Oce Scanning Concept and Private Tags

Written by Rob Tillaart
Hosted with kind permission of Rob Tillaart of Oce

Oce Scanning Concept

Oce MFP's e.g. Oce 3165 have a scan function (BW 60ppm) but they do not have a TWAIN or ISIS interface. Instead the user has to upload a scan-ticket to the device to be able to scan. They also must be removed explicitely, so in essence it is a one time action.

At the device the user selects his/her scanticket, puts the originals in the Document Feeder and presses the green button to start. Scanning will start and the generated TIFF file will be FTP'ed to a predefined server. On this server the file will be redirected to the right processing application('s) or workflow('s) e.g. scan2email, scan2archive, scan2desktop, scan2OCR, scan2you_name_it :)

Under the hood

1) To let the user select the right scan-ticket, the scanticket has an identification string which is displayed on the console of the Oce device. This same string will be embedded in the TIFF file as the Oce Scanjob Description tag (in every page).

2) In the Scanticket an identification of the Application to process the TIFF file is embedded as the Oce Application Selector tag (in every page). Note it is not the name of the executable but an identifier which is mapped upon the application or workflow. By simply changing the mapping one can redirect a workflow without changing anything in the tickets or at the devices (user won't notice).

3) A Scanticket can include a question to be presented to the user before he makes the scan. The answer to this question is embedded as the Oce Identification Number tag. This number might act as a parameter to the processing application or workflow e.g. one can have a generic scanticket and ask for the employee number, and the application maps this (by means of LDAP) to an email-adres. Or one fills in the dossier number and the scanned document is stored in the archive in the right dossier.

4) A Scanticket contains the processing parameters so the user does not have to worry about them. An internal module, marketed as ImageLogic, provides optimal quality for every scan/workflow. As there are different purposes, archiving, viewing or printing these parameters can differ. This is coded in the Oce ImageLogic Characteristics tag. (Thus, values of this tag are for Oce internal use only.)