ABBYY Vantage Introduction
The world of Data Science is changing, as are the demands of discerning business users. These core concepts challenge manufacturers like ABBYY to develop new innovative technology. This new technology must make the experiences of business users, developers, and partners simpler, faster, and more valuable. ABBYY’s response to this evolution is ABBYY Vantage.
ABBYY Vantage Low-Code Approach
ABBYY Vantage introduces a low-code/no-code design approach for intelligent document processing. This is a major difference from ABBYY FlexiCapture, which follows a more technical methodology. These principles make ABBYY Vantage a new cloud platform focused on document recognition and document processing technology.
ABBYY Vantage Experience
Our experience shows that, despite the low-code concept, experienced data engineers remain essential for more complex solutions. EasyData has this expertise in-house and is available for any ABBYY Vantage challenge.
ABBYY Vantage Machine Learning
ABBYY Vantage comes with pre-trained Machine Learning (ML) models. These include invoice recognition, transport documents, and other internationally oriented business documents.
ABBYY Marketplace
A platform where partners can share technological innovations in document recognition. The ABBYY Marketplace offers a selection of document-related workflows and connectors, aiming to simplify the ABBYY Vantage platform and the digital transformation of organizations.
EasyData plans to contribute its own technology here. Currently, we deploy it directly through our own platform, SaaS solutions, and specific ABBYY Vantage requests where EasyData’s expertise is required.
Technical Drawing Data Extraction Project
EasyData has developed an ABBYY Vantage Skill to extract shape data from technical drawings. The ABBYY Vantage Skill was completely retrained on a relatively small set of highly diverse documents to extract reference data from drawings. The extraction covers technical drawing details such as author, date, drawing name (e.g., detail information, facility, organization, etc.), as well as data like the executor, contractor, and other reference information available in the drawing.
Our technology, adapted into an ABBYY Vantage Skill, effectively recognizes vastly different types of drawings. This means an ABBYY Vantage user can, with just one Skill, automatically and accurately recognize even drawings with handwritten text!
Traffic Fine Processing with EasyData Technology
We’re all familiar with the (dis)comfort of speed cameras—the method of receiving an unsolicited letter requesting an equally involuntary contribution to the state treasury. How does EasyData contribute to this process?
We start with the simple part: recognizing license plates. Nowadays, this is quite accessible, with open-source alternatives delivering good results. However, EasyData chose to develop its own LPR (License Plate Recognition) library, which is integrated into the solution described here.
Image Enhancement
After the data is captured by a video camera, license plates are read using EasyData’s video-to-image conversion technology. Thanks to our image enhancement techniques, it no longer matters whether it’s raining, snowing, there’s low-hanging sun, or other weather conditions distorting the image. We reliably recognize license plates in nearly all conditions and convert the video into usable images.
The extracted images include passing vehicles, along with metadata such as:
- The date of the capture
- The vehicle’s speed
- The road section
- Any other image details our clients deem relevant
License Plate Recognition Technology
In this case, we recognize the vehicle’s license plate along with additional external data from the image. Quite handy—for example, you can identify a bumper sticker and cross-reference it with the license plate.
EasyData’s technology quite literally “came into the picture” when it became clear that other license plate recognition systems were underperforming. Plates weren’t always accurately detected due to skewed angles, distortions, or other image irregularities.
That’s why the decision was made to integrate EasyData’s license plate recognition, powered by a neural network developed by EasyData’s ML engineers. This ensures high accuracy even in challenging conditions.
Data Export to the EasyData Pega Connector
This is something worth reflecting on. Experience with integrating ABBYY Vantage also means familiarity with other software to establish connections. Linking with external sources—whether or not they have an available API—is essential in the field of data capture and data analysis.
We observe that the standard ABBYY Vantage features (such as ABBYY Marketplace availability) are still somewhat limited at this stage. However, the above might sound more exciting than it actually is for our engineers.
EasyData has developed its own widely deployable Business Connector. Combined with the available Pega information, our engineers were able to quickly present realistic results to our clients.
ABBYY Marketplace Comparison
Interestingly, Pega—like ABBYY—has its own “Marketplace.” The Pega Marketplace gives a slightly more populated impression than the current ABBYY Marketplace. Similar to ABBYY’s platform, EasyData is considering making specific EasyData technologies accessible there.
However, the question arises: Should we focus on all these different “Software Marketplace” initiatives? For now, we integrate on a project basis across a wide range of applications.
How much time should we dedicate to these individual software vendor initiatives? We’re open to hearing your opinion on this!
ABBYY FlexiCapture Cloud to ABBYY Vantage Migration
We’re doing this more and more—ABBYY is increasingly pushing Vantage to the forefront, while more traditional products like ABBYY FlexiCapture and ABBYY FineReader are being phased out. The ABBYY product lifecycle can be reviewed here (link placeholder).
That said, this does not mean EasyData will stop supporting FlexiCapture or FineReader. Our engineers have been familiar with this technology since its introduction, and some even worked at ABBYY during its development. Organizations seeking support for these products can still rely on EasyData.
FlexiCapture reaching end-of-life? We’ll do our best to continue supporting these solutions!
In other cases, we migrate ABBYY technology to the latest standard. To give you an idea of how EasyData handles ABBYY migration projects, below is an example of a migration from ABBYY FlexiCapture 12 Cloud to ABBYY Vantage.
(Migration example details would follow here in practice.)
Would you like us to expand on any specific part, such as the migration process or Marketplace strategy? Let us know!
EasyData’s Vantage Skill for NDIS Invoices
We understand that the Dutch reader may not immediately know what NDIS invoices are.
NDIS serves approximately 4.3 million Australians with disabilities. Over the next five years, NDIS is expected to provide funding for support and services to 500,000 Australians with permanent and significant disabilities. For many, this will be the first time they receive the support they need. For us, this means the system must meet stringent technical requirements. More information about NDIS can be found via this link. What’s important for us is that NDIS has decided to transition from ABBYY FlexiCapture to ABBYY Vantage and is relying on EasyData’s expertise.
ABBYY Technology Migration Project – Project Summary
The starting point for the NDIS Vantage migration involves more than 50,000 suppliers. Invoices from these suppliers have been organized into separate test and training batches within the existing ABBYY FlexiCapture Cloud environment. Our task is to ensure a smooth transition of the processing platform. Keep in mind that tens of thousands of documents are processed daily. The client is understandably less pleased if the system goes down for any reason. That’s why EasyData’s ABBYY specialists were hired for this task.
How We Proceeded
First, the ABBYY FlexiCapture training batches were migrated from ABBYY FlexiCapture 12 Cloud to the new ABBYY Vantage environment. These were then thoroughly tested according to Vantage standards. This means the adjusted training in Vantage delivers the same value and results as previously achieved in FlexiCapture. Based on this, all validation, document, and data control scripts were updated and aligned to support the new ABBYY Vantage infrastructure.
Innovation Drives Progress
A key change compared to FlexiCapture is that EasyData Engineers adapted database validation and dataset synchronization to fully support external database lookups in Vantage, in line with client specifications. Using the new ABBYY Vantage Verification Station, EasyData Engineers significantly accelerated the validation process. Following a system review—after all, we completely overhauled the entire system—recognition quality and speed have improved. This speed enhancement was confirmed by the client, who independently conducted tests on the newly delivered ABBYY Vantage system.
Technical Migration Project Details
An operational ABBYY FlexiCapture project handling invoices for medical and support activities was migrated to ABBYY Vantage Skill. The project is based on a FlexiCapture invoice processing system with multiple customized cross-checks of extracted data using document definition rules, leveraging customer and company master data (core datasets of the invoice project), additional reference information in various custom datasets, and multiple training batches.
ABBYY Vantage Invoice
For the migration, the client used ABBYY Vantage Invoice as the foundation. Since they already had positive experiences with ABBYY FlexiCapture, opting for the manufacturer-recommended migration (ABBYY in this case) was a logical choice. To achieve this, EasyData Engineers rebuilt all business rules and individual data catalogs for the ABBYY Vantage Skill. This data remains consistent with the original setup from the old/current ABBYY FlexiCapture environment.
Field Recognition Optimization
The field data previously used in FlexiCapture was adjusted to better align with ABBYY Vantage specifications. Nearly all Business Rules were rewritten for Vantage, which involved converting existing JavaScript to C# code. An interesting enhancement is the real-time Business Rule validation. These dataset-based rule checks were implemented to enable smarter evaluation of data from web forms.
ABBYY Vantage Skill Training
The new Vantage Skill was trained using document samples from the top 150 suppliers, and extraction for poorly trained document types was further improved by implementing additional layout logic. Using the Advanced Designer, we achieved strong results in this optimization.
Document Layout Architecture
To facilitate ongoing skill training with additional document samples, a converted document layout architecture was developed. This allowed the processed document labeling from FlexiCapture to be reused in Vantage Skill without manual field marking—enabling the rapid bulk loading of pre-labeled training examples.
Have you made it through the technical details above?
Then you’ve seen that EasyData has hands-on experience integrating ABBYY Vantage. Our expertise also extends to other software applications and RPA systems. Using existing API connections, we link to external data sources.
Does your application lack an API but still need integration? EasyData is the right partner for the job.
Contact us for a tailored, compelling presentation.