Document-level Identification
The table below briefly describes the EIGHT main data elements which UnForm uses to identify documents at the document level. With the exception of the date/time stamp, and some character-separator rules enforced by UnForm on some of the fields, the data format for each of these text elements is user-configurable. A significant part of the administrator's implementation process is to design a document identification structure for the archive which will meet the enterprise's needs over a meaningful period of time.
Document Type |
Example document types from our sample libraries:
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Document ID |
The combination of Document Type and Document ID form a unique identifier-key to a document within a library.
Note that libraries are distinct units to each other so document identifier-keys are only unique to a library, in other words, identical document identifier-keys can exist in two distinct libraries without over-writing. |
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Categories |
Secondary sorting values known in some software applications as sort-keys. Example Categories from the demo_sales library include:
In the above samples, the text between quotes is literal, and the text between curly braces { } indicates a variable data field where the values for the document being archived are supplied by the application.
The pipe symbol | is used to delineate segments in a category, which allows UnForm to structure a drill-down presentation when browsing for documents. A category can contain up to ten pipe-delimited segments. The first segment should normally be a literal text category name, as shown in the example, to facilitate the category-type browse method when looking up documents.
Note from the first column header above that the "OpInvoice" and "OrderPickQuote" document types are configured with the same list of categories. This is because in our sample database they are related documents in a relationship where an "invoice" is always preceded by an "order".
As an example from our samples of some of the considerations in choosing document identification strategies, by structuring a category on the invoice to reference the source order ID number, the following sample document browse list was enabled where an invoice and its related order document appear together in a list.
The next example shows a browse list which has been started using a category browse method and drilling down from customer to customer name "Taylor". Notice the three different types of documents which were located for Taylor, because the different document types were configured with at least one identical category.
If a given category segment will potentially contain many thousands of items, it may be desirable to divide the segment into two tiers. For example, if a customer name is used as a segment, and there are thousands of customers, a two-tiered customer name could be designed, such as left(custname$,2) + “|” + custname$. During browsing, the user would first locate the customer alphabetical group based on the first two characters of the name, then access just that sub-group of customers. |
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Document Title |
A broad general description of the document, sometimes composed of several major data values that help distinguish the document from other similar documents. |
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Keywords |
Additional document identifiers that can help narrow and limit searches to locate documents and groups of documents, improving search efficiency. Keywords are semi-colon delimited words or phrases. Often they are auto-generated from the content of the job submitted for UnForm processing. When keywords are auto-generated, the generation is subject to configuration rules found in the [archive] section if the uf80d.ini file. |
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Links |
A list of links to other documents, either in the archive system or external to it. This list is displayed in the web browser interface when viewing the document. The list is semi-colon delimited, with each link being one of these formats:
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Entity ID |
A security data element which can be included with a document and/or user account to filter access to specific documents or groups of documents to login user accounts which carry access authorization referencing the same entity ID. The concept of the Entity ID is one of ownership, designed for situations where external web access to documents in a shared library needs to be restricted to the entity specified. For example, where customer XYZ can login and browse, list and view invoices for customer XYZ without ever seeing documents for other entities listed. If documents are written to the archive with an empty entity ID field, then any user account with an empty entity ID will pass the entity test for access to a record. In an environment with empty entity ID field on documents in the archive, simply assigning a user any non-blank entity ID value can be used to restrict access to all documents in the archive.
At the current release level the entity ID field is treated, both for document properties and user properties, as a simple string of text. There are NOT provisions in the software for assigning multiple entity ID's to either a user or a document, nor any provision for entity ID sub-string referencing. |
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Date / Time |
The date/time stamp of a document is used as a secondary sort-key in the library to allow a by-date browse-method drill-down to locate documents. The date/time value can be maintained by the UnForm rule set used to archive the document, or via a command line option. It defaults to the initial date and time the document was added.
Additional dateupdated and timeupdated fields are maintained each time the document is updated. |
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Notes |
Free-form text notes can be stored with a document and can be edited in the document properties box of a located document. |
