2023.1:Grooper Basics - Overview

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20252023.1

This article serves as a beginner's guide to Grooper. In this article we will go over the most basic concepts and activities within the Grooper software so you can start using it for your company's needs.

Introduction

Grooper is a powerful document processing software that can be tailored to your company's individual needs.

When first diving into Grooper, the software can be a bit overwhelming, especially if you have not worked with document processing software before. The purpose of this tutorial is to familiarize users with the fundamental basics of Grooper. By the end of this tutorial you should understand how to take a set of documents from beginning to end through a very simple process and export out of Grooper.

The 5 Phases of Grooper

From the time that documents are pulled in to Grooper to when those same documents are exported from Grooper, all those documents must go through what we call the "5 Phases of Grooper".

The 5 Phases of Grooper are as follows:

  1. Acquire
  2. Condition
  3. Organize
  4. Collect
  5. Deliver

This tutorial is structured to go through each of the phases one by one. Other tutorials and courses will build on what we learn here. For now, let's break down each of these phases and see what we can expect as we build out our project.


Phase 1: Acquire
The "Acquire" phase involves bringing the documents to be processed into Grooper.


Phase 2: Condition
The "Condition" phase is where we take the documents we have brought into Grooper and edit them until we have something Grooper can work with. Before Grooper can do anything with a document, it needs to be able to Recognize the text on the document. That is one of the most important parts of the Condition phase.


Phase 3: Organize
Once Grooper can recognize text it then needs to be able to tell what the document is. Without our input, Grooper just sees the document as pages in a folder. We need to give the document a name or a "classification". We classify documents in the "Organize" phase.


Phase 4: Collect
In the "Collect" phase, Grooper can finally collect or "extract" information from the documents.


Phase 5: Deliver
The final phase of Grooper is the "Deliver" phase where we export the documents and metadata out of the Grooper software to wherever you wish to store the files.


These five phases encompass a full project in Grooper. In the next sections, we are going to put together a project step-by-step, going through each phase.

Navigating the Web Client

Before we continue, let's take a moment to look at Grooper's interface. For now we are only going to take a look at the Home page and the Design page as that is where we will be spending most of our time in this tutorial.

The Home Page

  1. Context Toolbar: At the top of the screen you'll find a toolbar with several icons to the left, the page name, repository name, and Licensee information in the middle, and a few extra icons to the right. The leftmost icons will take you to different Grooper pages, with the first icon taking you to the Grooper home page. The rest of the icons are described more below as they are also found under "Navigation Links". The icons on the right allow you to change the Grooper Repository you are working in, look at your user information, and bring up the in-app Grooper help.
  2. Navigation Links: In the first panel in Grooper at the top left you will find the Navigation Links. These icons will take you to the different Grooper pages:
    • Design: This is where we will be working for the majority of this tutorial. The Design page is where you configure your Grooper Project.
    • Batches: On the Batches page you can view all Batches that are currently in production. You can also add new Batches from this page.
    • Tasks: Here you can view any production that is pending review.
    • Imports: You can view a list of recent imports on the Imports page.
    • Jobs: Here you can see what jobs have been submitted and what stage each job is in.
    • Stats: The Stats page will take you to a place where you can view various Grooper statistics.
    • Learn: This icon will take you to the home page of our Grooper University courses at learn.grooper.com.
    • Wiki: This icon will take you to the home page of our Grooper Wiki website at wiki.grooper.com.
  2. Repository Info: In the second panel on the home page you can get a lot of information about what is currently contained within and is being processed in the repository.
  2. Recent Events: The final panel of the home page will show information regarding recent processing events and errors.


The Design Page

For now, we are going to focus on the Design page, as that is where we will be doing most of our work in this tutorial. In this section, we will look at the UI of the Design page and explain how things are organized to make it easier to navigate and follow along with the rest of this tutorial.

  1. To navigate to the Design page, click on the hammer and wrench icon in the Context Toolbar or you can click on the same icon located on the home screen in the "Navigation Links" panel.
  2. At the top-middle of the window, the page you are currently on will be displayed.
  3. The first panel on the left side of the screen is the "Node Tree". This is where you will navigate through the different elements in your repository.
  4. To the right of the Node Tree you will find different panels of information and configuration options for the element you have selected in the Node Tree. These panels will be different depending on the type of object you have selected.


  2. The first element at the top of the Node Tree is called the "Root Node". Here you can find various information about your repository, including your licensing information.
  3. For each element in the Node Tree selected, there will be multiple tabs you can access with different information and options. These tabs are located at the top of the configuration panels.

The Batches Folder

  1. The Batches folder in the Node Tree is where we will find all documents brought into Grooper as a Batch.
  2. Inside of the Batches folder are two folders: Production and Test. We will be working in the Test folder.


  2. Inside of the Test folder is where all Batches of documents you are using to test your project will be kept. You can create subfolders inside the Test folder to keep Batches organized. For now we are going to look at our first object in Grooper: a Batch object.
  3. With the Batch object selected, click on the "Viewer" tab.


FYI

You might notice that the icon to the right of "2023.1_Grooper-Basics_Batch" looks different than the other folder icons. Different elements in the Node Tree have different icons depending upon what type they are. Folders have a folder icon where objects have an icon that represent the object itself. This icon represents a Batch object.

It is recommended that you familiarize yourself with the different icons and what objects they represent as you learn Grooper. It will make navigating the Node Tree much easier and will help the object hierarchy make sense.


  2. The first panel to the right of the Node Tree in the Viewer tab is the Batch Contents panel. Here you can see the various folders and pages of your Batch.
  3. To the right of the Batch Contents panel is the Document Viewer. Here you can see a preview of the selected page.


  2. If we open up the various folders in the Node Tree under the Batch object, we can see the same folders and pages shown in the Batch Contents panel.

The Projects Folder

  1. The Projects folder will contain all of your various Grooper projects.
  2. You can create various projects at once and make folders to keep things organized.


  2. Inside of your project object, you will add various objects and folders that will build out your project.
  3. Just like in the Batches folder, when you select an object, you will have different tabs you can access.
  4. You will have a properties panel and various other panels depending on what tab you are accessing on which object.
  5. At the bottom of the screen you will see a panel that contains the Grooper in-app help. It will display definitions, tips, and explanations of whatever object or property you have selected.


Building the Project

Now we are going to actually build out a project from start to finish showing the most basic functionality of Grooper. This will give you a basic understanding of Grooper's fundamentals and you can build out your knowledge from there using other tutorials and courses.

Before we start building, let's take a look at what we hope to accomplish in our project. For this project we have a few invoices we want to bring into Grooper. We want Grooper to take these documents and move them to a folder, but name them in such a way that they are organized and easier to search through. We want Grooper to create a folder named after the company listed on the invoice and then name the file based on the Invoice Number.


We want Grooper to do all the work for us in an automated fashion, so we are going to put together a Batch Process, which essentially tells Grooper how to process the document.

  1. Within the Batch process we will have various Batch Process Steps which are the individual ordered instructions of what to do with a Batch.

According to our Batch Process Grooper will perform the following in order:

  1. Split Pages: Grooper will take the Batch and split out the document into individual pages.
  2. Recognize: For Grooper to be able to do anything with the documents, it first needs to understand and be able to "recognize" the text on the document. That happens in this step.
  3. Classify: While we as humans might recognize our document as an invoice, Grooper has no way to know what a document is. In this step we give it a classification.
  4. Extract: Grooper will then collect information from the document. For our needs we will be extracting the company name and invoice number.
  5. Export: Finally, the documents will be exported into a new folder named after the company and the pdf file names will reflect the invoice number.

The file set below is our expected outcome:

Phase One: Acquire

Let's get started building our Project.

We need to start with the first phase of Grooper: Acquire.

Before we can do anything with Grooper, we first need to give Grooper something to work with. We need to bring documents into Grooper. The documents are brought into Grooper into a Batch object. So the first thing we need to do is create a Batch object where we can keep our documents.

  1. In the Batches folder, right-click on the Test subfolder.
  2. Hover over "Add" and then click on "Batch...".


  2. When the "Add" window pops up, type in a name for your Batch.
  3. Click "EXECUTE" to create the Batch object.


  2. Now we should have a new Batch object in our Node Tree.
  3. With the Batch object selected, click on the "Viewer" tab.


  2. Now we have an empty Batch. In the viewer tab we can see we have a Batch Folder, but nothing inside.


  2. We want to drag and drop the PDF documents from a file on our computer or server to the Batch Folder.


  2. Now our documents are copied into Grooper. This completes the "Acquire" phase of Grooper for this project.

Folder Levels

Before we go any further, we need to talk about a concept called "Folder Levels" in a Batch.

When you first create a Batch, there's only a single empty folder inside. When you drag and drop documents into that folder, more folders are created with those document inside. These new created folders are considered to be "inside" of the original Batch Folder.

These first folders inside of the root folder are considered to be at a Folder Level of 1. A folder that exists inside of a folder at Level 1 would be considered Level 2. A folder inside of a Level 2 folder would be considered at Level 3, and so on.

Inside these folders, there can also be a new type of object called a Page object. A Page can exist at any level, but will always be referred to as being at a "Page Level". You do not need to keep track of what level the pages are at.

This concept can be confusing to grasp at first, so below we have some graphics to try and make this more clear.


In the Batch we just created, the original folder that was part of the Batch when it was created is at the "Batch Level" and the folders that were created when we added the documents to the Batch are at "Folder Level 1".

This will become important as we continue through the rest of the Grooper phases.

Phase Two: Condition

We have completed the first phase of Grooper. Now it is time to move on to the second phase: Condition.

Conditioning documents can involve a lot of different things. The point of conditioning the documents is to turn the documents into something that Grooper can better understand and work with. In this tutorial we are going to do two things with our documents:

  1. We are going to split out the pages of our documents so that Grooper will understand what a page is. After we split the pages, we will have a "page object" in Grooper.
  2. Once we have page objects in Grooper, we are going to run an activity called "Recognize" on the page objects. Once we have run that activity, Grooper will be able to understand or "recognize" the text present on the document.

Creating a Project

Now that we have a Batch to process, we must start building our Project. The first step is, of course, creating a new Project in Grooper.

  1. In the Node Tree, right-click on the "Projects" folder.
  2. In the menu that pops up, hover over "Add" and then select "Project...".


  2. When the "Add" window pops up on the screen, enter in a name for your project.
  3. When finished, click "EXECUTE" in the top right corner of the window.


  2. Now you should have a new Project in your Node Tree.


The Batch Process

What is a Batch Process?

One of the main advantages to using Grooper is being able to automate your document processing. The Batch Process is how your Grooper project is automated. The Batch Process is the set of instructions that tells Grooper what to do with the documents we give it. We will tell Grooper step-by-step what to do.

Throughout the rest of the tutorial, we will be adding these individual Steps to our Batch Process. The first Batch Process Step will will be adding is called Split Pages.

FYI

The Batch Process Steps are "objects" in Grooper. The Batch Process Steps apply what is called an "activity" to the Batch. So, the Split Pages Step is applying the "split pages activity" to the Batch. This distinction will become more important as you learn more about Grooper.

Creating a Batch Process

Let's go ahead and add the Batch Process object to our Grooper Project.

  1. Right-click on your project.
  2. Hover over "Add" and then click on "Batch Process..."


  2. When the "Add" window pops up, type in a name for your Batch Process.
  3. Click "EXECUTE" in the top right-hand corner of the "Add" window.


  2. Now you should have a Batch Process object in your node tree under your Project.

Split Pages

Let's now add our first Batch Process Step: "Split Pages".

  1. Right-click on your Batch Process object.
  2. Hover over "Add Activity", then hover over "Transform". Finally, click on "Split Pages...".


  2. When the "Add Activity" window pops up, you can change the name of the Batch Process Step if you like. We are going to leave it as the default "Split Pages".
  3. Click "EXECUTE" located in the top right-hand corner of the "Add Activity" window.


  2. Now we have a Split Pages Batch Process Step in our node tree.
  3. We can see in the property grid (the properties panel) that by default the Scope of the Batch Process Step is set to Folder.
    • This is where our earlier conversation about folder levels becomes important.
  4. Also by default, the Folder Level property is set to 1. Since our documents are at Folder Level 1, this will work for us nicely.
  5. With everything properly configured, let's click over to the "Activity Tester" tab.


Selecting Your Batch

  1. Right now we do not have a Batch selected so our Batch Viewer (the middle panel labeled "TEST BATCH") is blank.
  2. Click on the "Browse Batches" icon.
    • This is the left-most icon at the top-right of the Batch Viewer.


  2. Navigate to and select the Batch you want to apply the Batch Process Step to.
  3. Click "OK" at the top right of the pop-up window.


  • Now we have a Batch we can navigate through in our Batch Viewer.
    1. On the right in the Document Viewer we can see a preview of the document. We can see what the document looks like.
    Testing the Split Pages Activity
    1. Click the first document in the Batch, hold down shift, then click the last document in the Batch to select all of the documents.
    2. With all documents selected, click the icon that looks like a play button inside of a circle in the top right of the Batch Viewer. This will run the Split Pages Step on the documents selected.
    2. The documents have now been split out into individual pages. Each Document Folder now has a Page object.

    FYI

    Page objects are important as certain activities can only be run on a page and not a folder. Likewise, there are certain activities that can only be run on a folder and not a page.

    Phase Three: Organize

    Phase Four: Collect

    Phase Five: Deliver

    • Retrieved from "https://wiki.grooper.com/index.php?title=2023.1:Grooper_Basics_-_Overview&oldid=23196"