL:

http://mywebserver/IBPMExpress/External/DocumentActionProcessor.aspx?ToolName=PAWSER&SearchName=APSEARCH&CheckDate=11/18/2009
&CheckNumber=0&VendorNum=1234567&Viewer=ImagingPlugin

URL explanation:

“APSEARCH”: This is the name of the Saved Search being queried in Oracle IPM
“CheckDate”: The field being searched
“CheckNumber”: The field being searched
“VendorNum”: The field being searched
“Viewer=ImagingPlugin”: This launches the IPM viewer

In this case, the customer was dynamically constructing this url in a J.D. Edwards WORLD ERP system to retrieve an image related to an invoice screen. The problem is that the WORLD environment only allows 123 maximum characters for the URL string. The required URL for the call has more characters than that.

So stop here, don’t look below. How would you solve the URL length problem?

Fortunately, my tool belt consists of web programming knowledge. After a bit of thought, I realized it would be trivial to create a custom .NET ASPX page that could contain the fixed string data in the URL, retrieve the desired parameters in a much smaller URL from WORLD, then build the final URL with all the bits, and redirect to the actual PAWSER target page.

The following C#.NET code snippet resides in the custom ASPX page and shows one way this can be accomplished.

string target =
@"http://mywebserver/IBPMExpress/External/DocumentActionProcessor.aspx?
ToolName=PAWSER";
string searchname = "&SearchName=APSEARCH";
string cd = Request.QueryString["cd"]; //check date
string cn= Request.QueryString["cn"]; //check number
string vn= Request.QueryString["vn"]; //vendor number
string qs= "&CheckDate=" + cd + "&CheckNumber=" + cn + "&VendorNum="
+ vn; //QueryString
string viewer = "&Viewer=ImagingPlugin";
string url = target + searchname + qs+ viewer;
Response.Redirect(url);

The code can be refined to be more elegant and efficient using StringBuilder and array parsing in the QueryString, but the above example demonstrates the general approach.

If we name the custom ASPX page, apsearch.aspx, then the much smaller dynamic url from WORLD becomes:

http://mywebserver/apsearch.aspx?cd=11/18/2009&cn=0&vn=1234567

You may have come up with a completely different solution, but we can only use the technology tools we have in our tool belt.

Clint Lewis
Senior Systems Engineer
ImageSource, Inc.