Thank you Shaun, Frank, Duke for the answer.
We still see Floppy Disk icon. It looks like configuration is unchanged from 90's.
Here are some configuration items I am not sure why exists.
(1) Datacap Application Rulerunner panel.
The engineer needs to manually type in Task name from Datacap Studio if they created a new Task and add here.
In addition to that, they need to logon to TMWeb and configure permission for that task for Users and Stations.
If TMWeb can display Tasks and has permission setting on UI, why is there this Task panel on Datacap Application Manager.
(2) DB_INDEX update by manual SQL
Everytime I create a new DB for an application, I need to manually update with SQL, DB_INDEX on Admin and Engine DB.
If I forget, OCR Application may crash. Can this ID update be done automatically by Tool?
InfoCenter:
"Multiple engine Databases that have the same db_index, cause locking issues when more than one application is launched"
(3) Encryption Key and dcskey command
The engineer needs to copy Encryption Key from Datacap Server to each Rulerunner Server in the Installation phase.
Then for each OS Account on Rulerunner Server, they need to import the key by executing dcskey command.
If the OS Account's password needs to change, the engineer first needs to remove the encryption key from the Account by "dcskey -d" command,
change the OS Account password, and then run "dcskey -i" command to recreate encryption key again.
For each OS Account and for every password change opportunity, this manual operation needs to be done.
It can be automated by Powershell Script. But that will need lots of hours for develop / test / documentation / and skill transfer.
But the hardest part is Rulerunner Server remembers encrypted password in Registry.
After the engineer changed the password for Rulerunner Service account, they must recreate Rulerunner Thread configuration
because this is the only way for them to refresh this encrypted password in Registry.
(4) Why do we manually define Station ID?
For every new Rulerunner Server, can this ID be automatically generated?
There are many other configurations and at least no one around me can understand necessity and design of many configurations.
Learning curve is very big. I hope Datacap can automatically add Tasks, IDs, and components so the engineer can readily start Developing applications.
The above configuration needs to be done for each OCR Application and added Rulerunner Server as well.
One mistake used to take me hours to find it out and fix.
I do hope Watson makes configuration easier because it makes OCR Application easier to develop, thus less complexity on Infra configuration.
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dsakai
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Original Message:
Sent: Thu October 03, 2024 12:38 PM
From: Duke Lam
Subject: Datacap configuration probably needs to be simplified.
Hello Dsaki,
I too have been working with Datacap for a long time. Configuring datacap and setting it up is not hard. The hard part is developing a application to fits customer needs. Once you get it going, it work well. With the exception if you don't add odd new type of document to process. I don't know much about AI-Inside but it sure sounds like a document classification using some AI to classify a document type. Datacap has a new feature to leverage Watson X AI for document classification. It's call WatsonX AI. Is is new on Datacap 9.19 with the latest ifix 5.
Here some link. Check with IBM sale for more info. IMO it basically using AI to classify a document type leveraging LLM language. I saw the sale demo and it's pretty slick. Basically this bypass FingerPrint and OCR. The AI just identify the page for you. Without using OCR and there's no need for Finger printing.
https://community.ibm.com/community/user/automation/blogs/krish-lakshminarayanan/2024/06/21/revolutionizing-document-processing-with-ibm-datac
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/7157978
By the way tmweb is great but that's kinda dated because no new development are done with tmweb. Yes Datacap Navigator is challenging but once you get use to it it's okay. I say it's like tmweb. Yes there might be some pros and con. However, i don't think you can avoid Datacap Navigator.
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Duke Lam
Original Message:
Sent: Wed October 02, 2024 10:26 PM
From: dsakai
Subject: Datacap configuration probably needs to be simplified.
Do you think Datacap configuration is easy or at least reasonable?
I think Datacap configuration is too complicated for anyone to configure. A client here is now considering switching to a product called AI-Inside
because this product is easier for the client's engineer to configure and lets them to "experience OCR better".
I am not sure how Datacap configuration can get better, but it has too many configuration items and registry items,
and when there are multiple OCR Applications and Tasks and server components, the configuration items increase proportionally.
I also think Navigator Desktop is heavy, and I and my colleagues almost always use TMWeb for quick configuration.
WAS adds more complexity to Datacap configurations and I think I will try avoiding Navigator Desktop in future.
After 9 years of working with Datacap, I think I am still the only one in Japan to know how to configure Datacap feasibly.
I hope Datacap configuration gets refactored in tune with AI age.
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dsakai
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