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Scott Walker Can anyone help show me how to create a simple OCR reader for a custom object using a REST api. Its for a primary school
H iall
Aware this is a bit of an odd request but I was wondering if anyone can help. I use salesforc ein a primary school so we can't afford the developer costs associated with normal salesforce use case development but was hoping that someone might be able to help me do something. Basically I (a certified admin) need to create someway of scanning information from a template which lists students in a class and denotes whether they are present or not (morning attendance). The sheets list all the studenmts names and their student ID along with a box filled in for absent or present. If its left black they are present. This sheet is fully typed and printed but the penciling in denotes if theres an absense. Basically I want to find a way to scan these attendance sheets into salesforce and have a record created for each student to record their attendance situation for the day. The sheet is the same each day for each class. it just needs to record the date, student idf and the attendance for each student once a day.
I am aware there is a 3rd party system that can do this but its so expensive per year. I see that there are APIs that can help with this and set areas for partial recognition areas but I have no idea how to do this at all. I was looking at http://ocrsdk.com/documentation/apireference/ and http://www.online-code.net/ocr.html.
If anyone thinks they can help or make this process kind of idiot proof for me I'd really appreciate it. I know what I need to do once the data is collected in salesforce but its just getting it from the sheet into tthe system. Its seriously just for kids attednance to be recorded so we can find out where they are or why they are not somewhere as quickly as possible and maki ng alerts using workflows etc. The impact of this would be huge. any help or expertise much appreciated. I do believe for someone who knows what they are doing this might not be super hard.
Aware this is a bit of an odd request but I was wondering if anyone can help. I use salesforc ein a primary school so we can't afford the developer costs associated with normal salesforce use case development but was hoping that someone might be able to help me do something. Basically I (a certified admin) need to create someway of scanning information from a template which lists students in a class and denotes whether they are present or not (morning attendance). The sheets list all the studenmts names and their student ID along with a box filled in for absent or present. If its left black they are present. This sheet is fully typed and printed but the penciling in denotes if theres an absense. Basically I want to find a way to scan these attendance sheets into salesforce and have a record created for each student to record their attendance situation for the day. The sheet is the same each day for each class. it just needs to record the date, student idf and the attendance for each student once a day.
I am aware there is a 3rd party system that can do this but its so expensive per year. I see that there are APIs that can help with this and set areas for partial recognition areas but I have no idea how to do this at all. I was looking at http://ocrsdk.com/documentation/apireference/ and http://www.online-code.net/ocr.html.
If anyone thinks they can help or make this process kind of idiot proof for me I'd really appreciate it. I know what I need to do once the data is collected in salesforce but its just getting it from the sheet into tthe system. Its seriously just for kids attednance to be recorded so we can find out where they are or why they are not somewhere as quickly as possible and maki ng alerts using workflows etc. The impact of this would be huge. any help or expertise much appreciated. I do believe for someone who knows what they are doing this might not be super hard.
Thank you for sharing the details. By the way, the account is the same as both have the same User ID as "005F0000003vFCZ".
It is clear that you have an org in which custom development is allowed with a decently sized license count. The reason for asking these questions epecially the one around usage of smartphones was to understand if we could extend the interface for marking a student as "Absent" or "Present" directly into the system instead of going through the manual route.
When you stated that "But t would be only one person entering all of these as its part of a process whereby we check all the attendance figures before submitting them to check for accuracy or any students who have now turned up who were late.", it popped up a few questions in my mind:
Honestly, which ever OCR you decide to go with, you will be either paying a premium for a fixed duration or based on bulk usage. Even if you do manage to purchase an API subscription, you will need to have a developer code it for you which also comes at a cost. The questions I am asking is to better understand your process and see if there is anyway that a slight change in the process could help you avoid the need for an OCR completely.
Kind Regards,
Swarna.
All Answers
Just a suggestion, check the appexchange, maybe there's a package there that you like. For example: https://appexchange.salesforce.com/listingDetail?listingId=a0N30000009vgncEAA
If you want to convert the papers to files you'll need a way to process the raw file that you get to a format more suited for data load. One problem that I see is the actual attendance: is that an 'x' in a box, 'Yes' or 'true/false' etc?
The end result should be a .csv file with StudentId(Unique, External Id), Date(Date, in a format that SFDC likes), HasAttended(Boolean, true/false). This csv you would load by hand or automatically with Dataloader into your SFDC instance
How does the attendance sheet look like? Is it a table? It is printed?
Thanks,
Adrian
Hi Scott,
Can you share a some details about your SFDC Org like:
I am not trying to sell you anything; just trying to get an understanding of what you have to see what I could suggest.
Kind Regards,
Swarna.
this might be a different account I am sending this from but I am Scott who created the question.
Its enterprise edition
we have just over 100 users
we can use a smart phone! But t would be only one person entering all of these as its part of a process whereby we check all the attendance figures before submitting them to check for accuracy or any students who have now turned up who were late.
Many help much appreciated!
Thank you for sharing the details. By the way, the account is the same as both have the same User ID as "005F0000003vFCZ".
It is clear that you have an org in which custom development is allowed with a decently sized license count. The reason for asking these questions epecially the one around usage of smartphones was to understand if we could extend the interface for marking a student as "Absent" or "Present" directly into the system instead of going through the manual route.
When you stated that "But t would be only one person entering all of these as its part of a process whereby we check all the attendance figures before submitting them to check for accuracy or any students who have now turned up who were late.", it popped up a few questions in my mind:
Honestly, which ever OCR you decide to go with, you will be either paying a premium for a fixed duration or based on bulk usage. Even if you do manage to purchase an API subscription, you will need to have a developer code it for you which also comes at a cost. The questions I am asking is to better understand your process and see if there is anyway that a slight change in the process could help you avoid the need for an OCR completely.
Kind Regards,
Swarna.
Thanks so much for th einformation you have passed this way.
I agree a system whereby the user enteres directly into it would be much better but unfortunately this is not possible unless I run two seperate systems). Basically we have a system at the school utilozed by all schools in the New Yotk State whereby they must use a system called ATS, a very very old system (thikn DOS). Now this system creates the attendance sheets per day, they print out over night automatically. These need to be scanned back into ATS daily. We are hoping to also scan the same templates into our salesforce org so we can finally move away from this ATS system. Basically we need to have a system that can make use of OCR. Can you think of a way?