The project includes developing specifications and refining work flow for the Division of Rail and deploying state of the art FileMaker database systems to help CALTRANS work more efficiently on their internal projects.
The system was developed in FileMaker 12 and has a component that connects it to a high speed scanner station to scan and OCR the documents, then the FileMaker system consumes both the PDF of the scanned item and the raw OCR Text and turns it into keywords using a custom-built key wording system.
The key wording system parses out all the OCR text inserted into the Document record and break the data up into key words and adds them automatically to a list that can be managed by the Admin users, but then feeds the system’s Advanced Search function by using the key words in a ‘Google’ type search for documents stored int he database.
Advanced search allows users to retrieve any document stored in the system by searching for a term that is actually contained within the text copy of the document, not the just the data entered into the Document record by the data entry users.
The system also manages a sophisticated set of user groups, approvals and assignments as a document travels through either the incoming or outgoing document work flow.