Technical FAQs

Question

When viewing .csv files in PrizmDoc Viewer, the dates in the CSV file are in UK format (DD/MM/YYYY). However, if the DD is lower than 13 it is converted to US date format (MM/DD/YYYY).

Answer

Workaround:

The suggested workaround is to use Excel files instead of CSV to avoid this situation. Excel file format stores date/time format in the file.

Issue:

This is a bug in the MS Excel COM Interop that is being used by the product (MsOfficeConverter). Here is the related Excel bug: https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/82248560-dabd-4c90-b1e2-793b2f32b257/excel-bug-handling-dates-in-csv-files-using-microsoftofficeinteropexcel?forum=exceldev

Problem description:

When using MS Excel Interop to open CSV files, all date/times there are being interpreted with “en-US” locale, regardless of actual system locale. Here is the description from the bug link above:

Excel interpreting dates when its reads csv files via .NET Interop. It is not a excel formatting issue per say. When excel accesses information such as dates (which are stored as numbers in memory to support arithmetic operations) from text files, it has to convert the date from textual representation (within the csv file, such as 2012-09-12) to the equivalent number in Excel memory (e.g. 41164 which represents 2012-09-12). When we use Interop to access this number in memory, many are interpreted incorrectly – swapping days with months and vice versa. This is a bug, as Excel is not abiding by the system culture on interpreting local date formats.

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Question

How do I store and retrieve documents in subdirectories of the configured documents directory in PrizmDoc PAS?

Answer

You can retrieve documents from subdirectories when dealing with local files. Simply pass the subfolder in the fileName parameter when creating the viewing session. You can test this by manually placing a document inside a subfolder and making the following POST request:

`http://localhost:3000/ViewingSession`

    {
        "source": {
            "type": "document"
            "fileName": "folder/document.pdf"
        }
    }
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TAMPA, Fla. – Accusoft, the leader in document and imaging solutions for developers, is proud to announce its beta release testing program, which provides participants with real-time access to its latest product developments.

Customer input is a key factor in Accusoft’s mission to build better software integrations that deliver functionality like OCR, image cleanup, forms processing, file manipulation, and viewing solutions. Thanks to the new beta program, participants will get early access to brand new products and have the opportunity to provide feedback on the latest features for existing products. Developers can also customize what types of betas they would like to opt into so they can focus on products most relevant to their business.

“Our previous betas for PrizmDoc Editor and PrizmDoc Cells were extremely beneficial for everyone involved, “ says Mark Hansen, Product Manager. “Our team received rapid feedback that helped make our products better, while participants had the opportunity to shape those products to meet their specific requirements.”

By signing up for the beta program now, you can participate in the active beta for PrizmDoc Forms integration, which will allow you to repurpose (or use) your PDF forms to easily create, customize, and deploy as web forms anywhere. You’ll also be the first to know about new product offerings and have the ability to opt into beta releases for Accusoft’s existing products, such as ImageGear, FormSuite for Structured Forms, and PrizmDoc Suite.

To learn more about Accusoft’s exciting new beta program, please visit our website at https://www.accusoft.com/company/customers/beta-release-program.

About Accusoft:

Founded in 1991, Accusoft is a software development company specializing in content processing, conversion, and automation solutions. From out-of-the-box and configurable applications to APIs built for developers, Accusoft software enables users to solve their most complex workflow challenges and gain insights from content in any format, on any device. Backed by 40 patents, the company’s flagship products, including OnTask, PrizmDoc™ Viewer, and ImageGear, are designed to improve productivity, provide actionable data, and deliver results that matter. The Accusoft team is dedicated to continuous innovation through customer-centric product development, new version release, and a passion for understanding industry trends that drive consumer demand. Visit us at www.accusoft.com.

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Question

I am receiving a 401 Unauthorized when trying to use PrizmDoc Cloud. What could be the issue?

Answer

This error is likely the result of neglecting to specify your API key.

To fix this, specify your API key in the headers of your request to create a viewing session.

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To get up and running quickly, our docker container runs in evaluation mode without a license key. Try it here. 

Note: some actions are disabled in the mode including exporting a spreadsheet and customizing the UI. In addition, there are warnings that Cells is running in evaluation mode and a watermark appears across the viewing area. If you would like to do a full-featured evaluation, contact us here.

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InsurTech SDK

The insurance market is booming. As noted by research firm Deloitte, the property and casualty (P&C) sector saw a massive income uptick in 2018 and steady growth last year that’s predicted to carry forward through 2020. To help manage the influx of new clients and handle more claims, many firms are spending on insurance technology (insurtech) — digital services and solutions that make it possible to reduce error rates and enhance operational efficiency. InsurTech SDKs are important components of this transformation.

Both in-house insurtech solutions and third-party platforms often excel in specific areas but come up short in others, putting insurance firms at risk of writing off potential gains. While solution switching and ground-floor rebuilds offer one route to success, there’s another option that’s more custom to your business needs: software development kits (SDKs). Here’s a look at three top SDKs that offer customized functionality potential.

FormSuite for Structured Forms: Solving for Data Capture

Time is money. The faster insurance companies accurately complete and file documents, the greater their revenue potential. And as noted by KPMG, the need for speed is more pressing than ever. Many insurance sectors have seen substantial increases in both claims and new applications as the COVID-19 crisis evolves. 

As a result, accurate and agile forms processing is critical to keep up with demand. If current insurance software can’t quickly capture forms data, recognize standard form fields, and let users easily create standard form libraries, policy processing falls behind.

FormSuite for Structured Forms makes it easy for developers to build in form identification and data capture that includes comprehensive form field detection with OCR, ICR, and OMR functionality and the ability to automatically identify scanned forms and match them to existing templates.

ImageGear for .NET and C/C++: Simplifying Conversion

Conversion is critical for insurance firms. Depending on the type and complexity of insurance claims, companies are often dealing with everything from Word documents for initial client assessments and .GIF or .JPG images of existing damage to contractor-specific PDFs or spreadsheets that detail necessary materials, time, and labor costs. The result? A mash-up of multiple file types that forces adjusters to spend valuable time searching for specific data instead of helping clients get their claims process up and running. This makes it difficult to recognize value from emerging digital initiatives. 

Accusoft’s ImageGear for .NET and ImageGear for C/C++ empower developers to integrate enterprise-class file viewing, annotation, conversion, and image processing functions into existing applications, allowing staff to both quickly collaborate on key tasks and find essential data across a single, easy-to-search document.

 

ImageGear: Streamlining PDF Capabilities

While insurance technology offers substantive opportunities for end-users to capture, convert, and retain data, this technology can also come with the challenge of increased complexity. According to recent research from PWC, for example, firms looking to capitalize on insurtech potential must be prepared to rapidly develop new product offerings and embrace the expectations. 

As a result, companies need applications that streamline current functions and allow them to focus on creating cutting-edge solutions. For example, PDF is a file format that is still used by enterprises worldwide to maintain document format consistency and maximize security. When it comes to converting multiple files into a PDF, software can be expensive and introduce data security issues. 

This can all be solved with an SDK like ImageGear, which makes it possible to integrate the total PDF package into any document management application, both reducing overall complexity and freeing up time for staff to work on new insurance initiatives.

Insurtech forms the framework of functional futures in policy applications, claims processing, and compliance reporting, but existing software systems may not provide the complete capability set companies need to make the most of digital deployments. These top SDKs offer insurance IT teams the ability to integrate key services, improve speed, and boost security at scale. Learn more about Accusoft’s SDKs at www.accusoft.com/products. 

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document redaction

Many professionals in highly regulated industries like legal, healthcare, and government handle a myriad of cases, contracts, and forms. However, collaborating on documents comes with a risk. Sharing personally identifiable information (PII) with the wrong person can cause chaos and even result in a lawsuit. That’s why redaction is so paramount to collaboration in so many industries. Where manual paper processes once required a permanent marker, digital solutions now offer redaction capabilities that work even better. 

Redaction removes key pieces of information — including sentences, images, and even entire pages — while leaving the bulk of the document’s text intact. Although many tools now empower organizations to “burn in” data redaction so it can’t be removed, they don’t allow users to indicate multiple reasons for redaction. 

Many solutions offer a coding system that enables users to tag a piece of redacted information with a single reason code that signifies why the data was hidden. However, they lack the ability to add those reasons while you are redacting, which could save time and effort. Just think of how large some of these files could be, and how manually adding comments throughout the document could take hours after you’ve already finished reviewing the content.

This creates additional pressure from viewers to understand the purpose of redaction, and potential reporting issues if the reason for redaction isn’t properly recorded. Solutions that permit the addition of redaction reasons can help defend key data and close this communications gap.

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Secure Data Sharing

As noted by CNN, government documents are often partially redacted to obscure personal data such as social security numbers or military information related to intelligence data gathering and applications. Consider a U.S. intelligence agency report made public by FOIA request. 

While the Freedom of Information Act forms a critical part of open, effective democracy, data in the report that suddenly becomes public domain — such as the names of confidential sources or the methods used to obtain information about foreign government actions — could jeopardize both the ability of the agency to do its job and put human lives at risk.

Most government redactions expire and are automatically declassified after 50 years, but agencies can also obtain permission for special exemptions which prevent the redaction from being removed. For example, redaction reason 3.3(h)(1)(a) is used to protect the identity of a classified human intelligence source and is exempt from automatic expiration.

There are currently nine FOIA exemptions that are withheld from public release and protected from disclosure. When a portion of a record is withheld from public release, an exemption code may be found listed in the margin. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s list below showcases what exemption codes are subject to FOIA data withholding:

  • (b)(1) (A) Specifically authorized under criteria by an executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy and (B) are in fact properly classified to such Executive Order #12958 (3/25/03).
  • (b)(2) Related solely to the internal personnel rules and practices of an agency.
  • (b)(3) Specifically exempted from disclosure by statute (other than section 552b of this title), provided that such statute (A) requires that the matters be withheld from the public in such a manner as to leave no discretion on issue or (B) establishes particular criteria for withholding or refers to particular types of matters to be withheld.
  • (b)(4) Trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential.
  • (b)(5) Inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters that would not be available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency.
  • (b)(6) Personnel and medical files and similar files, the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.
  • (b)(7) Records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that the production of such law enforcement records or information:
  • A. Could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings;
  • B. Would deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication;
  • C. Could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy;
  • D. Could reasonably be expected to disclose the identity of confidential source, including a state, local, or foreign agency or authority or any private institution that furnished information on a confidential basis, and, in the case of a record or information compiled by a criminal law enforcement authority in the course of a criminal investigation or by an agency conducting a lawful national security intelligence investigation, information furnished by a confidential source;
  • E. Would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions or would disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions if such disclosure could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law, or;
  • F. Could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety or any individual.
  • (b)(8) Contained in or related to examination, operating, or condition reports prepared by, on behalf of, or for the use of an agency responsible for the regulation or supervision of financial institutions.
  • (b)(9) Geological and geophysical information and data, including maps concerning wells.

Given these extensive reasons, we can start to understand how there might be reason to include multiple FOIA exemption codes for one piece of redacted information.

Regulatory Compliance & Document Security

For many organizations, adding redaction reasons to shared or publicly-available documents isn’t mandatory, but it can help reduce the risk of both legal and compliance challenges. 

Consider a redacted court document shared as part of an eDiscovery process. Without a custom redaction reason, other parties may challenge the necessity of your redaction, especially if no contextual evidence indicates its necessity. 

Compliance audits also pose a potential problem. If years or even decades-old documents don’t contain redaction reasons — and the originals aren’t easily located — your organization could face increased regulatory oversight.

Take for example the healthcare industry. There are several clinical studies that require peer review. To keep biases at bay and personal information secure, redaction is critical to the adjudication process. Think about a clinical trial that has specific events related to a test subject. That test subject has participated in a trial for an incentive. 

However, that person did not agree to share his or her personal information with a broad audience. Once the panel of experts reviews the results of a clinical trial, the research goes on public record. It’s crucial to protect the participants involved and their PII to ensure that no harm comes to them.

Many document viewing tools make it possible to add single redaction reasons to released documents, but what happens if your organization is dealing with multiple data types? Look for a solution that enables you to add multiple redaction reasons or codes to clarify your intent and keep data secure.

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document management bank

The COVID-19 crisis has permanently changed the way banks do business. While many financial firms were already shifting away from brick-and-mortar branches toward both mobile and digital alternatives, pervasive pandemic priorities required a rapid shift in physical presence — forcing companies to rapidly react with remote work alternatives.

Some — such as JPMorgan — were already prepping for potential shifts in early March, deploying a pilot project that saw 10% of its 125,000 employees working from home. Banks like BMO, meanwhile, have embraced the new normal. The company says that around 36,000 staff members may permanently split their time between home and corporate offices. 

While this focus on employee efficacy and engagement is critical, productive people aren’t the only element of remote work success. Security and speed are two of the qualities that consumers now expect across all key banking functions, and firms must prioritize digital processes that streamline these processes without compromising financial requirements. 

But what does this look like in practice? How do organizations handle document management, process automation, and employee collaboration at a distance — without breaking the bank?

Facing Financial Frustrations

When work-from-home went from “maybe” to mandate, Deutsche Bank found itself racing to keep up. With just a few thousand out of its 90,000-strong workforce already working remotely, the firm was under pressure to scale capabilities quickly — from reimbursing staff for device purchase to rolling out video conferencing tools for more than 50,000 employees in less than two weeks, the bank has been under pressure to deliver remote work processes that deliver both continuity and compliance.

With finance firms historically lagging on technology adoption, however, this presents a significant problem. While cloud-based communication and collaboration tools are now commonplace — and can be readily adapted to work-from-home environments — the tools and tech necessary to underpin key financial functions are often tied to in-house server stacks and legacy applications. 

This creates a digital disconnect. While staff may have access to corporate networks, many of the secure document management and financial processing solutions they need to complete day-to-day operations simply weren’t designed to operate at a distance. Security accounts for part of this separation — regulatory control is critical for banks to ensure client privacy — but many banks have also focused on familiarity over functionality, adopting a “good enough” approach to cumbersome, on-site applications. As a result, firms now face financial frustration across critical workflows, including:

  • Consumer Vetting — How do banks effectively evaluate potential client credit histories and financial foundations to deliver tailored service recommendations at a distance? Insecure credit or personal data access could have significant regulatory and legal repercussions.
  • Credit Approvals — Necessary credit checks require secure connections and the assurance that data won’t be subject to theft or man-in-the-middle attacks.
  • Loan Applications — Bank staff must complete complex forms at a distance and firms must ensure work-from-home employees have the tools they need to handle multiple file formats.
  • Account Management — Opening, closing, and modifying account information requires secure access and the ability to share key documents with specific data removed or redacted. Financial data shared outside secure workflows could result in compliance failures.

 

Solving for Scale

While many big banks are preparing partial return-to-work strategies or ramping up remote work solutions, smaller financial firms don’t have this luxury. The scale of large enterprises affords bigger budgets for IT management and deployment, giving them a deeper pool of resources to pull from when deciding how best to support staff and systems at a distance. From in-house IT teams capable of creating custom-built apps to legacy software solutions that can be updated to work with new collaboration tools, the scale of big banks offers a marked advantage.

For smaller financial firms with the bulk of their workforce already at home and a return to the office unlikely in the near future, fragmentation is the familiar framework. Many SMEs now use multiple document management applications to streamline key processes — but these apps don’t always work well together.

In the office, this doesn’t pose a significant problem — staff might lose time switching between software tools or moving data across digital divides — but at home, access and agility are both restricted. This becomes more complicated thanks to the rise of multi-cloud computing. While purpose-built cloud services empower small banks to keep pace with their enterprise counterparts, they introduce complexity as access points both multiply and diversify.

Driving Digital Dividends

To drive digital dividends at a distance, smaller banks are well-served by the implementation of advanced software development kits (SDKs) and application programming interfaces (APIs). These tools make it possible to integrate advanced functionality into existing apps without compromising the security of critical banking data. To deliver remote work potential, firms need SDKs capable of:

  • Collaboration — Integrate key collaboration functions including in-app document viewing to enhance data security, easy annotation and commenting options to ensure all staff are on the same page for multi-step application or approval processes, and burn-in redaction to enhance the protection of client or corporate data. 
  • Conversion — As complex, compliance-heavy processes such as loan applications, credit evaluations, and financial investments move to remote, on-demand models, banks need no-touch data processing that makes it possible to view multiple file types — including familiar Word and Excel files along with more specialized image formats — and convert these files to PDF documents for easy search. 
  • Capture — Automated data capture, field recognition, and forms processing not only reduce the amount of time staff spend creating new forms and completing current applications, they also reduce the risk of human error. Enable your team to take complete control of document management functions with powerful character recognition, scanned document cleanup, and form identification — all from within your own application.

The “new normal” for banking relies on digital services. Advanced SDKs and APIs make it possible for firms to succeed over both time and distance by delivering comprehensive collaboration, conversion, and data capture without breaking the bank.

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