Captaris Alchemy DataGrabber

DataGrabber, an optional extension for Alchemy® Gold, Premium and Pro, captures and imports ASCII and EBCDIC files created by relational databases, corporate reporting systems, or document management systems, directly into an Alchemy repository at very high speeds.

Information imported using DataGrabber is stored and indexed along with information from other data sources in the Alchemy repository. DataGrabber's high performance processing, up to 1 gigabyte of data per hour per workstation, allows users to search and retrieve the imported information instantly.

DataGrabber provides a configurable data capture feature that allows you to customise it for each data source. It captures and imports data into Alchemy with no need for source code changes to legacy systems.

By breaking or parsing files into individual records or pages, DataGrabber tells Alchemy which data to index. It dynamically creates new fields in Alchemy and populates folder profile fields and folders to fully automate the Alchemy repository indexing process.

DataGrabber uses a simple but powerful scripting language to parse the ASCII file into pages, records and profile fields. Unlike other data capture tools that use rigid predefined templates, DataGrabber is fully configurable, enabling it to handle irregular, complex reports.

With DataGrabber, you can merge a data file containing image index fields with the image files, making it an ideal solution for converting obsolete imaging systems to Alchemy. DataGrabber and Alchemy give you electronic access to the data you used to store only on Microfiche or batch paper reports, so you can find the data you need.

Here's how DataGrabber works. Using the scripting language, you create a definition file to describe what you want to capture and import into Alchemy. Then you define page and record breaks, the data to extract for profile fields, and regular expressions. You can also use the definition file to instruct Alchemy to copy files stored in a network path and match each file to its respective index field. You can also convert EBCDIC files to ASCII for processing with DataGrabber. Using the debug mode, you then test the definition file and make any necessary adjustments. One option is to add a bitmap form overlay to a set of records so the record is displayed in the form. Finally, run DataGrabber build in Alchemy to import, parse, compress and index the data file. We recommend selecting the full-text indexing option along with profile field indexing. During this stage, DataGrabber can also dynamically create new fields and populate folders. Now you have stored a fully indexed data file as individual records in Alchemy.