12 Oct CaptureFast and Box: How to set up a complete capture and content management solution only in 10 minutes
I was given an assignment to compile all the information in the emergency medical documents of students in our city. All of the critical information in the documents such as student name, known allergies, parent name, phone numbers, insurance company information were needed to be compiled in a central repository.
I started the process by listing all of the challenges that I had to overcome:
- There were more than 10K students in 28 schools in the city
- Each school was using self-designed documents to collect the emergency medical data. Some physicians added supplementary documents or used totally different forms.
- Some of the documents were digital while others were physical
- There were updates to the documents on a daily basis
- There would be at least 300 people adding documents or searching through them, and it was impossible to force everyone to use the same way of uploading documents
- The system had to be accessible anytime / anywhere in case of an emergency
- And lastly, I didn’t have any IT task to ask for help
- After a short research, I found out that an integration between Capturefast and Box could solve my problems in 10 minutes. I started my free trials on both systems and started to design my solution.
Minute 1: Understanding the basics of Box and CaptureFast
Box is a leader in cloud content management enabling businesses to manage all of their content seamlessly and securely in the cloud. CaptureFast is the world’s first cloud-based and document capture application, enabling users to extract data from paper and digital documents using their smartphone, empowering employees to focus on more strategic tasks rather than manual data entry, enabling better real-time business decisions and efficiency.
I signed up for the 14 day free trials on both systems. I noticed that while CaptureFast pricing is based on number of pages, Box’s pricing is based on number of users. I figured out that for all of CaptureFast’s plans I would be able to use the Box integration, while for Box metadata I needed to subscribe to the Business Plus or Enterprise Plan.
Figure 1: CaptureFast Pricing Plans
Minute 2 and 3: Defining the Box metadata attributes
Defining the fields on Box first is a good idea since Box will be the main document storage platform. I decided to have 10 searchable fields on the forms; 8 of them for the student and 2 of them for the physician. Creating 2 different metadata structures can help us for further needs especially for reporting.
Figure 3: Box Metadata Structure
Minute 4: Designing a new template on CaptureFast web application
CaptureFast is a smart document capture system, where I can use any document to design a new template. It will extract the required data from any medical form even if the document is totally different. One simple click is enough to add a new field. It really couldn’t be easier than that.
Figure 4: CaptureFast Template Design – Fields
Minute 5: Defining the Box integration and mapping the fields.
Following the template design it was time to select the destination and output formats for my template on CaptureFast. I connected my CaptureFast account to my Box account in a few clicks. I noticed that there were some other connection options named as “WebService” and “Multi Output”. I guess those were for more advanced users who want to export the same data to multiple destinations with custom web services.
Figure 5: CaptureFast Template Design – Destination
After the connection was done, I had to map the fields between CaptureFast and Box one by one. Box metada fields automatically appeared on the left while I selected the CaptureFast template fields from a dropdown list on the right hand side. Now my field-mapping between CaptureFast and box is complete.
Figure 6: CaptureFast and Box Field Mapping
Minute 6: Inviting the necessary users
CaptureFast has two different types of users, capturers, and verifiers. I invited the school nurses of the 28 schools to the system as capturers. After they accept the invitation, they can start sending emergency medical documents to the CaptureFast system.
I didn’t have to invite the school managers or teachers to CaptureFast since they will access the documents on Box when they need it. Besides, CaptureFast never keeps the documents or the extracted data, and deletes all the captured information after it is exported to Box.
Minute 7: Testing the solution by uploading some documents and verifying them.
Now that everything it is set it is time to test out the system. I start by scanning an emergency medical document with the CaptureFast Mobile application.
The verification screen of CaptureFast was also very easy to use. All the fields were extracted correctly, thus I didn’t need to edit anything and clicked the “Finish” button. I learned that if I set all the fields non-mandatory, CaptureFast will automatically transfer the document and extracted data to Box by skipping the verification step. This can be useful for the digitally created PDF documents where accuracy levels will be much higher.
Figure 7: CaptureFast Verification
Minute 8: Thinking on the document upload options.
There are three document upload options in Capturefast. School nurses can use any of them. I guess they will mostly use CaptureFast mobile capture for the paper ones, while the email option for the rest. The system is creating a mailbox for each document template.
Users can simply forward the medical document attached email to that email address. This must be the fastest way of inserting a document into Box. If schools have already scanned the documents and are keeping them on a PC in the school the computer upload option of CaptureFast is ideal, since lots of documents can be uploaded at one-time.
Figure 8: CaptureFast Upload
Minute 9: Let’s take a look at CaptureFast Mobile Capture.
CaptureFast’s award winner mobile capture application is a must for anyone who is still working with paper documents. I just point my smartphone camera to the document, it finds the best possible frame and captures the document.
By the way, I noticed that I don’t need to design separate templates for the paper or digital documents. CaptureFast was smart enough to collect all the necessary data from any kind of file type. A document is a document, why should I worry about the file type, huh?
Figure 9: CaptureFast Mobile Capture Application
Minute 10: Search and display the documents on Box
Now that I have completed the document capture on the CaptureFast System, I can easily searching and view the document and the capture results within Box . Box’s search tool was very easy to use. The metadata template that I had created helped me do a search using these attributes.
Figure 10: Box File Search using Metadata attributes
Viewing the document and its metada attributes were very easy. The document and its data were neatly displayed in one window. The mission is accomplished, I was able to utilize a very will integrated system in only 10 minutes. Thanks to CaptureFast and Box.
Figure 11: Box Extracted Document and its metadata attributes