This article describes all general information questions that you might have.
Input Devices (e.g. Scanners, MFP, Mobile Devices)
What capture peripherals are supported by CumulusPro Straatos?
All scanners with TWAIN are directly supported.
Network or MFP scanners with email capabilities can be supported via our Email Import feature.
Documents are sent to a specific email address, and our Email Import feature will directly import documents into the Straatos platform for processing.
If the scan operator would like to view the document:
For instance, to check the scan quality.
He/she can log on to the system via our Web validation interface, check the document, and submit it for processing.
Can CumulusPro support network capture peripherals so users can scan from their workstations?
This depends on the local settings as well as network scanner model.
What are the industry standards for accessing scanner hardware through CumulusPro Straatos?
CumulusPro Straatos supports TWAIN for direct integration to scanners, which is the industry standard that comes with the best support from scanner manufacturers.
What other channel inputs do CumulusPro work with?
CumulusPro uses input channels such as email, FTP, Zapier (which can be used with up to 500+ other systems to provide input to Straatos), and the iConnector client to write any integration to another 3rd party system.
Operating Systems, Browser, Open Standards
What operating systems and browsers do CumulusPro support for the scan client and web validation?
CumulusPro supports the following:
Operating System:
Windows 7.
Windows 8.
Windows 8.1.
Windows 10.
Browser:
Edge.
Firefox.
Chrome.
How does CumulusPro plan to support possible changes to existing LOB systems or new LOB systems in the future?
CumulusPro’s iConnector framework, which is responsible for inter-system connectivity, provides a standard interface to the Straatos Platform for importing and exporting documents and metadat The iConnector interface is a webservice interface.
In addition, Straatos can integrate with other systems in the market (e.g. Zapier, Sendgrid, etc.), as well as connect with the JavaScript-based Script Task to exchange data.
Network
What encryption algorithm is used during data exchange on CumulusPro Straatos?
All communication via iConnector is SSL encrypted (via HTTPS).
Data Format
In what formats are imaged captured and stored?
Captured images are stored in standard PDF, TIFF, and JPEG.
Data Integrity
How are documents and data in Straatos managed to ensure data consistency and integrity?
Documents either reside on the client or on the server during the entire transactional process. But once a document is successfully uploaded and committed to the CumulusPro Straatos server for processing, these document images are deleted from our web clients and becomes cache in our mobile app (for offline operations).
On Straatos platform, documents are stored in Amazon S3 data centres with the best possible security measures. Any step, modification, and deletion of documents is logged in an Audit Log.
Should a user delete a document, this is recorded too. Once documents are uploaded into our Straatos process, they can be stored in a 3rd party Document Management System for added security.
Data Security
During document processing, are documents only accessible by users who are given access to work on them?
Yes. In the CumulusPro Straatos workflow platform, user access and security is managed by RBAC (Role-Based Access Control).
To do this, ensure that documents are assigned to the required worker role in the organisation group during creation and configuration of a new process (represented as “Organisation”) or workflow on the Straatos process designer. This restricts document access to users with designated roles within the process (or “Organisation”).
To manage documents within an “Organisation”, a user account can join a Role/Group that has been given access to Process Monitor.
A good practice is to create a unique “Organisation” for each process, so that rights to the Process Monitor can be granted only to the process owner (usually a business unit supervisor or department head).
What types of data are captured during the document process, and how are they handled securely?
There are two types of data involved in a workflow or process:
Workflow-related statistical data.
document content data.
Workflow-related statistical data such as document file type, size, and format are logged for troubleshooting purposes.
Images and data from documents that have completed their process life cycles are completely removed and purged.
None of the data is or will be in any way be exchanged with other parties, nor used for purposes other than for document input and processing.
Data can be encrypted while “at rest” (during storage) and during transmission. We do not share any customer data with 3rd parties, unless authorised by you (e.g. for troubleshooting) or when you provide an individual with access via the Admin Panel.
Cloud Application Services and Performance
What is the performance of Straatos running on Azure? How long does it take before an uploaded document image appears on the Web Validation client?
From experience, performance bottleneck arises only from poor Internet connection speed, starting from the time to upload documents from a web scan client to Straatos. Depending on the available Internet connection, as well as document size, users may have a slight delay before the document image appears in Web Validation or Process Monitor.
Since CumulusPro Straatos sits on Azure, can it scale automatically based on demand?
Yes, CumulusPro server applications are configured with Azure auto-scaling when additional performance is required. This means, if there is a huge load of documents to be processed, additional server resources (and additional servers) will be added to process the load. More instances of your application can also be deployed once the workload becomes bigger.
How fast are OCR services running in the cloud?
OCR speed is highly dependable on document image size, as well as the OCR technology. (For instance, ABBYY and Tessaract have different performance speeds.).
If a user scans multiple pages/documents in a batch and these pages/documents require OCR, how will this be handled?
Straatos automated modules and services are running on MS Azure with auto-scaling mode. When a cloud service or application has reached its pre-set maximum queue capacity, auto-scaling kicks in and will spark off another virtual instance of the services.
When ABBY Cloud (for example) detects a high volume of documents in its processing queue, more OCR services will kick off to serve this queue. When all the pages of each document have gone through the OCR process, the result of each document will be returned immediately.
What are the SLA levels?
Our SLA is based on Microsoft Azure’s availability, guaranteed at 99.5% or higher. Scheduled maintenance is kept to a minimum and takes up less than 15 minutes per event every 3 to 6 months. Maintenance schedules cannot be negotiated; however, when possible, we perform scheduled maintenance outside of business hours.
What kinds of network connections are available, and will they offer sufficient speed for high volume data transfers?
The outgoing connection from servers is from Microsoft Azure and bandwidth of 30Mbit/s is the standard/average connection speed for outbound traffic. (Azure offers faster speeds on outgoing connection.).
Internet bandwidth depends on many other factors too, such as the bandwidth that is made available for the iConnector framework as well as other infrastructure factors as Internet network traffic is routed at different speeds.
System Maintenance
Can a non-IT expert able to perform any first-time installation or future upgrade at the scan station?
Yes, our first-time configuration/installer is designed so non-IT experts can install them. All CumulusPro software component upgrades (excluding scanner drivers that are shipped by scanner manufacturers) are done automatically without any user intervention.
Error Handling
When errors are encountered by the system, and how are they handled?
There are a few possible causes to system errors in CumulusPro Straatos, each of which is handled differently. They can be categorised as follows:
Uploading from client to cloud server.
When documents encounter error transmission due to Internet connection failure, the documents remain on the client machine and the user will get a notification that the specific document cannot be uploaded. User can choose to retry manually, or the application will auto-retry/auto-recover from its last upload status when the Internet connection is reinstated.
During local system crashes that may cause a loss of data.
The web client will attempt to recover from its last known status when the client machine reboots. Users may have to re-scan documents if the last event before the system crash happens before the system was able to save the images into the machine’s storage.
During communication with CumulusPro web services.
All CumulusPro web services shall return error codes when the communication fails. Applications can interpret those error messages, inform the users of unsuccessful operations, and provide recovery actions.
What are the most common possible reasons for system interruption? What is the error rate in general?
Most common errors occur during scan operations, such as paper jam, double feeding, etc..
Errors related to the scan operation are displayed to the user, who can take immediate action.
Errors during upload are usually related to missing or interrupted Internet connectivity.
Error rates vary, and are primarily dependent on the reliability of Internet connection as well as capture peripherals.
Does the user need to wait for all steps to be completed, or can the user proceed to terminate a document flow directly after scanning?
The user does not have to wait for all steps in the process flow to complete. However, for audit and governance reasons, only a normal user account role using web scan or validation client with delete rights granted are allowed to delete any document once it is submitted into the workflow.
If the user without delete rights granted wishes to cancel a document already in the process, the user can contact his/her supervisor or administrator to delete the document using the Process Monitor. It is best practice for access to the Process Monitor to be limited to supervisors or system admins.
Image Optimisation
How can CumulusPro’s scanning software help in image optimisation?
CumulusPro’s web scan solution produces a good quality image natively from the scanner’s device capability, without degradation of the image quality from the scanner. However, additional image processing features such as deskew, border removal, etc. can be enabled through the Admin Panel. Other parameters such as brightness/contrast/gamma and colour options can be set in the Admin Panel too.
