MetaServer > Help > Validate > Validate Hyperlink

040-090 MetaServer Validate – Validate Hyperlink

With the MetaServer’s Validate Hyperlink rule, you can let an operator open external files in an associated program. If the path points to a folder, the hyperlink button will open the folder in Windows File Explorer.

Use cases:

Open the originally imported file.
Open the originally imported MSG or EMAIL email file in your email software.
Open a folder with documents associated to the current document.

In case you want to open an imported email, you need to make sure the .MSG file is available in a folder. You do this by adding an Export to Folder action after the Import Email action. Specify “Email MSG” as the File source.

In case you want to open an imported file, you need to make sure the original file is available in a folder. In the Import from Folder action, you can choose to “Move file to” instead of “Delete file” after the document has been imported.

NOTE: the Validate Hyperlink rule’s field is always a “read-only” field. This means that the Operator can not change the hyperlink value during validation.

NOTE: as best practice, we recommend using UNC paths instead of mapped drives for your hyperlinks.

If you share the file through its UNC path (the containing folders need to be shared, of course), any Operator Client on the network will be able to open the file. If you use a mapped drive (e.g “C:\”) it would look at the local drive of that client, which is not the correct place.

For example:

“C:\META-PROCESSED\20200709145432.PDF”
=> mapped drive, not accessible by another system, except the local system

“\\LENOVO-SERVER\META-PROCESSED\20200709145432.PDF”
=> UNC path, accessible by another system on the network

01 Validate Hyperlink - Add Rule

Validate Hyperlink rules are defined as part of a MetaServer Validate action.

If you are not familiar with adding a Validate Action to your workflow, please refer to our Validate action help guide.

After adding a Validate action to your workflow or opening the setup of an existing one, you can add a Validate Hyperlink rule. In the Validate action, press the Add button and select Hyperlink.

02 Validate Hyperlink - Setup

First, add a description to your rule. Then, select a field with the path value you’ve set in a previous Extract action using a Set Field Value rule. In this case, we select the field “MSG HYPERLINK”.

01 – Zone: in the Validate Hyperlink setup window’s toolbar, you will find two Zone tools to specify the highlighted zone on the page where your field value is typically located.

A hyperlink value is almost never extracted from the document itself. In the rare case that it is, you can use the Zone options to draw the attention to the correct part of the page to assist the operator to find the data on the page.

As an example, we will use another extracted value, Invoice Date, to show the different zone options:

1) Automatic: this automatically jumps to the page where the data that was found by your previous Extract rules, frames it with a pink border and and highlights the zone (1 cm / 0.5 inch around the pink frame).

This helps to draw the Operator’s attention to the exact location on the page.

Only if the Extract rules failed to extract the data, the defined highlight zone will be used (Lasso, Full Page, Top Half or Bottom Half). By default, the “Automatic” highlighting is enabled.

The Invoice Date was automatically extracted and shows its exact location.

2) Lasso / Full Page / Top Half / Bottom Half: you can choose what part should be highlighted on the page when the operator navigates in the validation field if the data was not automatically extracted.

You can highlight the full page, the top or bottom half of the page or you can specify a custom zone with the Lasso option. You can do this by drawing a zone with the select tool which will be framed with an orange border.

The area around that highlighted zone will be dimmed in the validation viewer.

The area around the highlighted zone will be dimmed in the validation viewer.

TIP: while drawing, you can see the zone’s dimensions in cm/inches (depending on your regional settings) and in pixels. You’ll also find the page’s resolution in DPI and the page size in cm/inches and pixels.

We recommend you scan your documents with a resolution of 300 DPI for the best OCR result and compact file size.

This is what the result looks like in the validation viewer when a value was not automatically extracted:

The Total Amount after Tax was not automatically extracted and shows the highlighted zone instead.

02 – Align: when your documents vary in size or have mixed orientations (portrait and landscape mixed together), you can align your highlight zone in relation to any of the 4 corners of the image: the top left or right corner or the bottom left or right corner.

That way, the zone will be positioned correctly on all sizes and orientations.

Bottom right alignment of a zone on a portrait-oriented image

Bottom right alignment of a zone on a landscape-oriented image

03 – Label: the label displayed during validation above your current field’s input box. The default label is the same name as your field, but you can change this to a custom label. For example, the full field name, name with hints, abbreviations, etc.

In the example below, we have set the label of our hyperlink field to “Open the original email in Outlook by pressing the hyperlink button” as an instruction to the Operator.

Note: The colon (:) following the label is automatically added.

04 – Button tooltip: you can set up a custom tooltip for the operator. This tooltip will show when hovering over the Hyperlink button. By default, the tooltip is “Open the link with the default Windows app”.

05 – On page: set the page number to a relevant page or to where the field value is most likely located. This page will be loaded when the value was not extracted automatically. Otherwise, the page where the value was extracted from will be loaded.

The default is page 1.

For example:
– Enter 1 for the 1st page
– Enter -1 for the last page

– Enter -2 for the page before the last page
– Etc.

If a document does not contain the specified page, it will load the last page. For example, validating page 3 on a 2-page document will show page 2.

06 – Zoom: set the Zoom to the preferred level when the operator navigates in the field.

You can choose between:

1) Whole page: shows the whole page in the validation viewer. This can be useful if you want to show the location of the field value in context of the whole page.

2) Page width: fits the page horizontally in the validation viewer and focuses automatically onto the part where the extracted value is located.

This option is most often used on smaller displays. It gives you a good overview of the page while still being very readable.

3) Page height: fits the page vertically. This can be useful when validating landscape-oriented page.

4) 100%: shows the page without scaling. This option is most commonly used on a large HD monitor with the same resolution as the scanned pages (typically 300 DPI).

5) Font size: zooms the page to a size so that normal text on the page is shown in the specified font size.

6) Zone: the viewer will automatically zoom in on the result. That means that if the result is only a short text like the report number, the viewer will be completely zoomed in on the number and show it very large in the viewer.

TIP: you can copy the current settings and paste them in another setup window of the same type. Do this by pressing the Settings button in the bottom left of the Setup window and by selecting Copy. Then open another setup window of the same type and select Paste.

040-090 MetaServer Validate – Validate Hyperlink

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