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RecoStar Extraction Plugin

Available: on-premises, cloud

Overview of the RECOSTAR_EXTRACTION Plugin

The RECOSTAR_EXTRACTION plugin is a part of the Extraction module, by default. This plugin extracts data from the fields that are contained in a document. The RECOSTAR_EXTRACTION plugin extracts data values from document-level fields in the Extraction module. This plugin is typically used for extracting data from fixed forms.

Note: The RecoStar extraction plugin supports extraction on Windows installations of Ephesoft Transact. As of the 2020.1.06 release, the RecoStar extraction plugin is now available on Linux as a beta feature.

For Linux installations, fixed-form extraction is performed by the Nuance extraction plugin and is still recommended.
Refer to a separate Wiki article in the case of extraction on Linux installations.

The following snapshot illustrates typical components of the Extraction module, including the RECOSTAR_EXTRACTION plugin:

Figure 1. Extraction Module with RECOSTAR_EXTRACTION Plugin

For additional information about creating the RSP file, refer to Create Fixed-Form Projects with RecoStar Design Studio.

Configuring the RECOSTAR_EXTRACTION Plugin

Perform these steps to configure the RECOSTAR_EXTRACTION plugin in the Extraction module:

Note: The Administrator user account is required for this procedure.

1. Launch the Ephesoft Transact application and select Administrator > Batch Class Management.

The system prompts you to log in. Provide login parameters as prompted.

The Batch Class Management screen appears, displaying all the batch classes currently contained in Transact.

Figure 2. Batch Class Management screen

2. Open the batch class to be configured. Select (check) the batch click and click Open.

3. In the navigation pane on the left side, expand the Modules section, and click Extraction to display the plugins currently configured for the Extraction module.

Figure 3. Extraction Module and Plugins

4. Click (highlight) the RECOSTAR_EXTRACTION plugin. The Plugin Configuration screen appears on the right.

Windows:

Figure 4. Plugin Configuration options for the RECOSTAR_EXTRACTION Plugin

Linux:

Figure 5. Plugin Configuration options for the RECOSTAR_EXTRACTION plugin on Linux

5. Define the following settings for the RECOSTAR_EXTRACTION plugin:

Configurable Property Options Description
RecoStar Extraction color switch* • ON
• OFF
• Set the color switch to ON to use a PNG input file for OCR (optical character recognition).
• Set the color switch to OFF to use a TIFF input file for OCR.
RecoStar Auto Rotate switch • ON
• OFF
Use this property to apply auto-rotation of the input images during OCR, based on the orientation provided by the RecoStar OCR engine.
RecoStar Extraction switch • ON
• OFF
Use this switch to enable or disable this plugin.
Retain Intermediate File • ON
• OFF
This switch was introduced in Ephesoft Transact 4.5.0.0 (March 2018) and is available in subsequent releases. If enabled (ON), this setting deletes the XML file once batch execution and extraction are complete. If disabled (OFF), Transact retains this intermediate XML file even after batch processing is complete.

*Property is not in the RECOSTAR_EXTRACTION plugin for Linux.

6. Click Apply to save the changes. Click Deploy to activate the changes, making them immediately applicable to batch class processing. Click Close to exit the Plugin Configuration screen.

7. Evaluate certain additional settings with regard to this plugin. Make additional changes in the batch class as needed. Following these guidelines:

  • This plugin only requires an image as an input, which is a PNG file if the color switch is ON, or a TIFF file if the color switch is OFF. Note: The RECOSTAR_EXTRACTION plugin for Linux does not support PNG files.
  • Therefore, the administrator requires one of the following additional plugins:
    • Either the CREATE_OCR_INPUT plugin or the CREATE_DISPLAY_IMAGE plugin is required.
      • One of these plugins must execute before this RecoStar Extraction plugin.
      • These plugins are typically located in the Page Process module, which comes before the Extraction module.
    • Ideally, one should place the RecoStar Extraction plugin after the page process and document classification plugins, and that the RecoStar Extraction plugin not execute until after the Review stage has been completed.
    • The RecoStar Extraction plugin requires a valid document type to be classified for the batch.

RecoStar Extraction Dependencies

RecoStar Extraction Dependency on the RECOSTAR_HOCR Plugin (Windows Only)

If you are using the RECOSTAR_HOCR plugin in your batch class, which is typically in the Page Process module, in combination with the RecoStar Extraction plugin, which is typically in the Extraction module, the configuration in the UI for these two plugins must match with regard to using color documents.

If the color switch is turned on in the RecoStar HOCR plugin, the same switch must be turned on in the RecoStar Extraction plugin. This dependency is not needed for the Linux version.

Troubleshooting RecoStar Extraction

Use the following table to identify and resolve possible errors with extraction plugin configurations:

S no. Error Message Possible root cause
1. Invalid License. Could not be verified. Network connection failure.
RecoStar command is not valid.
License is either not installed or invalid.
The Tomcat server is not started.
2. Problem in verifying License Unable to connect with Ephesoft license server or some error occurred at Ephesoft license server side.
3. Unable to load Fpr.rsp file The RSP file used for processing is invalid.
4. Exception while reading from XML Unable to process the batch.xml file or the batch.xml file is invalid.
5. Image processing or XML updating failed Unable to update the batch.xml fiule.
6.  File has invalid extension File processed by the RecoStar OCR engine has an invalid extension.
7. Document type could not be found for page Invalid document is being used for processing.
8. Unable to parse the orientation tag in RecoStar xml file. The RecoStar xml file has an invalid value for the orientation tag.
9. Unable to rotate the file: according to the values specified in its xml The RecoStar xml file has an invalid value for rotation