Practice Documentation

Documentation for the halFILE Documentation is provided as a service to clients of hal Systems Corporation.

Document Capture

Capturing documents is the method by which images are placed into the system. halFILE provides several methods for capturing documents including (1) scanning pages using a digital scanner, (2) importing compatible image files from disk, (3) capturing printed output from another application, and (4) sending Office Documents to halFILE.

Scanning

Scanning is performed using the menu selection FILE-SCAN or selecting the scan icon. Scanned pages are placed into the basket that selected at the top right side of the halFILE Manager. After a batch of pages is scanned, they can be "stapled" into documents.

The first time you select this menu you will be asked:

select scanner interface for this station 1=Kofax, 2=Twain, 3=Twain/Pro

You should select the interface that is set up and working for the station. Kofax (see Kofax Scanning) should be selected when you are using a Kofax Adrenaline scanner interface card (Adrenaline or KF-Series) or the Kofax Adrenaline Image Processing Software Engine (AIPE). TWAIN scanning (see TWAIN Scanning) should be selected if the TWAIN interface to the scanner is in use. Select Twain/Pro when using Imaging Professional 2.7 or later. Select Twain if you are using a TWAIN scanner with Imaging Standard or Imaging 2.6 or earlier.

Kofax Scanning

see Kofax Scanning

TWAIN Scanning

see TWAIN Scanning

Importing

Print to halFILE

Send to halFILE

Document Search

Once documents have been indexed, the user can use the halFILE Search icon to search the database and list matching documents.

Searching for documents that have been indexed

Select File-Search from the main menu or click on the search icon from the Manager tool bar.
The following windows are established as follows:
1. The Search Criteria Window is the area into which search criteria is entered.
2. The Search Hit List Window is a grid containing a row for each record found by the search and a column for each field in the record.
3. The View Window shows the images for the selected document.
4. The Document Information Window shows the indexed information of the document being viewed. This window also allows updating of the database fields for the document being viewed.
Enter the search criteria into the Criteria Window by clicking on a field and entering the data to search for. Check the appropriate search type button in the upper right corner of the window which provides options for exact match, beginning of field, end of field, free form search, greater than, less than and range. As many fields as necessary can be entered for a search.
Press the Begin Search button.
The search is then processed and a box appears showing the number of hits found. Answer Yes to load the hits into the Hit List grid. Answer No to stop the search and re-enter criteria.
The Search Hit List grid is loaded and displayed. Double click on a row to load the View Window with the first and second image pages for the document, respectively. The Document Information Window is also loaded with the data for the selected record. The View Window and the Document Information Window are placed, side by side, on the screen.

The Search Criteria Window

When the search feature is loaded, the Search Criteria Window is loaded. This screen is used to enter the criteria for the search. The other search windows appear as minimized icons in the lower left portion of the screen.

Searching for more than one multi-entry field item

Multi-entry fields are those fields for which more than one line of data can be entered. If you wish to search for a single entry in a multi-entry field, simply enter the data to search for in the field box. If you want to search for multiple entries for one multi-entry field:

Click on the multi-entry box to position the cursor.
Enter the first line to search for and press the enter key.
Enter the second line to search for.

The search mechanism performs a search looking for records that contain either the first line that was entered or the second line and containing any other criteria entered. For instance, you could search for documents filed on 12/15/2000 for persons named ‘Smith’ or ‘Jones’ where the name was defined as a multi-entry field.

Searching for a range of values

The Range search type is provided to search for a range of values and is entered as follows:

Click the mouse inside the criteria field for which a range search is desired. (i.e. date field)
Click the range button in the search type box.
Enter the first criteria field (the low value).
Press the space bar on the keyboard. This will automatically put the word <thru> into the criteria field.
Enter the second criteria field (the high value).

The search is processed and records with a value within the given range, inclusively (the low and high values included), will be included in the hit list.

Printing the search criteria

After performing a search, select File-Print Criteria to print the criteria for your records. Note: that a report can be designed (using Crystal Reports) to print the criteria at the top of the page.

Closing the search module

Select File-Close from the menu.

Performing an Append search

After a search is performed and the results are in the hit list you can perform an "Append" search. This is a second search that appends the results to the results of the first search. To do this:

Select Clear-Criteria from the menu to clear all the criteria from the criteria screen. This leaves the hit list intact and any subsequent searches are appended to the list.
Select Clear-Hit List to clear all records from the hit list window. This leaves the criteria from the previous search loaded so you can make minor criteria adjustments and search again.
Select Clear-New Search from the menu to clear both the hit list and the criteria for a new search.
Select Window-Search Criteria to activate the criteria window so another search can be performed.

or

Click the Append Search button on the Search Hit List window.

Designing a report

Perform a search of the document database for which the report is to be generated.
From the search hit list, click the Report button found below the hit list grid. This loads the Reports window.
Press the Insert Report Button. Then you will be asked "Does this report print out a card format?" If you will be printing to index cards, answer yes. For reports on standard paper answer no.
"New Report 1" will be inserted into the list of reports. Click that entry to highlight it, then click the edit button.
The Edit Report window is displayed. Enter the description of the report and the path and filename where you will store the report. For instance if you were creating a report of clients, you could call the report "client.rpt". To save the report to the halFILE directory on drive H:, you would enter "H:\HALFILE\CLIENT.RPT" into the path and filename box. The Select button is provided to help you find and select existing reports or set the path for a new report.
Press the Design button. This will load Crystal Reports. If Crystal Reports fails to load, set its location by selecting File-Report from the halFILE Administrator menu.
From the Crystal Reports menu, select File-New to create a new report. This will take you through the steps of designing your new report. Refer to the Crystal Report manual or its help file for more information.
When you are asked to choose a database connection, select an ODBC File DSN and find and select "halreports.dsn" found in your Windows Temporary directory. Hint: to quickly get to your temporary folder in the file location dialog box, you can type in %temp% and hit enter.
Once the halreports.dsn is selected, the following text files will appear in Crystal's list of files for that DSN:
1. criteria.txt - contains search criteria information. This can be used on a Crystal subreport that is inserted into the report header of your main report to show you what criteria was used to obtain the search results shown on the report.
2. halreport.txt - this contains report information for standard reports. It includes ALL of the information for the documents on the hit list.
3. halcard.txt - this contains report information for card-style reports. It includes ALL of the information for the documents on the hit list.
4. hitlist.txt - this contains report information reflecting only the data shown on the hit list. This file is useful when you want your report to exclude all of the multi-entry information and reflect exactly the search hit list screen.
Design your report. When you are finished, select File-Save As and enter the same path and filename as you entered in step 5 above. (Note: Be sure the File-Save Data with Report option in Crystal in not checked).
Select File-Exit to return to halFILE.
Click the Done button to save the report setup information.

Printing a report

Perform a search.
From the hit list click the report button.
Click on the report that you wish to print from the reports listed.
The print window is displayed where you can print the report directly to the default printer, preview the report, or select the printer.
When PRINT PREVIEW is selected the report is generated and displayed in a window. Click the printer icon in the Crystal Repoert Viewer toolbar to route the report to the selected printer.
Press the close button to close the report window.

Printing Large Reports

The Report Only check box is used when printing large reports. When this option is checked, the system performs the search but does not load the Hit List window. Rather, the results of the search are passed directly to the reporting mechanism.

Avoiding slow searches

Each field in the document database is indexed. However, a field that is indexed is indexed from the left only. Therefore, keep in mind the following:

Avoid ‘free form’ and ‘end of field’ searches unless associated with other criteria that use a different search method. Free-form and End of Field searches are unable to use the index and must read the entire database to find matches.
Enter as much search criteria as possible.
If possible, avoid searches that find hundreds of hits. When the hit list is loaded, the data for a search must be written to a disk file. The more records that must be loaded, the longer it takes for the entire grid to be loaded.

Criteria Field Types

As you fill in the criteria fields, the search type box in the upper right hand corner of the criteria shows the type of search type being performed. Search types include:

Exact Match - the database field data must exactly match the criteria.
Beginning of Field - the database field data must begin with the criteria entered.
End of Field - the database field data must end with the criteria entered.
Free Form Search - the database field data must contain the criteria entered.

A Free Form Search may be very slow, depending on the number of records in your database. This is because the search engine must examine every database record to determine if the selected field contains the criteria anywhere in the field. Therefore, this type of search should be avoided if it is the only criteria field being entered. If, however, other non-free form criteria is entered, the search speed should be reasonable.

Greater Than - the database field data must be greater than the criteria entered.
Less Than - the database field data must be less than the criteria entered
Range - the database field data must be within the range of the two criteria values entered.
SmartName Search – when you exit from a criteria box designated as a Smart Name search, the system converted the names in the box to aliases using the Smart Name dictionary. See Smart Names for more information.
Soundex – a “sounds like” search is performed on the criteria field.
Proximity - this is a full text search on the selected field where entire words can be found as matches as long as they are in close proximity with other words used in the search criteria. For example, a proximity search for "John Smith" may find "Smith, John," "Smith, Alan John," and "The John Alan Smith Family Trust."

The Hit List Window

Once a search is performed, the Hit List window is displayed showing the results of the search. This grid includes a row for each record found in the search and a column for each field in the database. If a field is a multi-entry field, only the first entry in the database is displayed.

Clicking the right mouse button in a column will display a menu that allows you to sort the grid by the column in which you are currently located. You may press ESC or click elsewhere on the screen to hide the menu without making any selection. Once you select the sort option you will be given a choice between ascending (A to Z) and descending (Z to A). Once you pick the type of sort the grid will be reloaded with the same data sorted by the column you were in when you selected the sort menu.

Selecting the Display Result Option

The Hit List tab on Tools_Options menu of the Search Criteria screen provides three Display Result Options as follows.

One row per document – displays a single row for each matching document, showing the first row of multi-entry data. This is the traditional display option from prior halFILE versions.
Rows that match search criteria – also displays a single row for each matching document. However, the multi-entry data shown is derived from the row that matched the search criteria.
All rows (includes multi-entry) – this option will show all rows of data for each document.

Formatting the hit list grid

Position the mouse pointer on the grid divider lines in the header row and drag the mouse left or right to increase or decrease the width of a column.
Once you have the grid column widths set to your liking, select File-Save Grid Format to permanently save column widths.

Marking entries in the hit list grid

The marking feature lets you mark entries in the hit list and then re-load the hit list saving only marked entries or unmarked entries. To use this feature:

Click the row to mark and then click the Mark button. This places a check mark icon to the left of the row.
Click the Show Marked List button found at the bottom of the screen to show items that have been marked.
You can remove entries from the second list by selecting a row and pressing the Remove button.
When you have marked all the desired records, press List Options button that appears when a record is placed into the second list. This shows a menu to save records marked items, remove marked items, or remove records in the bottom list from the top list. The hit list is then re-loaded.

Saving and Restoring the Hit List

The search list can be saved to a file and restored during a later session by:

From the search hit list window, select File-Save Hit List.
Enter the file name to save the list to, using an ‘.HIT’ extension.

Later, a saved search hit list can be restored by:

Within Search, select File-Restore Hit List.
Select the file name that was saved earlier.

Once this is done, you can use the search hit list as if you had just performed the search.

The Right Click Menu on the Search Hit List

All of the menu selections under the Hit List menu are replicated on a right click menu that is activated by pressing the right mouse button with the arrow on a column and row of the search hit list. This is handy for performing quickly performing the hit list management features.

See the Search Menu Summary at the end of the chapter to review the menu selections that are on the Right Click and Hit List menus.