File Synchronisation

Business+
Document Management

The RetSoft Archive File Synchronization Add-on gives you the option to synchronize Windows directories with folders in RetSoft Archive.

Many software application (such as CRM, financial and branch specific solutions) store documents in a Windows folder on your pc or network. The File Synchronization add-on allows you to store a copy of these documents in your archive. Newly added documents will be added to the archive automatically and modified documents are either updated or added.  Documents are made retrievable by content with OCR and text extraction techniques (requires an activated OCR add-on). This makes them easy to find in RetSoft Archive.

The add-on can be started through the “Extra” menu in RetSoft Archive 'Expert' or 'Business+' or in Windows Start. (Requires version 2.0.14 or later). You need to enter the RetSoft Archive system administrator password to log in. You can find the default password in the installation manual if you have not changed it.

Add directories
Click 'Add' to add a directory to synchronize.

  1. You can now choose a directory through the directory browser.
  2. Select one and click OK.
  3. Synchronization will start immediately. Once done, the search index will be updated automatically. Documents can be retrieved by content when the search index has been fully updated.
  4. After this process has been completed, the status will change to “Monitoring”. If anything is changed in a monitored folder, or one of its sub folders, the archive will also be updated.
  5. You can add multiple directories to synchronize by repeating the steps above.

NOTICE: Newly added folders will become visible in RetSoft Archive if you renew the folder structure. You can renew the folders in RetSoft Archive if you right-click on the root folder and then select “Refresh” from the menu that appears (or press F5).  Please note that when a directory has been synchronized it can initially only be accessed by members of the Administrators group. Administrators can make the folders accessible for other users the same way as done on ‘normal’ folders.

Remove synchronization

  1. Select the “Source directory” you want to stop synchronizing.
  2. Click “Remove”.
  3. Select the desired remove option:.

If you choose to remove the synchronization details only, the synchronization will stop, and the folder and its subfolders and documents will turn into regular items. If you choose to remove the documents definitively the documents will be removed and cannot be recovered. Make a backup before you (definitively) remove something.

Settings
In most cases you can use the default settings, but if you want to change any of settings you click on the 'Settings' button.

  • Monitor changes directory and file changes - When something changes in the monitored files or directories, the archive is automatically updated.
  • Convert PDF’s into RetSoft Documents when possible - Most PDF’s are converted into RetSoft Documents when this option is checked. There are however some types that will not convert. These are types that can’t be converted or types that contains additional information that might be lost during conversion. More information can be found on our FAQ.
  • Don’t import files when larger than… - Specify the maximum size (in MB) of the files that you want to import. 
  • Append file extension to unknown file types
  • Use detected meta data files
  • Use file date for imported documents - When this option is checked the imported documents inherit the file’s last modified date, and the current date otherwise.

There are two more tabs with settings: “Filter” and “Search index”:

  • At the “Filter” tab you can specify a custom filter for file types that you want to import.
  • Updating the search index can be turned on or off at “Search index” tab. You can also select a primary OCR recognition language and enable or disable barcode recognition. 

Information about the (progress) of the synchronization process can be obtained by pressing the 'Log' button.

Advanced automated synchronization via startup parameters
You can start FileSync with start-up parameters as well. This allows you, for example, to schedule daily synchronizations via the Windows Task Scheduler.
You can use the following parameters:

Parameter Alternative Parameter Description
-synconce   Enables FileSync to run with startup parameters. This parameter is always required.
-username -u Username for logging into FileSync. This is always followed by the username itself.
-password -p Password that accompanies the prior mentioned username. This is always followed by the password itself.
-skipindex -x Do not index new documents after synchronization.
-server   IP adres or name of the server. (Optional)
-database   Name of the database. (Optional)
-type   Servertype (MySQL or MSSQL). (Optional)
-port   The serverport where the database is accessible. (Optional)

Example:

RsFileSync.exe –synconce –skipindex –u simon –p secret

The above line logs the user into FileSync as the user 'simon' using the password 'secret' and skips indexing new documents after synchronization is completed. Parameters and alternative parameters can be freely interchanged. You can use –password but also –p.

Folder Reader

Business
Business+
Document Management
Expert
Pro

With the 'RetSoft Archive Folder Reader' a directory structure on the hard disk can be imported into a RetSoft archive. All directories and all supported files are imported. You can also provide documents with metadata.

Attention: Documents are only searchable by content after OCR text recognition with RetSoft Archive has been applied.

Reading a folder

In the upper text field you can select the starting point of the import. With the “Browse…” button you can look up this director, for example “C:\Program Files”. With this directory selected, all supported files and folders within “C:\Program Files”, will be imported. 

Also, there are two options on this window: 

  • Verify and compress documents if possible - (checked by default): This option checks if a supported files can be compressed and if so, compresses them before importing them in the archive.
  • Do not import files if larger than - Files which are larger than the selected value are not imported. For best practises we advise you to avoid large files in the archive.

Select Next to go to step 2:

In this window you can select which file extensions you want to import. You can add and remove file formats. The 'Default' button allows you to restore the default file formats which are supported by the application.
The option 'Import all files except system and media files' (not checked by default) will let you import all files which are smaller than the selected maximum, are imported (see 1st window). Files that have been marked as system file or listed as system or media file types, like for example mp3, wav, exe, dll, mp4 etc, will not be imported. Notice that the size of an archive can grow rapidly with this option checked! 

Select Next to go to step 3:

In this window you can change settings regarding a document’s metadata (name, key words etc).

  • Add file extension to document name for unknown file types (checked by default) - When a file format is not recognized by RetSoft Archive, the file extension is added to the name of the document in the archive. 
  • Apply metadata to documents (unchecked by default) - When this option is checked, the application will search for metadata files during the import. Refer to “Metadata files” further in this manual for more information.
  • Use file date if metadata 'date'-field is missing’ (unchecked by default) - When no date has been set in the metadata file, the system date of the file will be used. In all other cases the current system date is used.

Select Next to go to step 4
For 'Pro' or 'Business' users this step will look like this:

At ‘Destination file for archive:’ you can set the file name for the destination archive. NOTE: This cannot be an existing file!
(If needed) you can set an ‘Optional destination folder in archive’. This is as folder in the archive in which all the imported files and folders are placed.

For 'Expert' or 'Business+' users this step will look like this:

To make a connection with an RetSoft Archive Expert archive, it is of great importance that you have the server connection information on hand. After you have set these options, click on ‘Refresh’ to retrieve a list of available databases. Select your RetSoft Archive database.
(If needed) you can set an ‘Optional destination folder in archive’. This is a folder in the archive in which all the imported files and folders are placed. 

If you click ‘Next’, the import of the files and folders will start.

Metadata Import

Business
Business+
Document Management

Metadata files
In RetSoft Archive some extra information can be added to a document in the form of metadata. During the import, metadata can be added automatically as a text file with the following layout: 

Name: <Name of file>
KeyWord1: <Keyword 1>
KeyWord2: <Keyword 2>
KeyWord3: <Keyword 3>
KeyWord4: <Keyword 4>
KeyWord5: < Keyword 5>
Date: <Date 'yyyymmdd' format>
Zipcode: <Zipcode>

Attention:

  • A Metadata-file has the same name as the file that represents the document, but it should have the extension “.rmd” (RetSoft Meta data). 
  • Metadata files must be placed in the same folder as the documents where they belong to. 
  • The length of a metadata field is limited to a maximum 50 characters per field.

An example:
For the file “Invoice.tif” you want submit the following metadata: “My company”, invoice number “12” and the date “05-05-2009”. Create the following file with for example notepad: 

Name: Invoice
KeyWord1: My Company
KeyWord2: 12
KeyWord3:
KeyWord4:
KeyWord5:
Date: 20090101
Zipcode:

Store this file in the same folder as “Invoice.tif” with the file name “Invoice.rmd”. 

It is also possible to use XML files* to do metadata imports with Folder Reader.
Example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<metadata id="1234">
      <name>Document Name</name>
     
<keywords>
          
<word id="1">First</word>
          
<word id="2">Second</word>
          
<word id="3" />
          
<word id="4" />
          
<word id="5" />
     
</keywords>
     
<zipcode>1234AB</zipcode>
     
<isodate>20150520</isodate>
     
<memotext />
</metadata>

If you create a XML file for use with the Folder Reader, make sure that you save the XML using the name of the original file with extension (for example,  if the file you are creating metadata for is named  ‘Invoice.pdf’, then the XML file should be named  ‘Invoice.pdf.xml’ and be placed in the same directory) 
These XML Files are identical to the ones generated by RetSoft Shadow Archive. RetSoft FileSync can also use these metadata XML files.

Advanced automated folder reading via startup parameters
It is possible to start up folderreader with parameters. This allows you to schedule a timed export via the Windows Task Scheduler. It’s recommend to do this as a basic task of the user itself, and not as an advanced task under another domain/user account.

You can provide the following parameters:

Parameter Alternative Parameter Description
-run   Masterflag for starting an export with parameters, this flag is always needed.
-username -u Username for logging into the database. Followed up by the actual username.
-password -p Password for logging into the database, followed up by the actual password itself.
-source   The source location (ie, the Window folder you wish to import into RetSoft)
-target   The target location in your RetSoft Archive, \ for the root folder.
-server   Hostname or IP-address of the database server hosting the RetSoft Archive database.
-database   Name of the RetSoft Archive database.
-type   Servertype (MySQL or MSSQL). (Optional)
-port   The serverport where the database is accessible. (Optional)
-ignorefiledate   Disable the use of filedate when importing.
-ignorefileext   Disable the automatic adding of file extensions.
-allowduplicates   Add existing documents when importing.
-maxfilesize   Maximum filesize (in megabytes)
-pdfconversion   Enable PDF conversion when possible.

Example:

Folderreader.exe –run –u scansort –p secretpassw0rd –target \Invoices\2017 –source c:\scans\invoices -ignorefiledate

The example above logs in as the ‘scansort’ user with the password ‘secretpassw0rd’ The folder ‘c:\scans\invoices on your hard drive will then be imported into \Invoices\2017 of your archive. Additionally due to the  –ignorefiledate option, the Windows file date is ignored as date for the file.
Parameters and their aliases are freely exchangeable, you may use -password but also -p.

Template Manager

Business
Business+
Document Management

When you apply our OCR technology to a lot of similar documents, you can use the template manager to optimize this process, this has the following benefits:

  • You can specify regions to process and save this as a template. This means you won’t need to specify the regions for every scanned document individually anymore.
  • Because you’ve now specified regions to apply OCR to, the OCR process itself is much faster.
  • Because you only apply OCR to the most important text, your search-index will remain cleaner and searches can be done faster as a result.

Example
You want to scan hundreds of documents that contain a customer number. All these documents have the customer number listed on the same position. Applying OCR on these hundreds of documents on the full document would take a long time. Specifying the region with just the customer number for each of these documents individually would take even longer.

With template manager you could specify the correct region in only one document and store it as a template. Now every time you scan a similar document you can apply this template and speed up your work flow considerably. Changing OCR-related settings can be done in the RetSoft Archive Settings, please refer to the Quick Start Manual for RetSoft Archive.

Creating templates
To create a new template, you can click on the button: .
You will see the following window:

In the textbox under ‘Please provide a name' you can enter a new name for a template. Click the button “new”  and the follow window will appear:

Here you can make a selection between providing an image from disk or scanning in a new document. If you have multiple scanners available, you can select one by pressing the ‘Select scanner’  button. If you want to use a document that is already in RetSoft Archive, you will have to export this document first.

WARNING: Make sure the document you are applying the template to has the same layout as the template you want to apply to it. If you apply a ‘Letter-size” template to an A4-document the regions will not perfectly match up.

Choose a method and select OK.
If you chose to use an image from the scanner, a popup from your scanner will now show up.
If you chose to use an image from a file then an 'Open file' window will show up.
In this window you can navigate to your desired image. After select this image it will be loaded in and displayed in the main view of the template manager.

Opening templates
To open a template, click on the button .
This will open the template manager window again, click on the button 'Open' to load the selected template.
To change the current image, click one of the following buttons:  
With the 
button you can switch between scanners when needed.

The left button allows you to pick a file from your hard drive. The right button will load a new image from your scanner.
Once you have the desired image loaded in, you can start adding regions.

Creating and removing regions
In the image you have loaded you can now add regions by pressing the  button. This will place a region on top of your image which you can move and resize to fit your needs.
Regions can just as easily be removed. If you select a region and press the  button you will remove the currently selected region.

Saving templates
You can save a template by pressing the  button.
If you want to save the template under a different name, then use the “Save As…” option from the menu.
In the textbox under ‘Please provide a name’ you can type a new name. Click the ‘Save’ button to save the template. The template is then stored with an ".osl" extention in the folder "Templates". You can find this folder in the location RetSoft Archive is installed in.

Deleting templates
You can select a template and press 'Remove' to permanently delete it.

Audit-Log Viewer

Business+
Document Management

The audit-log tool gives you a comprehensive view of the actions users have taken in the RetSoft Archive 'Expert' or 'Business+' software environment*. The audit-log is being administrated from RetSoft Admin. The view can be brought up with the audit-log viewer tool.

Administration:
Start RetSoft Admin, log in and select ‘Audit-log’.
For more information on setting up the audit log, refer to the corresponding chapter.

Several types of actions can be logged at different levels. To reduce the size of the audit-log, we recommend that you make your own selection of actions that you wish to log. An audit-log can be cleared by clicking the ‘Clear audit-log’ button. This action cannot be undone. You can also start the ‘Audit-log Viewer’ from this location.

* Actions taken in 'RetSoft Admin' or any of the external RetSoft modules such as 'File Synchronization', 'Shadow Archive' and 'Template Manager' will not be logged for auditing. Actions performed on our hybrid cloud will also not be logged.

The Audit-log Viewer
A view of logged actions can be brought up with the Audit-log Viewer. This application can be started from RetSoft Admin, or in the menu in RetSoft Archive under ‘Extra’ – ‘Tools when logged in as an administrator (RetSoft administrator). Just like in RetSoft Admin you are required to log in as the administrator user ‘scansort’.
Start the ‘Audit-log Viewer’ and the following window appears:

In this screen you can set a filter. You can select what users to log the actions for, and what actions you want to log from these users. You can also enter a specific period to check for. You can reset back to the default filter by clicking the  Reset filter’ button. Click ‘OK’ to restart and the following view will appear:

This view contains comprehensive information on the actions of users. By clicking on a column header you can change the sorting options. By default the sorting is done chronologically. Via the toolbar and the menu several options are available. Following is a small description of these options.

  • Refresh - Update the audit-log viewer display with the latest information.
  • Set filter - Change the filter settings for the view.
  • Display details - Certain logged actions contain additional details. Double-click on the corresponding action or select ‘Display additional details’ in the menu for these actions. Affected are ‘Advanced search’, ’Change permissions’ and ‘Edit properties’.
  • Search - A window pops up allowing you to specify a search for specific actions.
  • Settings - Click in the menu on settings and the following window pops up



    You can select multiple columns here for the audit-log view or start ‘RetSoft Admin’ (to set administrative options). You can also enable the display of internal ID’s of documents and folders in the descriptions. This ID will be placed between square brackets and can be used to trace problems with RetSoft Archive. You can do this by starting a simple search in RetSoft, and in the textbox enter $id=? in the Search’ window, replace ? by the id-number.
  • Export to Excel - You can use this function to export a list of actions to an excel document.

If you are experiencing any problems with RetSoft Archive please check our FAQ.

Accessibility Viewer

Business+
Document Management

This tool allows the administrator to get a quick overview of what folders and documents can be seen and edited by which users.

Below ‘Overview for user’ you can choose a user for which you want to see the access rights. A user in RetSoft Archive is a member of one or more user groups. Groups are added and edited in RetSoft Admin. These user groups determine the definitive accessibility that a user will have. After a group has been added, folder rights for it can be set by an administrator in RetSoft Archive by right clicking on a folder or document and selecting ‘Properties’. Here you can select the ‘Security’ tab to set the accessibility of user groups for that specific folder or document.

In the overview you can see the folders (and documents) that a user has rights to. If the option ‘Show all items’ is selected, you will see all folders and documents. Folders and documents who are not accessible by the selected user will be greyed out. If the amount of access is limited (read-only), the folders or documents will be marked blue.

Inboxes in RetSoft Archive behave differently to access rights: A user will always have full control over their own inbox. Other users can be assigned rights to an inbox from version 3 onwards in the same way you normally assign rights to a user.

NOTICE: A ‘snapshot’ is made of the rights structure on launching the Accessibility View tool, if you make any changes while the tool is active, you will need to restart Accessibility View to refresh the overview.

Sharp Connector

Business
Business+
Document Management

When you have Sharp MFP’s you can also use our OSA connector. This will give you access to RetSoft at the machine via its screen.

You will get a special ‘RetSoft’ button on the start screen. After clicking the RetSoft button you will see the following screen.

Here we ask the user to log into RetSoft using his or her username and password. This way the user can scan directly into folders that are protected by a login system.

After logging into there are several options:

  • Document name – specify which name the document should get
  • Folder – browse the RetSoft Folder structure and choose in which folder the scan should be saved
  • Scan options – choose the quality of the scan and whether you want simplex or duplex scans

This screen is shown if you want to select a different folder that the default Inbox of a user. The user can browse through all available folders in Retsoft that are accessible to the user.

If you are ready, click “scan” to start the scan operation.

When the scan is completed you see the screen above. If anything went wrong, you will get an error message onn your screen.

Questions?

If you want to try the Sharp OSA connecter, please contact the Support Team, they will guide you through the installation. You can reach them at support@retsoft.com

Database Tools

Business

With database tools you can combine or split your RetSoft Archive Pro or Business databases.
Database tools can be found under "Extra > Tools > Database"

Add archive
To add an archive to the current open archive, you have to select "Add archive"
You can now select an archive to add anywhere on your computer, when you select an archive and wish to add this, the following warning will appear:


It is important to make backups of your archives first.

Next you can check your selection and resume the merge.

Select 'Yes' to start the merge.
When the archives are merged you can close this screen.

To see the changes in RetSoft you need to refresh your archive by right clicking it and selecting 'refresh'.

Split archive
Archives can be split in two ways, manually or by date.

To split the current archive manually you need to select the option 'Split archive manually'
A warning will appear:


It is important to make backups of your archives first.

Next you will get the chance to select the folders you wish to split:

Select the folders you want and click 'Next'
This gives you the possibility to see the new folder structure:


If this is correct you can select 'Next' to proceed to the last step.

In the last step you can choose to split the archive to an entirely new archive or add the split off part to an existing archive.
You can also choose to delete the folders that have been split off in the original (current) archive.

Archives can also be split by date with the option 'Split archive by date'
The following screen will show:


You can select a date here, all files before this date will be split.
When you select 'Next' you will get the same last step as explained above.

Shadow Archive

Business
Business+
Document Management

Shadow Archive is one of the modules that can be added to RetSoft. It allows you to copy your RetSoft Archive to a target folder of your choice. If you want to stop using RetSoft at a certain time, you can use Shadow Archive to easily export the RetSoft Archive while keeping the same folder structure. This means you can switch to a different system at any time.  

Starting Shadow Archive

Once you have opened RetSoft, you have access to Shadow Archive via the menu bar.

  • Extra -> Tools -> Shadow Archive

Using Shadow Archive

It is quite easy to use Shadow Archive. When you have clicked on Shadow Archive, you will see the notification below. It will tell you which file format will be used to save your exported documents.

After you have clicked on Continue, a window will appear and you can indicate where your target folder is located. This could, for example, be a local folder, a folder on a network hard drive or a folder on a server. You can also indicate whether the meta data should be exported and whether you only want to process changes in the archive. When everything is set up, you can click on Start. The entire archive will then be exported to the location indicated by you.

Once the export is completed, a notification will appear that shows information about the export.