Difference between revisions of "Chapter 2 - Overview"

Latest revision as of 13:40, 20 April 2011

Upgrading to version 3.0

If you have any questions on performing this upgrade, or you are not sure if the upgrade is required, please call Technical Support for help.

From Version 2.2 To upgrade halFILE to version 3.0, contact halFILE Technical Support. They will set up your license registration in the halFILE Update Service (http://update.halfile.com) and will instruct you on how to use the halFILE Update Service to upgrade your system to version 3.0.

From Versions prior to 2.2 This requires Technical Assistance. Please call Technical Support.

halFILE Update Service

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You can now use the halFILE Update Service to obtain program releases, enhancements and bug fixes. This is done through the Tools-Update Service menu of the halFILE Administrator.

Tutorials on the halFILE Update Service are available behind the "learn more" link at http://update.halfile.com.

Document Management with halFILE

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halFILE is a document management application that provides electronic document storage and retrieval capabilities. Using the popular Microsoft Windows interface, paper documents can be scanned into a digital image format, key words can be entered into a user-defined database, and images can be archived to permanent storage such as network storage devices and compact disks. Documents can also be captured by importing them from disk or capturing printed output. With halFILE's Office 'Send To' feature, Microsoft Office documents can be sent directly to halFILE. Searching the database using keywords then retrieves documents and displays related images on the screen.

The following diagram depicts a typical halFILE system flow:

What’s New in 3.0

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The following lists new features of version 3.0.

halFILE Search Module enhancements:

• The Proximity Search is a new and powerful search feature that will be rolled into the standard release of halFILE 3.0. Taking advantage of the SQL Server full-text feature, new full-text indexes can be added to selected halFILE data fields like names, Grantors, Grantees, Addresses, etc. Then when the uses enters search criteria into one of the full-text fields and select "proximity search" for the search type, the system performs a full text search where the words entered into the criteria must all be present but do not need to be in the same order as keyed. In other words:

I search for:		I find:
John Doe		Doe, John
			John Doe Trust
			John Alan Doe

Requirements: Full version of SQL Server 2000 or later.

• A new control has been developed to replace the old mask edit control used in prior releases. The old control would cause the search module to unload when a terminal server disconnected or minimized. This new control resolves this problem.
• The Publish feature in the Search module has been enhanced.
• Error trapping for data truncation errors has been improved.
• An option has been added to convert TIFF images to PDF format when attaching to e-mails sent from the Search module.
• User-defined menus have been added to the search hit list menu. This lets you add custom programs to halFILE menus.
• The mouse scroll can now be used on the Hit List screen.
• Combine feature where you can mark items on the hit list and combine them into a new document.

The halFILE Index Module enhancements:

• Workflow Routing has been added to let you define how to route documents from user to user through a Workflow process.
• Added a new halFILE Clipboard feature for sophisticated Field duplication from the prior document or from a selected document.
• Index fields can be disabled based on the Workflow status or the value of a keyed index field.
• When the database lookup feature in Index finds multiple records matching the lookup criteria, the user can now be prompted as to which record to select.
• The Edit-Duplicates feature of the Index module can now be configured to select only selected fields for duplication.

halFILE Administrator enhancements:

• User-defined menus let you add custom programs to halFILE menus.
• The User Security screen of the halFILE Administrator now has first key letter jump to a user id or name.
• When a user is deleted in the halFILE Administrator, all references to that user are removed, including references in the e.halFILE user tables.
• If a password is changed, it is changed in the e.halFILE user table as well.
• You can now assign multiple users to a basket.

halFILE Manager enhancements:

• User-defined menus let you add custom programs to halFILE menus.
• Handles multiple users assigned to a single basket.
• Failed archives or database backups are indicated at the bottom of the Manager panel.
• Prevents importing or scanning into baskets containing over 10,000 documents (which normally indicates a failure in the Auto Archive process).

halFILE Basket Status module enhancements:

• Lets you switch applications, databases and baskets without leaving the module.
• A reorder button has been added to reorder image pages.
• A new menu has been added to show statistics for all baskets.

Other Enhancements:

• A new add-on feature of halFILE 3.0 will provide for the full-text indexing of entire documents. With this feature you can import associated documents (Word, Excel, PDF) and the system will index on the entire text of the document. You can also import TIFF images and the full-text system will OCR the document to convert the image to text and then will index on the entire text of the document.

In search, a new field will be added to the search criteria form called "Full text". The user can enter text to search for in this box and then check the proximity search type, and a full text search of the document information will be performed. For example:

I search for:		I find:
halFILE indexing	halFILE 3.0 will provide for the full-text indexing

Requirements: Full version of SQL Server 2000 or SQL Server 2005 Imaging Professional for Windows for OCR.

Contact your sales representative if you are interested in obtaining this new module.

• The halFILE E-mail Collector, another add-on product to halFILE 3.0, provides the ability store e-mails out of Outlook and Outlook Express into halFILE. A program sweeps the designated Outlook folders and moves any e-mails found there to a halFILE E-mail database. The sweeper program posts the Sender, Recipients, CC, date, subject and body into halFILE. The Subject and Body data is also added to a full-text index, if configured, for powerful e-mail searching. The original e-mail becomes the halFILE document in EML file format which can include any attachments.

This powerful feature means you can use halFILE as your e-mail archiver with all of its features designed to handle millions of documents. The target database could be a local MSDE database for a single user (no full text support available), a departmental SQL Server database for each department, or a company-wide SQL Server database for the entire enterprise. Contact your sales representative if you are interest in the halFILE E-mail Collector.

• Multiple Word Merge templates can now be set up for a database.
• A new utility (HFValidateBkPg.exe) can be used to identify missing image pages based on values in a page field in the database.