Compart - Document- and Output-Management

Use Cases

Automated Inbound Email Processing with Central Conversion

Compart |

Digital Inbox Email Processing
- Smart Input Management

Customer Communication Management (CCM) often seems to focus on outbound communications, but that only half the equation. For enterprise organizations that service thousands or millions of customers, incoming mail or communication processing is overloaded with complicated manual activities, media breaks and redundancies. Often, valuable data is destroyed as a basis for automated processing through rasterization (pixilation).

In many organizations, there is not a clearly defined process or standardization for consuming and digesting digital correspondence via all the various departments and channels where it might occur. As organizations evolved, departments and communications have for the most part, been siloed. As a result, there is no central instance capable of converting incoming customer correspondence, regardless of format, type, volume, structure, and input channel.

The consequences: Operational inefficiencies; loss of data, wasted resources and lack of consistent archiving metodology. If enterprises did possess a shared, central processing solution for incoming communications, the benefits would be endless. Automated inbound processing leads to rapid, targeted document retrieval, along with analysis and classification of inbound electronic input. Linked to outbound campaigns, these processes then become more consistent and personalized.

Summary

Reading time: 5 min

  • Why inbound processing with central conversion?
  • How to deal with different document formats?
  • Metadata - the key for automated further document processing
Mail processing automation

Case Study: Automated Email Processing with Attachments

A large organization with branches and subsidiaries worldwide receives tens of thousands of emails every day via a central electronic mailbox - both from end customers and from external and internal sales partners. The goal is to prepare the messages and their attachments in such a way that they can be forwarded electronically to the responsible department for case-closing processing immediately upon receipt - regardless of the format in which the email attachments arrive.

The Solution

The high-performance, scalable and seamlessly integrated DocBridge® Conversion Hub software goes beyond the scope and intent of conventional document conversion software. Arguably the solution's most important advantage is its virtually unlimited format diversity: There is virtually no document type that cannot be handled by DocBridge® Conversion Hub.

DocBridge® Conversion Hub automatically triggers the following processes in the course of automated mail processing:

  • Conversion of the actual email ("body") to PDF/A.
  • Individual conversion of the email attachment (e.g. various Office formats, image files such as TIFF, JPG, etc.) to PDF/A
  • Merging of the email body with the corresponding attachments and generation of a single PDF/A file for each business transaction
  • At the same time, all important information is extracted from the file and stored centrally for downstream processes.

Benefits

Even messages from messenger services, images in various formats, emails and attachments, and content in proprietary or obsolete formats can be processed with the solution. DocBridge® Conversion Hub acts as a "funnel" which receives, recognizes, and processes all electronic mail, regardless of its format, i.e. converts it into a readable and analyzable presentation, at the same time extracting the relevant data and thus laying the foundations for its automated further processing, including AI-based and or robotic processes.
 
 

  • Real-time access through "on-the-fly conversion) even for large files
  • High throughput (40 million new documents annually)
  • Wide range of annotation options (including signing, commenting, merging into electronic files, forwarding to experts, notaries, judiciary, etc., archiving)
  • No format restrictions
  • High performance

Eight Reasons
for Standardized Document Preparation with Central Conversion

Automation

Extracting and centrally storing document-relevant data creates the basis for automated digital inbox processing.

Quality

Centralized conversion creates accessible documents that can be searched in a targeted manner - regardless of complexity and size.

Compliance

PDF/A documents meet the requirements for long-term, audit-proof archiving and meet the requirements for compliance with current regulations (e.g. ZUGFeRD/XRechnung for electronic invoice exchange).

Service

Standardized document processing, accompanied by archive modernization, is the basis for the development of modern, interactive web portals with a high level of comfort for the customer (e.g. creation of virtual mailboxes).

Costs

Central conversion platform replaces heterogeneous, redundant conversion solutions.

Transparency

Complete traceability of the "communication history", storage in the cloud and fast access to the document.

Comfort

The PDF format, including its specifications, is based on a stable open standard and can be used with almost any hardware and software. If you standardize PDF conversion and base it on powerful, future-proof software, all users will benefit: employees, management, suppliers, partners, customers.

Archiving

The establishment of a central instance for standardized, automated processing and conversion in digital incoming mail offers the opportunity to modernize and consolidate legacy archive systems.

x

Request a Demo
Schedule a demo with a Compart product expert

Basic Principle and Architecture of DocBridge® Conversion Hub

The core of the platform resembles a "dispatcher" that analyzes each incoming message (email, fax, SMS, messenger service, letter/paper) and automatically decides on the optimal conversion route for the document in question (Into which format should it be converted? How should the electronic mail inbox be processed?).

DocBridge® Conversion Hub also includes an OCR function for extracting content and metadata (Optical Character Function) and offers the option of freely configurable integration with third-party applications.

Via the DocBridge® Gear solution, DocBridge® Conversion Hub can also be integrated into complex document processing processes, for example based on AI and robotics technologies. In addition, the functions of DocBridge® Conversion Hub are available as modular microservices based on APIs.

Mail Conversion, document and email processing

Software details

Functions in detail
  • Receiving, classification and allocation
    incoming (electronic) content of any type (emails plus attachments, scans, faxes, digitally generated files including Office formats such as WORD or Apache OpenOffice, messenger messages, images generated with mobile devices
  • Typical activities of the digital inbox
    including text analysis (e.g. opening/reading of emails, "unpacking" of email attachments)
    Scalable and high-performance conversion of incoming documents
    into rule-compliant archivable, barrier-free, protected and searchable formats (including PDF/A, PDF/UA, XInvoice) - depending on requirements;
  • Extraction and centralized storage of data
    based on freely definable rules and criteria as a basis for automated further processing of the documents
  • Mapping of various conversion paths
    via a "layer" as upstream dispatcher (How should the document be prepared?)
Application scenario archiving

Goal
In a company that had grown considerably as a result of takeovers and mergers, very heterogeneous archiving structures were created: the individual companies and divisions stored their documents locally and in different formats (AFP, PDF, PDF-A/3, etc.). This made targeted and rapid information retrieval considerably more difficult. The goal was therefore to prepare all documents created and received within the Group in a standardized manner according to precisely defined rules so that they are centrally available and can be searched in a targeted manner.

Solution
DocBridge® Conversion Hub as a central conversion instance is capable of automatically processing almost any document type and converting it into the desired archiving format. The solution acts as the technological basis for consolidating or standardizing different archiving systems in the interests of compliance (audit security) and customer service (availability of information).

Benefit
Intelligent document search and audit-proof archiving.

  • Fast and targeted document search including full text search
  • High level of compliance (including audit-proof archiving)
  • Basis for standardization and modernization of heterogeneous archiving systems

 

Why DocBridge® Conversion Hub?

Flexibility
High performance and scalability ("cushioning of peak loads") through parallel processing and automated load distribution.

Platform independence
Compatibility with various operating and hardware systems..

Integration
Seamless integration into existing document and output management structures through documented interfaces (API) and web services.

Design/Comfort
User interfaces (UI) for monitoring and configuration within DocBridge® Gear.

Performance
Optimal conversion results and speed through intelligent prioritization.

Cloud
Ability to integrate into highly available cloud architectures.

Digital Mail Processing

In today's digital incoming mail processing, it is not enough to receive documents, read them out and forward them to the responsible person. Rather, it is a matter of receiving the content in its entirety right from the start and extracting important data from it and carrying it centrally - after all, it is the basis for all downstream, automated processes in input management, also and especially on the basis of artificial intelligence (AI).

Email processing and conversion
Modern electronic inbound processing for all channels requires a central platform that meets the following criteria:
  • Professional handling of incoming messages of any type, structure and input channel (e-mail, web portal, faxes, messenger services, office documents, images, etc.)
  • Standardized and automated preparation into readable, archivable and searchable formats
  • Content preservation
  • Automated extraction, holding and carrying of data
  • Possibility to establish a stringent processing logic (What should be done with the document? How should it be processed (interactive or "dark"? Into which format should it be converted? Who is responsible for case-closing processing? Which documents require special approval? Should a special approval workflow be installed / dual control principle? Which data is relevant for automated further processing and must therefore be extracted and stored centrally?)
  • Analysis/classification (determining the type of document: What is the correspondence/concern about? What is the business transaction?) and automated forwarding to the department.
  • Automated assignment to an existing business transaction/merging of the newly arrived document with documents from other input channels - bundling into an electronic file).
  • Ability to trigger downstream processes
  • Mapping of different conversion and processing paths
  • Professional handling of short-term peaks and load peaks

 

The linchpin of such a platform is a central conversion instance that analyzes the unstructured input and processes it into a standardized format that can be searched for specific information.

After all, targeted document research and the ability to extract content are a basic need of modern communication; they are the "eyes" and "ears" of any AI.