6 Modern Capture Platform Requirements

2.0 Document Capture Core

The document capture industry has seen a transformation over the last 3 or so years, and a migration to providing Capture as a Platform (CaaP) or Capture as a Service (CaaS).  If you look at Enterprise Capture Platforms, they typically have a core set of features that provide not only product-based functionality, but also platform APIs to integrate, extend and allow usage at the application level.  Here are critical features every platform must provide:

1.  A Web User Interface – Let’s face it, for any application today, a fully functional web interface is an absolute requirement, and document capture is no exception.  The web provides simplicity for IT, and removes installation headaches and support pain.   It also gives end users an easy way to launch the application from anywhere, on any device.  The UI should provide not only end-user functionality, but also administrative capabilities.
2.  Cloud and On-premise – With many organizations looking to streamline IT and move core services to the cloud, all Capture 2.0 platforms must have a true, dedicated cloud offering.  Cloud enabled platforms can provide services to other cloud-based apps (like Salesforce and O365) without alteration of on-premise security or infrastructure.
3. A Learning Engine – the days of extensive manual configuration are long gone, and a core learning engine within the capture platform drives ease of setup, and agility when changes need to be made.  Classification of documents should be as easy as a quick drag and drop into the learning engine for auto-configuration.
4. Extensive Web Services API – The power of any platform is to provide a standardized processing engine to perform specific related tasks.   With a capture platform, the ability to perform just about any document processing task through the API is a must.  Some examples: passing a document for classification, creating OCR text for a passed image and extracting key metadata from a document.   For an example of an extensive Capture Platform Services API, see Epehsoft’s Capture Web Services.
5. Mobile Client and SDK – with the rise of mobile, there is demand within organizations to enable mobile solutions.  Any capture platform should have a mobile client, as well as an extensive SDK, including on-board OCR capabilities.
6. Analytics Engine and BI – Going beyond the basics of reporting, document analytics a new hot topic within the capture industry.  How can you parse your unstructured document repositories, and extract meaning from all types of files?  The answer is document analytics.  Your capture platform should have all the plumbing for analytics, or have an add-on engine to enable this area of functionality.

Obviously, there are many more areas we could cover: Linux and Windows support, clustering capabilities, and on and on.  But in my opinion, these core areas are a must.  Thoughts?  Did I miss any?