Find Capture Documents

The Find Capture Document task retrieves a list of pertinent information about Capture documents present in the Capture database according to a specified set of rules.

This task is most often useful as the beginning of an automated process using a series of Capture documents, for example one that removes old documents to unlock patterns. However, it can also be used as a secondary input in order to retrieve one or more documents after some operations.

The Find Capture Document task makes multiple simultaneous statements to the database when requesting a list of documents. For this task to work, the Allow multiple statements option must be checked in the ODBC connection setup done in the control panel.

This task is put into effect in the following use cases and example processes:

Input

Because this task in an Input task, it does not use the current job file in your process, even when used as a secondary input task.

Processing

This task connects to the Capture database and looks up all available documents that meet the criteria specified in the plugin. Then it does further processing to retrieve relevant information about each document and places the information in the data file it generates.

Output

The data file generated by this task is an XML structure containing the data about each document. It also generates Metadata that is compatible with post-processing tasks such as the Capture Condition and Get Capture Document tasks.

Task properties

General Tab
  • Document-ID Based Condition: Select this option for this task to filter its results using a specific Document ID.
    • Document ID: Enter the ID on which you want to filter. The Document ID is a unique identifier of the document when it is stored in the database. It is attributed to the job metadata when the Capture Fields Generator ads it to the Capture database.
  • Document-Based Condition: Select this option to set up an advanced filter containing one or more conditions.
    • Condition Grid: Displays the list of current condition criteria that were set for document retrieval.
      • Filter: The selected filter type. This can be any of the following:
        • Document Name: The name of the document, as specified in the Document Name property of the Capture Fields Generator.
        • Date Generated: The date, in YYYY-MM-DD format, when the document was generated through the Capture Field Generator.
        • Date Closed: The date, in YYYY-MM-DD format, when the document was closed by the Capture Field Processor or Get Capture Document tasks. This field is empty in documents that are still open.
        • Pen user (by description): The description of the pen, as entered in the PlanetPress Capture Pen Management Tool. Generally, this is the name of the owner of the pen.
        • Pen user (by serial number): The serial number of the pen (aka Pen ID)
        • Pattern Sequence: The Pattern Sequence in which a document is entered.
        • Template name: The name of the PlanetPress Design document used to generate the Capture document. This is set in the document's properties, in PlanetPress Design.
        • Pattern ID: The exact ID of the Anoto Pattern used. This is also called "Pattern Trace Code".
        • Content Status: The status of the document as a whole. A document can be Empty (no ink), Partial (some ink but still open), Complete (all mandatory ink is present) or in Error (logical or process error).
      • Operator: The choice of the condition operator. The available choices are variable depending on the filter but will be part of the following choices:
        • Equal: Inclusive filter, where anything equal (either by string or numeric comparison) is included in the results.
        • Not Equal: Exclusive filter, where anything not equal to the condition is included in the results.
        • Less Than: Numerical comparison, where anything lower than the specified value is included.
        • Greater Than: Numerical comparison, where anything higher than the specified value is included.
        • Less than or equal to: Numerical comparison, where anything lower or equal to than the specified value is included.
        • Greater than or equal to: Numerical comparison, where anything higher or equal to than the specified value is included.
        • Contains: Inclusive string comparison, documents where the specified value is present within the chosen filter are included.
        • Does not contain: Exclusive string comparison, documents where the specified value is not present within the chosen filter are included.
        • Before: Date comparison, documents of which the date is previous to the specified value are included (Date Generated and Date Closed filters only).
        • After: Date comparison, documents of which the date is closer than the specified value are included (Date Generated and Date Closed filters only).
        • Last: Date comparison, documents of which the date is within the specified interval are included (Date Generated and Date Closed filters only).
        • Older than: Date comparison, documents of which the date is older than the specified interval are included (Date Generated and Date Closed filters only).
      • Condition: The condition or value the document needs to meet. The condition is variable dependent on the chosen filter. It can be a drop-down of values, an alphanumerical or numerical value.
    • Add button: Click to add a condition row to the grid.
    • Remove button: Click to remove the currently selected condition from the grid. To select a row, simply click on any of its 3 components.
    • Condition Operator: Select either "All items are met" to force all conditions to be true for a document to be included, or "At least one item is met" to include documents where a minimum of 1 condition is true.
  • Create Advanced Data File: Click to retrieve additional information about each document in the result list. These information include each field, the presence of ink on each of them, time stamps, etc. Please refer to Find Capture Document for an example of the XML file.

The Advanced Data File option will generate a high number of queries into the Capture Database, and will be slower than a regular data file by orders of magnitude. Do not use this option unless you are aware of the loss of performance and actually need to access each field's properties individually!

On Error Tab

For a description of the options on the On Error tab see Using the On Error tab.

Miscellaneous Tab

The Miscellaneous tab is common to all tasks.

It contains a text area (Task comments) that lets you write comments about the task. These comments are saved when the dialog is closed with the OK button and are displayed in The Task Comments Pane.

Check the option Use as step description to display the text next to the icon of the plugin in the Process area.

The tab also provides an option to highlight the task in The Process area with the default color, set in the Preferences (see Colors), or the color selected or defined under Highlight color on this tab.
To revert the selected highlight color to the default color, open this tab, turn the Highlight option off and close the dialog with the OK button; then turn highlighting back on.
Highlighting can also be turned on and off via the task's contextual menu and with the Highlight button on the View ribbon.