Amila,

I'm not sure that BCS is the right way to do this. What features in BCS are you looking to utilize specifically? BCS is designed for pulling and pushing data to another line of business application. It's not designed to take in image blobs or for ingestion of content only.

Ideally what you want is a product that saves results into a library with associated meta-data. Because the Drop Off Library ( content organizer ) is nothing more then a library with custom event handlers this will work very well. These solutions don't use BCS they use the object model. Take a look at KnowledgeLake, Kodak, or Psigen. I would caution you however, first pick the best imaging solution, then worry about the connectivity. In reality the connection to SharePoint is relatively trivial compared to core recognition functionality. So even if you find an ideal imaging solution you will be able to create the connectivity required. Check out AIIM's toolkit for Document Imaging In SharePoint http://www.aiim.org/Shop/Product/2450.

Thanks Chris, here is the situation in detail;

This is for an archiving solution; we need to scan the invoices and other supporting documents and save in to SharePoint. (To make things simple let us forget the drop off library and assume that there is only one doc. library.)

We have the invoice numbers and other related data in a table. This gets updated very frequently. So at indexing I need to do a database look up and verify the Invoice number. Then the scanned image to be stored in the doc library with related meta data.

Ideally this would have been done by connecting to the database at the time of indexing and then once it is finished by just uploading in to SharePoint. This is possible to do using kofax express and SharePoint 2007. But it doesn't support 2010 yet. In knowledgeLake you cannot connect to a database for validation and then connect to sharepoint for uploading at the same time / profile. (that is if you connect to sharepoint then cannot do a database validation). So what I am trying to do is to use BCS and get the database values as an external content type in to sharepoint and then to use this at indexing.

I can use managed metadata if there is a way to automatically update the meta data list based on a table. But this is also not possible.

any other way of doing this?

(btw i read the AIIM guide. Quite useful for anyone working on capturing for sharepoint)

Amila,

Yes that was helpful. What I would recommend is offloading the cross-referencing of invoice data from SharePoint to the verification step in your capture software. If it's a good capture application it will support ODBC connectivity to a database on a per field level and allow you to use the connection in a rule or in enhancing the OCR results. This way, by the time the results are ready for SharePoint, they have already been validated. This I think would be the best option if possible.

As a second option: BCS will end up creating a external content type. This populates a library. So it's really meant to stand alone. However what you could do is create the external content type from your data source in one list, import your documents with proper meta-data in another, and write a custom work-flow or event handler that correlates the data.

You can update the MMS, but you would have to do it via the client-object-model. Remember SharePoint is not a solution, it's a platform. That means pretty much anything is possible, but you have to do some development.

Again what you are trying to do really sounds like verification that happens during data capture prior to storage. Hope that is helpful

Yes, what I need also is to do the verification at the time of indexing (independent from sharepoint) and then to upload in to sharepoint. I thought that there will be few products that supports this, but unfortunately the only product that I think which supports this is kofax capture.

Would like to explore the possibilities of developing on MMS. Still looking for any resources on this.

Amila,

Most of the advanced capture products have ODBC level verification Kofax, ABBYY, DataCap/IBM, EMC Captiva, Etc.

As for development integrating MMS. It's not too difficult, but there are not a ton of resources out there. I just worked on a project doing this where we migrated from a Share Drive and automatically applied MMS terms. It was done using the client object model. So the best resource is the TechNet documentation on the API.

Thanks again Chris.

The capture product needs to support both ODBC verification as well as sharepoint 2010. Two products I checked, kofax express and KL - capture aren't capable yet. Will do more research on the same.

Will start on MMS as well.

Amila,

Again I would not focus on finding only products that integrate with SharePoint. You are limiting yourself in options of great products. If you have the development resources you are much better of finding the RIGHT capture first, then worrying about the integration after with some development. Even if the solution does not have an API you can integrate over the file system and XML.

Also have you looked at PowerShell scripts for MMS?

Hi Amila
I believe I can make some suggestions on how KnowledgeLake software can help you. I'm going to use your original post as an outline for my response.

"I am looking for a capture product that can integrate with SharePoint 2010 and also able to do indexing using BCS (business connectivity services)."

Response - KnowledgeLake is a SharePoint solution that is comprised of several components which include Capture for scanning paper, Connect for acquiring electronic documents, and Imaging for SharePoint which enables organizations to leverage advanced capabilities such as Indexing, Search, and View for Enterprise Content Management on SharePoint. (www.knowledgelake.com).

Our Capture component will allow you to scan the paper invoices - convert them into an image file, and then index and save to SharePoint. Our Connect component allows you to acquire electronic documents (any format) then easily index and save to SharePoint. Our solution supports the ability to save to WSS, MOSS, and SP2010.

KnowledgeLake Imaging for SharePoint supports Enterprise Content Management capabilities for SharePoint by enabling additional features around View, Search, and Index. Specific to your requirement – using KnowledgeLake you can easily configure database lookup to any ODBC, OLEdb, or database w/native SQL query call AS WELL as can perform lookup to SharePoint BCS.
--
"The business requirement is that I have a table containing a number (invoice number). I need to use this for indexing and upload in to SharePoint 2010 drop off library. (need to use BCS since the list gets updated frequently)"

Response - Using your process description, by leveraging KnowledgeLake Imaging for SharePoint you would create a relationship between your database, and a SharePoint column(s). The relationship would allow you to map a column (call it Inv#) to your database column (call that Invoice Number). Using KnowledgeLake, the Inv# could be configured as a KEY value and if so desired, other columns/fields in your database (for example Vendor Name, and Vendor ID) could be automatically populated when the KEY value was picked. Again this relationship can be set for any database which supports a standard SQL query AS WELL as SharePoint BCS.

To further highlight how the solution could fulfill your requirements - once those configurations were made between the SP columns and database using KnowledgeLake Imaging for SharePoint - you're indexing strategy is pretty much ready to go. The end user would then utilize the appropriate KnowledgeLake client component to "acquire" the document (KL Capture for paper and KL Connect for electronic documents). During the INDEX step of acquisition - the end user would simply select the appropriate Invoice Number from the list, and complete indexing of any additional fields if applicable. Once the documents are indexed, the KnowledgeLake solution will automatically send/release the documents to the appropriate SharePoint Site/Library.

Finally, your comment regarding your trial ...
"I tried kofax express - doesn’t support SharePoint 2010. (i know kofax capture supports this, but that is beyond the budgets) I also tried KnowledgeLake capture for SharePoint, which doesnt support BCS."

Response - as I've indicated, the KnowledgeLake solution does in fact support SharePoint Business Connectivity Services. If you were unable to test this using our trial software please understand that our trial software is for the client software components of the KnowledgeLake solution. KnowledgeLake Imaging for SharePoint is the component which provides BCS support - that we do not provide a trial.

My last comment is that while I personally do not know whether or not you are leveraging BCS for this project or as a standard within your organization, I would like to emphasize that EVEN WITHOUT BCS, you can easily leverage the KnowledgeLake solution to perform lookup to databases for automatic indexing and index verification when scanning/acquiring documents.

Please contact KnowledgeLake at http://www.knowledgelake.com/company/Pages/Contact-Us.aspx to speak to someone like myself who can further help you with understanding our products.

Happy Holidays and New Year!

Yes, we are looking at the possibility of a custom development. We haven't done anything with power-shell yet.

Hi Lori,

Thanks for the detailed reply. Yes, I have evaluated the KL products and aware of its capabilities. I was trying whether I can fulfill the requirements using KL capture only without going for KL-imaging.

(We thought that KL-capture would be enough for this particular requirement, according to the product data-sheets. The KL-capture data sheet specifically says that it supports BCS. Later when i contacted them i was told that KL-capture doesn't support BCS)

Anyway thanks again for the details.

Wishing you Happy Holidays !

amila

Amila,
PSI:Capture supports full DB Lookups into SharePoint lists, doc libraries and choice lists. We wrote an abstraction layer that performs the lookups through web services so you dont need to decipher the SharePoint table structure, and it is very simple to configure with no need for setting up ODBC, etc.

Hi Stephen,

Sounds great; Will have a look at PSI capture.
Can you pl. help me to get a trial version?

Thanks

Hi Amila,

there should be a new version of Kofax Express in February this year. Guess it will support SharePoint 2010 as well.

Radan
www.dokumentyefektivne.cz

Hi Radan,

That would be great. But i heard that it will take more time. Let us see...

tks
amila

Hi Amila,

I am from Techsys (Pvt.) Ltd. We are the business partner for ABBYY products in Sri Lanka. Our product can fullfil your requirement 100%. Call me to discuss further. 0774 679166. thushara@techsys.lk