2023:Separation Mockup - RP

Separation is the process of taking an unorganized batch of loose pages and organizing them into document folders. This is done so Grooper can later assign a Document Type to each document folder in a process known as Classification.

About

Let's revisit the five phases of Grooper.

1. Acquire
   • This involves bringing in a Batch into Grooper. Usually, documents are scanned into Grooper and the initial Batch looks like just one long document with individual pages.
2. Condition
   • This involves running Recognize and OCR on the Batch to allow Grooper to read the text and clean up the document if needed.
3. Organize
   • This is where you separate the documents in the Batch into individual document folders.
   • After the documents have been separated, then the documents need to go through Classification.
4. Collect
   • Data is extracted from the documents.
5. Deliver
   • Data is exported from Grooper to the destination of your choice.

What is Separation?

Imagine you have a bunch of pages and you put them in a box. This is similar to importing documents into a Batch.

Now, let's say you need to look for a specific type of document in the box. It would be difficult to just go through all of the loose pages to find the documents you are looking for. It's difficult to determine where one document ends and another begins.

So, you take those pages and you sort them into folders. Each folder contains one document which is comprised of one or more pages. Now, it is much easier to tell the documents apart.

This is how separation works. It is organizing the documents so that Grooper can identify one document from another.

Why do we need to separate documents?

The point of separating documents is ultimately so Grooper can later classify them. Classification is the process of assigning Document Types to the document folders. Classification can only be applied to a document folder, not loose pages. So, even if you are only bringing in a single document into Grooper, you would need to make sure the loose pages are contained within a document folder in order to classify the document.

The point of Classification is to let Grooper know what to do with the documents. For more information on Classification, please take a look at our Classification wiki article.

When do we need to separate documents?

There are two ways to bring documents into Grooper. You can scan physical copies of documents directly into a Batch or you can import digital documents into Grooper. After you have your documents in your Batch, whether or not you need to separate depends on whether your documents are "Discreet" or "Packeted" documents.

Discreet Documents
"Discreet" documents are digital documents where each file containes one document. When a file is imported into Grooper, it is automatically put in its own document folder. If the file only contains one individual document, then it will already be in its own document folder and there is no need to separate.

Packeted Documents
Sometimes when you import digital documents, each file might contain multiple documents. These are considered "Packeted" documents. In this case, Grooper will bring the file in as a document folder, but it will need to be separated so that each document is contained within its own document folder.

When you scan physical documents into Grooper, they come into the Batch as loose pages. Scanned documents will ALWAYS need to be separated.

How do we separate?

Separation is a process that happens as part of a Batch Process. You will need to add a Separate Step to your Batch Process and configure it with a Separation Provider.

There are 8 different Separation Providers you can configure. Here we are going to give a brief explanation of the provider, but for a deeper understanding you will need to visit each of their articles individually:

• Change in Value Separation - Grooper will separate when it detects a value (that you configure) changes from one page to another, like an invoice number for example.
• Control Sheet Separation - Grooper will separate a document at the point it detects a "Control Sheet".
• EPI Separation - Grooper will separate based on extracted page numbers and will detect a new document when the page number resets or when a lower page number comes up in the Batch.
• ESP Auto Separation - One of the more complicated separation techniques involving Lexical training.
• Event-Based Separation - Grooper will separate based on an "event" such as after X number of pages or any time Grooper ecounters a blank page.
• Multi Separator - This provider allows you to use multiple Separation Providers at once.
• Pattern-Based Separation - Grooper will separate based on text patterns, such as a document title or label.
• Undo Separation - This provider actually turns separated documents back into loose pages.

Text-Based vs. Scan Supported

It is important to note that the majority of Separation Providers are "Text-Based" providers. That means they require readable data from a document to work. OCR must be performed on documentation prior to any Text-Based provider being used. The following are Text-Based providers:

• Change in Value Separation
• EPI Separation
• ESP Auto Separation
• Pattern-Based Separation

"Scan Supported" providers do not need readable data from documents to work. That means it is possible to run these providers as early as when you scan in documents. OCR is not required prior to running a Scan Supported provider. The following are Scan Supported Providers:

• Control Sheet Separation
• Event-Based Separation