EMC has launched a drag and drop interface that removes the need for programming skills when designing capture workflows in Captiva InputAccel.

It promises document capture processes that may be built inside a few hours using the drag-and-drop development environment.

Captiva was acquired three years ago by EMC to provide a capture font end for the Documentum content management system (CMS).

Sean Baird, Senior Product Marketing Manager of EMC’s Captiva products, said "There is a significant return on investment for enterprise capture, but for many organisations it represents a big upfront investment."

A document capture process is a set of steps and instructions that defines how a document gets processed once it is ingested into Captiva. A typical series of steps include scan, image enhancement, document classification, data extraction, validation and delivery to content management systems or business applications.

In many cases, a process will have conditions built in for handling image quality problems, data recognition validations, routing certain document types for review or custom steps for business rules or integration with other enterprise applications.

Developers have traditionally been required to write Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code for these processes which could take several days depending on the complexity.

"The launch of InputAccel CaptureFlow Designer means there are now simpler solutions, meaning users can now build capture processes much more quickly," said Baird. "Three clicks and you are now up and running."

"This puts Captiva within reach of smaller organisations that don't have a team of developers."

Customers using InputAccel 6 can download the graphical design tool for free on EMC Powerlink and it will be included with all future versions.

More than 100 Captiva users worldwide participated in a pre-release software program which gave them early access to InputAccel CaptureFlow Designer.

William Collins, Captiva Technical Expert, The Windward Group, said “A few hours…that is all it took to build a document capture process using the new Captiva InputAccel CaptureFlow Designer. The new graphical design application is very powerful and easy to use, while at the same time leverages the flexibility of InputAccel to meet the unique capture requirements some customers have.”

You can view the demo here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ4FmWJgVfw