Technical FAQs

Question

I want to re-arrange the page order of a PDF. I’ve tried the following…

var page = imGearDocument.Pages[indx].Clone();

imGearDocument.Pages.RemoveAt(indx); //// Exception: "One or more pages are in use and could not be deleted."

imGearDocument.Pages.Insert(newIndx, page);

But an exception is thrown. Somehow, even though the page was cloned, the exception states that the page can’t be removed because it’s still in use.

What am I doing wrong here?

Answer

If you’re using an older version of ImageGear .NET, you may run into this exception when you clone the page. Some of the resources between the original and the clone are still shared, which is why this happens.

Starting with ImageGear .NET v24.8, this no longer happens, and the above code should work fine.

If you still need to use the earlier version, you can use the InsertPages method instead.

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In part one of our series on how APIs are empowering a new generation of LegalTech solutions, we looked at some of the technology obstacles facing today’s legal organizations. We also covered the basic principles of how API integration works and how it can bridge the gap between legacy systems and new applications. In part two, we’ll be taking a closer look at some specific API integration use cases and explain why they’re an essential part of a successful firm’s LegalTech toolkit.

4 Benefits of APIs for Legal Teams

Before going into more detail about how LegalTech API integration works, it’s worth highlighting the broad benefits APIs can deliver to a law firm. 

1. Streamlined Workflows

The average legal department relies on more than one software solution to meet their business needs. While larger firms that provide a broad range of legal services typically require more specialized platforms, even smaller legal teams deploy different software applications to address different business needs.

Thanks to API functionality, these diverse LegalTech solutions can be integrated into a single, platform-agnostic portal that eliminates the workflow disruption caused by constantly switching back and forth between programs. 

2. Remote Functionality

API integrations also make it possible for lawyers to access an assortment of LegalTech tools from any location, even if they can’t physically be at their offices. This capability is more important than ever as the legal profession continues to grapple with the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic. 

Many lawyers are still working from home and communicating with their clients and colleagues remotely. In some states, virtual court proceedings might remain in use even after the pandemic. If law practices aren’t able to function effectively in a remote context, they will struggle to deliver quality legal services to their clients.

3. Competitive Advantage

Managing multiple technology resources and facilitating remote collaboration isn’t just about making work easier for legal teams. Streamlining workflows results in greater efficiency, which means lawyers can spend more time doing high-value work for their clients rather than sorting out technical issues or tracking down hard-to-find documents and files. 

It also translates into reduced costs, since key administrative functions can be automated and carried out both faster and more accurately. Law firms that invest in technology integration can deliver better services to their clients at lower costs than their competition while still retaining the flexibility to adapt to future disruptions.

4. Enhanced Security

By its very nature, the legal industry ends up handling a great deal of sensitive information. Financial records, contracts, protected health data, and private correspondence are frequently relevant to legal proceedings of all kinds. There’s also the matter of attorney-client privilege, which greatly restricts what information can be shared outside the firm. 

Without a way to securely manage files and documents, law firms leave themselves exposed to significant liability. Thanks to API integrations, attorneys can use their existing LegalTech solutions to access, share, and edit essential files safely and securely. 

PrizmDoc Viewer: LegalTech API Integration in Practice

For a better understanding of how API integration can enhance the performance of LegalTech applications, it’s instructive to look at some specific examples. Accusoft’s PrizmDoc Viewer uses a powerful collection of REST APIs to provide HTML5 document viewing functionality through a single interface. It not only allows LegalTech developers to quickly and easily integrate document viewing capabilities into their applications, but it also delivers several additional features that are particularly relevant to the legal industry’s eDiscovery process. 

Document Conversion

The digitization of the discovery process has made it easier for legal organizations to share documents and back up important data. Unfortunately, it’s also created a huge glut of electronically stored information (ESI) in a variety of formats. In addition to the large number of commonly used file formats (such as DOCX, PDF, and JPEG), firms must also deal with a variety of proprietary file formats and case-specific formats (like DICOM for healthcare clients). PrizmDoc Viewer uses an array of APIs to convert more than 100 file formats for easy presentation within a browser-based HTML5 viewer. It can also convert image-based documents into searchable PDFs or editable text files with a built-in OCR engine. Thanks to this integration, attorneys can quickly share and view documents internally or with clients and the court without having to download and install specialized applications.

Annotation

The ability to annotate and markup documents is essential for any collaborative legal process. Although many platforms make it easy to insert comments and edits into documents, these programs often don’t support more than a handful of file types and alter the original file when making annotations. PrizmDoc Viewer’s annotation functionality supports over 100 file types and allows multiple users to make layered edits that can be easily shown or hidden. More importantly, all markups exist on top of the original document, preserving the integrity of the original file to comply with state and federal preservation of data requirements. When the time comes to present documents, annotations can be burned into the file if necessary. 

Redaction

Sharing documents is always a sensitive process in the legal profession. Information may be protected by attorney-client privilege, disclosure agreements, contractual obligations, or government regulations. LegalTech applications need to be able to redact sensitive data when sharing documents with outside parties. PrizmDoc Viewer’s REST API allows users to manually redact individual sections, use search features to redact specific terms, or even programmatically redact data for pre-determined reasons (such as account numbers or Social Security numbers). Redacted content is not only hidden from view, but no longer shows up in search results and cannot be copied or highlighted.

Security

As mentioned previously, security should be a key consideration for any LegalTech solution. Firms need to strictly control who has access to data and confidential documents, whether that consists of sensitive client information or internal litigation strategies. PrizmDoc Viewer provides a few key features to help LegalTech applications maintain high levels of security.

  • DRM: Digital rights management (DRM) controls can manage who has access to documents and what functions they can use (such as printing, downloading, or viewing). This makes it easy to restrict how files are shared and track any document leaks back to their source to hold the responsible parties accountable.
  • Watermarking: PrizmDoc Viewer can hard code identifying information into documents to prove ownership and prevent the unauthorized reproduction of documentation.
  • Encryption: With so many people working remotely from potentially unsecured Internet connections, file encryption is absolutely essential for any LegalTech application. PrizmDoc Viewer uses 256-bit AES content encryption to ensure that documents remain secure throughout the collaboration process.

Transform Your LegalTech Strategy with API Integration

As we covered in part one, many legal organizations cling to outdated processes and technology due to familiarity and deeply-ingrained status quo bias. But familiar doesn’t always mean functional. Over reliance on manual processes exposes firms to increased human error and a range of potential data security risks, to say nothing of undercutting productivity. Advanced APIs offer a new tactical toolkit, a way to select best-fit code that solves specific issues and helps legal firms improve operational outcomes. Learn more about how Accusoft’s PrizmDoc Viewer can unlock the full potential of your LegalTech applications today.

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COVID-19 insurtech

 

From large payouts and losses in some segments to rapid growth in others, the insurance industry has experienced seismic shifts due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. To keep some semblance of normalcy during these changes and the aftermath, organizations are turning to InsurTech solutions for help. 

According to Deloitte, InsurTech investments remain strong, with COVID-19 simply shifting priorities to virtual customer engagement and operational efficiency rather than cutting budgets. Data collected by Venture Scanner indicates that the global InsurTech market generated $2.2B in the first half of 2020.

The Challenge of Advancing a Product to Meet Immediate Needs

Tasks once completed manually at insurance companies can bottleneck an entire system in just a few days and prevent insurers from winning much-needed revenue. For this reason, providers are scrambling to make fast efficiency gains while minimizing risks that could lead to unrealized business opportunities due to slow processing. When it’s feast or famine, with customers either signing up or making claims in droves, there’s no time to waste.

As a product developer in the InsurTech space, this puts you in a precarious position. After all, how can you add functionality overnight when it takes time to build those new capabilities? While some organizations may have the available workforce to rally and build new features quickly, most don’t. 

If you’re like most in the development space, finding and retaining talent is a challenge. What’s more, they’re likely already looking at a project backlog spanning many months—if not years. For this reason, augmenting existing solutions with white-label, third-party plug-ins is an attractive option. Now, let’s turn our attention to the type of functionality insurers need to navigate recent shifts.

4 Essential Capabilities for the Insurance Industry in the Wake of COVID-19

Pew Research found that by June of 2020 roughly 3% of Americans had already made a mass exodus from highly populated areas like New York, New York and San Francisco, California due to challenges posed by the COVID-19 global pandemic. This number has likely grown since June and will likely continue to grow as hubs of economic growth continue to shift and settle. 

For each insured individual that moves and retains insurance coverage, there’s paperwork. For many, they’ll even switch providers as their previous provider may not be able to provide competitive rates in their new location. The sheer change-management involved in migrations of this scale is daunting. Without the ability to process requests faster, insurance companies could find themselves struggling to keep up. 

To help your insurance industry clients effectively navigate the road ahead, your applications need to include greater data-capture, data-conversion, and optical character recognition technologies that reduce the need for manual intervention in document processing. 

1. Data Capture Efficiency  

As the number of file formats increases, insurance organizations need the ability to quickly capture and process hundreds of different image formats. Beyond simply capturing them, they often also need to aggregate and convert those multiple formats into a single, secure, and digitally accessible PDF.

Rather than trying to build everything from scratch, sometimes partnering with a third-party software developer can give you a leg up on all the delivery time associated with expanding feature sets for the insurance industry.  

Essential Capabilities Should Include:

  • Support for multiple file formats
  • Automated image-correction and optical character recognition technology
  • Clean integration that maintains or improves processing speed 

Once data is captured, it then needs to be managed. To explore document management capabilities to consider when expanding your feature set for the insurance industry, click here. 

2. Identify Form Fields

Whether potential buyers are requesting new policies or current customers are evaluating existing policies, precise and efficient data-capture technologies can improve the ability of insurers to access important data and analyze policies. Adding these capabilities requires quite a bit of strategy. First, one must consider the core challenges involved in effective data capture: 

  • Poor inputs that aren’t easy to correct and capture 
  • Poorly designed forms that reduce image recognition success  
  • Imaging technology that can’t recognize a robust number of file formats and fonts 

When contemplating the structure of boxes for character collection, our experts found that using a square shape rather than a rectangle results in less data loss. While rectangles may, at first, appear to save space and therefore be a more effective option, research showed that they typically don’t provide the average user enough space to clearly write letters or characters without interfacing with the boundary lines. Thus, square boxes improve data transfer success. 

Figure 1: Examples of ineffective rectangular boxes versus effective square boxes for character capture. 

This is just one factor to consider when streamlining form processing within an insurance technology application. To explore more research on this topic, download the Best Practices: Improving ICR Accuracy with Better Form Design whitepaper.  

3. Confidence Value Reporting for Data Recognition

Not all optical character recognition technology is created equal. That’s why it’s important to make sure any solution you either create internally or partner with a third party to integrate provides ongoing confidence value reporting for data recognition. Having this capability in place can alert you to problems before they lead to costly issues — like duplicated efforts, a poor customer experience, or incomplete data hindering contract processing. 

4. Use OCR to Identify Different Documents

Optical character recognition (OCR) can help insurance companies cut down on manual effort by identifying different forms automatically, which equips application developers like you to create automation within your company’s product that routes identified forms through predefined workflows. 

Without OCR, significant manual effort is required to process forms required to execute insurance contracts. When evaluating OCR capabilities to add to applications, keep in mind these essentials:

  • Successful Character Recognition Rates – Given the highly regulated nature of insurance along with high fines for shortcomings, it’s often well worth the extra investment to get a solution with 99% accuracy versus 95%. 

 

  • Multi-Document Recognition with High Confidence Values– Given the broad number of file types insurance organizations receive, having a software package in place that cleans up documents before running them through optical character recognition tools improves the likelihood of extracted data being usable. With cleaner data in hand, insurance agents are empowered to make better recommendations to customers, ensuring they’re not over or under insured.

These are just a few items to consider when adding document viewing and forms processing features to your application. While automated workflows may have given organizations heartburn in the past, the reality is that high-volume, fast-changing environments can’t survive without them. Markets are changing so quickly that without automation to help bring order to the chaos, the tidal wave of requests will overtake the underprepared. 

Help your clients better respond to not only COVID-19, but also future-proof their ability to streamline claims by expanding document viewing and form processing capabilities. To learn more about our insurtech capabilities, explore our content solutions for insurance companies.      

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PrizmDoc uses advanced AI to conquer the challenges of managing massive documents in your Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system. Our AI eliminates manual work in tagging, sorting, and reviewing documents, saving you time and money while ensuring accuracy. Let PrizmDoc streamline your ECM experience!

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Question

My document has Asian characters (CJK, etc.), which are not displaying correctly in PrizmDoc Viewer; what steps can I take to view them?

Answer

In some cases, the reason is due to the fonts not being installed on the operating system. We have outlined some commands to install fonts for select operating systems below:

In CentOS 6 do:

yum groupinstall "Chinese Support"
yum groupinstall "Japanese Support"
yum groupinstall "Korean Support"
yum groupinstall "Kannada Support"
yum groupinstall "Hindi Support"

In CentOS 7 do:

yum groupinstall "fonts"

In Ubuntu do:

sudo apt-get install language-pack-ja
sudo apt-get install japan*
sudo apt-get install language-pack-zh*
sudo apt-get install chinese*
sudo apt-get install language-pack-ko
sudo apt-get install korean*
sudo apt-get install fonts-arphic-ukai fonts-arphic-uming fonts-ipafont-mincho fonts-ipafont-gothic fonts-unfonts-core
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Thomson Reuters Document Management Platform, HighQ, provides single platform document viewing and security using Accusoft’s PrizmDoc.

In this video, learn how:

  • Thomson Reuters realized that downloading documents to local machines posed significant security risks over time.
  • The Accusoft PrizmDoc solution provides seamless in-browser document previews within Thomson Reuters’ HighQ platform, improving version control while maintaining document security.
  • Accusoft’s PrizmDoc supports document viewing and collaboration needs of HighQ customers in a simple API deployment.

 

To learn more about how Accusoft’s PrizmDoc can provide the document management features you need to protect confidential information and privacy, visit our PrizmDoc page or talk to one of our integration specialists.

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Question

By default, in the PrizmDoc Viewer, links are highlighted and underlined in blue. To follow links within a document, the user needs to click the link, wait for the floating popup to appear showing the link’s target URL, and then click that to actually follow the link. Is there a way to make this a single-click process and skip the floating popup?

Answer

The desired one-click functionality can be achieved by modifying the viewer.js source file:

Inspect around line ~9457; you’ll find the following else if block:

    } else if (ev.targetType === "documentHyperlink") {
        hyperlinkMenuHandler(ev, "view");
    }

This line of code executes when the user clicks on a link displayed within the Viewer. The call to hyperlinkMenuHandler is responsible for displaying the floating popup. If you’d like to immediately open the link in a new window/tab instead, replace the contents of the “if else” block with a call to window.open:

    } else if (ev.targetType === "documentHyperlink") {
        window.open(ev.hyperlink.href, '_blank');
    }

This will allow hyperlinks that appear in the Viewer to be followed in a new window/tab with a single-click.

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content collaboration

Collaboration is key. As noted by Fast Company, 95 percent of businesses now recognize the value of collaboration tools, but just 56 percent have deployed these solutions at scale. Part of the disconnect comes down to adoption. Companies must demonstrate that new applications are worth using for staff and stakeholders alike.

The other half of this holdback stems from the concern around secure content collaboration. Organizations need the ability to handle enterprise content management interactions securely across multiple use cases including internal and external business process automation, task lists, reports, dashboards, and document collaboration. As a result, new frameworks don’t simply offer document management in isolation. Instead, they deliver cross-solution, cross-organizational collaboration that’s available anywhere, anytime, for any user. 

Let’s dive into three use cases that show the collaborative potential of one of these cross-solution frameworks, made possible by a partnership between Accusoft and one of its solution partners, TEAM Informatics. TEAM has developed a new product called M-Connect which leverages Accusoft’s PrizmDoc Viewer to extend the capabilities of the M-Files platform, making true cross-organization collaboration possible. 

Triple Threat

Security remains a critical concern for organizations. If data isn’t properly protected, the results can be disastrous for both clients and companies. Emerging legislation around data protection includes mandates for shared due diligence no matter the origin or intention of data use.

As a result, effective content collaboration also includes actionable defense. It’s not enough to simply process information. Organizations must also secure this critical resource, starting first with streamlining. 

TEAM Informatics makes it possible to take control of your content with forms-based workflow automation. M-Files’ metadata solution, meanwhile, helps eliminate the growing security risk of information silos, while document viewing and control with PrizmDoc Viewer lets staff easily view and annotate documents to empower granular access control. With IT risks on the rise, a triple threat content collaboration response is key.

 

Back to Front

In addition to security, users must be able to collaborate effectively. One way that users gain context is through metadata. Intelligent access to metadata across your content management system paves the way for increased automation and improved results. As noted by Dark Reading, for example, relevant metadata is critical in the fight against emerging information security threats. 

It also forms the basis of practical process automation at scale. Here’s how the three entities work together to provide metadata context securely: 

  • M-Files’ intelligent metadata functionality organizes content based on what it is, not where it’s stored.  
  • If you want to include users outside of your M-Files ecosystem, TEAM Informatics’ M-Connect provides this capability. 
  • M-Connect joins your external users with your M-Files repository, leveraging organized and secure content and process automation. 
  • Accusoft’s embedded PrizmDoc Viewer enables users to capture key backend metadata and automate critical processes without compromising visibility.  
  • M-Connect allows users to quickly configure interactions and processes in the form of a digital workspace.   

Consider the complex process of vendor take-on, staff take-on, provider or loan application processing and evaluation. Using M-Files, organizations can leverage key metadata to auto-populate forms and assess mortgage criteria. PrizmDoc Viewer, meanwhile, makes it easy for staff to access and evaluate documents to ensure processes are working as intended. This results in complete content control from back end capture to front end completion.

Sharing the News

Automation and protection form the basis of enhanced enterprise content management — but aren’t enough in isolation. To meet the evolving demands of consumers, C-Suite members, and corporate stakeholders, enterprises must leverage collaboration tools that empower both internal and external document sharing, viewing, and editing.

Best bet? Bridge the gap by finding — and combining — solutions that play to their strengths. Start with M-Files, which helps unify content by context, then leverage M-Connect to automate key functions to empower internal document efficiency. With PrizmDoc Viewer embedded inside, you’re empowering secure document collaboration across third parties and delivering the internal ability to collaborate efficiently.

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Whether your clients are working on processing a loan or gathering financial data for a consumer’s credit request, lending is a complex process that is only getting more complicated in this fast-paced digital era. Your application helps financial institutions address a variety of pain points, but is it solving the one that’s most pressing today?

Consumers of financial institutions are required to submit various forms when applying for a line of credit or loan. Does your financial application make it easy for lenders to review and approve these documents? Some applications require downloading a file to a third party service like Word. However, this can be tedious – a process that wastes time and complicates the collaboration process for your clients.

 

 

Document Viewing Within Your Application

Financial institutions are searching for a standard procedure to help them view and collaborate on borrower histories. Due to time restrictions, they need a process that simplifies functions like search, annotation, file conversion, and more.
What if there was a way to view a variety of different document types within your own application? Imagine a lender uploading the forms into your product, viewing customer data all in one place, sending information through various approval routes, and searching for the information they need in seconds.

With Accusoft’s unique software development kits (SDKs) and application programming interfaces (APIs), you can integrate a variety of different features into your product to help lenders process credit applications faster. They can view consumer data within files, identify data in form fields, and extract borrower information into a database.

Accusoft has a solution that can greatly reduce your coding time. PrizmDoc Viewer is a highly versatile document viewer that handles a variety of issues typically encountered in loan origination and credit applications. Easily embeddable into financial software, PrizmDoc Viewer enables you to worry less about code and focus more on your clients’ pain points.

 

 

A Pre-Built Solution to Enhance Your Product

When you integrate PrizmDoc Viewer into your application, your lenders can view dozens of file formats, including the text files most commonly associated with loan processing, without leaving the native program. For example, if a lender needs to view an Excel file, they can view it within your application without opening Excel itself and exiting your application.

In addition, PrizmDoc Viewer has search functionality that enables you to find information quickly and efficiently. When you search a document for specific information, PrizmDoc Viewer uses hit highlighting to locate the information in seconds – even if the document is thousands of pages long.

With these unique features already in PrizmDoc Viewer, it’s easy to see why Accusoft products are trusted by major brands. Make sure your clients are getting the versatility they need by delivering a customized solution for them. When you integrate PrizmDoc Viewer into your application, you’re saving coding time and creating a more powerful solution for your customers.

What pain points can you solve for your customers? Create a more versatile solution for their needs with a document viewer that streamlines their lending process. If you want to learn more about financial lending integrations, contact us today.

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When it comes to your company’s application landscape, there are a variety of tools you already use to streamline processes. But do these tools help you manage your workloads efficiently? Document management is essential to any business. Many companies try to buy a solution and integrate it into their current processes, or build one from the ground up themselves. However, assigning developers to build, test, and maintain your own software isn’t efficient, agile, or advisable.

The other option isn’t really ideal, either. You’ll spend more of your IT budget on applications which are bloated with functionality you don’t need now, and likely never will. That also means investing in applications that lack flexible workflow structure or possibly limiting features and functionalities like advanced search.

 

 

The Value of Integration

Business executives are constantly bombarded with new technology alternatives. But before spending your budget on that new, shiny gadget, make sure you consider the more cost-effective, efficient alternative. Did you know that you can integrate SDKs and APIs into your current application to create a better document management process?

Using purpose-built APIs or SDKs for document viewing, OCR, barcoding, data capture, and conversion helps a business achieve important goals for any organization. With these integrations you can:

  • Meet compliance requirements
  • Provide context to structured data
  • Ensure that individuals have permission-based access to sensitive data
  • Foster collaboration across departments, clients, partners and other stakeholders
  • Make content discoverable through full-text search
  • Enable file viewing within your own application without opening a third party software

When an end-user is working within a CRM application, they often need to access a document that relates to a campaign, a datasheet that provides crucial information, or a contract which needs to be renewed. APIs create efficiencies by allowing for documents to be accessed by a user without having to switch from screen to screen.

 

 

Work Smarter, Not Harder

Your development team or application consulting partner could likely build this sort of functionality over time, just like you could have walked to work every day this week. You get the picture. It would take hours of wasted time to create a functionality that is only half the solution available elsewhere.

Luckily there’s a way to get the document management functions you need, and price pales in comparison to a DIY build. This alternative is highly competitive with other solutions in the market, yet it’s available without the expensive price tag of a stand-alone SaaS solution.

Accusoft’s portfolio of APIs and SDKs support the kinds of .NET, Java, C/C++, Node.js, and more application languages. Products like PrizmDoc Viewer, ImageGear, and OnTask help you obtain the features and functionalities you really need without the price of the ones you don’t.

You can even test drive what you need for a few days before you invest in it. If your team could build, test, and maintain something that meets your needs more efficiently, at a lower cost, why wouldn’t you jump on it?

Need more information on integrating toolkits instead of building your own solution? Download our eGuide Document Management – The First Step to Digital Transformation today. You’ll be glad you did.

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Question

My document has Asian characters (CJK, etc.), which are not displaying correctly in PrizmDoc Viewer; what steps can I take to view them?

Answer

In some cases, the reason is due to the fonts not being installed on the operating system. We have outlined some commands to install fonts for select operating systems below:

In CentOS 6 do:

yum groupinstall "Chinese Support"
yum groupinstall "Japanese Support"
yum groupinstall "Korean Support"
yum groupinstall "Kannada Support"
yum groupinstall "Hindi Support"

In CentOS 7 do: 

yum groupinstall "fonts"

In Ubuntu do:

sudo apt-get install language-pack-ja
sudo apt-get install japan*
sudo apt-get install language-pack-zh*
sudo apt-get install chinese*
sudo apt-get install language-pack-ko
sudo apt-get install korean*
sudo apt-get install fonts-arphic-ukai fonts-arphic-uming fonts-ipafont-mincho fonts-ipafont-gothic fonts-unfonts-core
View Detail >