Remote Scanner Management – A Critical Component of an RDC Solution

Wednesday, January 20, 2010 (RemoteDepositCapture.com / Ed McLaughlin)

Remote Scanner Management should be a part of any good RDC Solution employed by financial institutions, corporations and businesses in a distributed environment.

While an article on remote deposit capture scanners may seem to be a little late – this is something new, and something which we feel you need to hear about. Through the years, the types and varieties of scanners have proliferated, reliability has increased, support models have improved and the underlying technology has continued to progress. More now than ever before, financial institutions and businesses are relying upon RDC to process their payments. Despite these advancements, RDC is a process of converting paper-based information into an electronic form, and paper processing can be problematic. The point where “the rubber meets the road” is, in this case, the point where the paper is converted into digital form: The scanner. Ensuring optimal performance from the scanner is increasingly critical. Remotely and proactively monitoring scanner performance in a distributed environment to prevent outages can save a company or a financial institution millions.

Whenever there is equipment (the scanner) composed of optical and mechanical components designed to process paper, there are always glitches just waiting to happen. The check scanner’s mechanical transport has to move the check from the loading hopper; through the focal plane of the imaging cameras and the magnetic ink reader; and then pass it along the exit path past the ink jet head and or franking stamp; and finally into the completed or output pocket. Along the way, the cameras (front and back) require enough light to capture the image at just the right time, while at the same time the magnetic ink reader is reading the MICR line before the check passes from the focal plane on to the ink jet and/or franking stamp station(s) and then the ink jet has to spray the correct information on to the back of the check and, if a franking station is employed, the check has to stop for a fraction of the section so the stamp can be engaged to stamp the front of the check and finally this information has to be communicated to the host PC and remote deposit capture application.

All in all there is a lot going on in the fraction of a second it takes to scan the check, but there is still more that takes place than just the optical and mechanical functions of a check scanner. The quality of the image and the CAR/LAR amount have to be read and measured to determine if they are good enough (in the case of CAR/LAR the confidence level has to be good enough) to meet the requirements of Check 21 and for the paying bank to be able to pay on the image. The software (firmware) that is embedded on the scanner has to process the image and data and determine the results based upon established parameters that will pass or reject the image and accept or question the CAR/LAR and the MICR data as captured. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) algorithms are used for reading the CAR/LAR, for reading the MICR line contained in the image and comparing it with the MICR line read by the magnetic ink reader, and for determining the presence and for measuring the quality of both the front and back images of the check. This OCR capability when employed at the scanner, can be used to make these determinations at the point of capture. However, many of the implementations of remote deposit capture do not take advantage of this functionality of the scanner but apply the OCR for image quality in the host remote deposit capture application.

Given the challenges faced when attempting to create a digital process by automating a paper-based process, and the obvious critical role the capture device plays therein, how can we better insure that the scanners are performing optimally and within the defined parameters as established for the scanner and the remote deposit capture system?

While this may seem straight forward it is anything but straightforward. The remote deposit process by its nature involves non bank personnel in the capture process and these personnel, for the most part, are only doing the scanning as a part of their real job. The objective of every financial institution, technology provider and corporation is to provide the needed operator training to simplify this task as much as possible and all goes well when everything works and the scanner is well maintained, but in reality, the scanner often does get neglected and the operator will feel overwhelmed when something goes wrong and will blame the scanner, the remote deposit capture system, the financial institution, their boss or anyone else but themselves. Don’t get me wrong and think “why not just use or recommend a flatbed scanner?” Why, because those businesses using flatbed scanners will be even worse off, not only because they are slow, but when there is a problem with the image captured on a flatbed scanner, the fingers will start pointing, and oh, there will be no one at the other end to point it at except the financial institution.

The check scanner manufacturers have developed very reliable and productive scanners for financial institutions and their business customers. But, scanners will have paper jams, checks will miss-scan, double feed, optical cameras do get dusty, ink jets and franking stamps do run out of ink and mechanical failures do happen. The constant attention by the manufacturers to these issues has greatly reduced the numbers and types of these incidents. Remote management of scanners is all about improving the customer experience by providing a tool for prevention and early detection of problems or patterns that could lead to scanner problems.

How does remote management of scanners work? It works by installing a small secure agent as part of the scanner driver installation on the host PC. The agent is responsible for monitoring the activity of the scanner and reporting back the data collected to the operator and to a host server via a secure transmission. The data collected is only the information about the scanner performance in processing the check and it does not make copies of checks, record or transfer customer data, or MICR data; it only records the performance and use statistics for the scanner. What do I mean? The types of information captured in this process would include:

Installation date and serial number – Used for warranty and for help desk personnel when a service call is required
# of scans made
# of scans when inkjet and franking stamps are installed – this number will be incremented with all subsequent scans and a reminder to replace or replenish will be sent to the operator
# of scans when preventive maintenance was performed - this number will be incremented with all subsequent scans and a reminder to perform required maintenance will be sent to the operator
# and type of mechanical or optical incidents with a scan – type of check (6” or 9”), unable to read a check (no image, no MICR), a paper jam, miss-feed or double feed etc.
Mechanical, optical or communication failures – communication errors, transport, cameras, MICR reader, etc.
MICR miss-read rates
Image Quality Scores – reports separately on front and back of image for too dark, too light, skew, torn etc.
Image Usability Scores and highlights rejects and the area(s) for reject (if available through the scanner API) – This goes beyond what we talked about above and includes the identification using OCR of the important information on the check being present and readable: On the front of the check -Payee, Payor, CAR/LAR, date; and on the back of the check – endorsement
CAR/LAR
Confidence readings highlighting rejects – Compare of LAR and CAR amounts to determine a weighted confidence reading score
R/T number for rejected items – to identify R/Ts that are consistently resulting in rejects (i.e. security checks, money orders etc.)

The information when provided to the operator tells them when to do preventive maintenance including when to clean the scanner, replace of the inkjet cartridge as well as when to fill the franking stamp reservoir. It can also assist the operator in troubleshooting the scanner when it detects an error. This information when transmitted to a central location can be used to: identify urgent issues that require immediate attention; track scanner assets deployed remotely; identifying trends and configuration issues that need to be (and can be) adjusted; monitor maintenance and upgrading of firmware and many other time consuming activities. The ability to remotely manage check scanners on an enterprise basis from a central location eliminates the manual, time-consuming and costly tasks of asset tracking, device provisioning and upgrading firmware. In addition, the remote visibility into device metrics can enable instant resolution of device problems, eliminating the need to return the device to the manufacturer for service. Remote management capabilities can be grouped into these five general areas for reporting and dashboarding:

Asset Tracking and set-up, or provisioning, on installation – Retrieve serial numbers, firmware versions and provide updates to any firmware or settings since the device was manufactured

Performance Metrics – Monitor scanner performance, collect metrics, identify issues

Scanner Diagnostics – Monitor scanner hardware (optical and mechanical) condition and communication errors for resolution and use by help desk personnel

Firmware Upgrades – Ability to supply periodic upgrades to the scanner firmware via the network rather than having to apply them individually to each scanner

Configuration Updates – Update the configurations for all, or a group of scanners to handle unique items (Security checks)

Who should be doing remote scanner management? The ability to monitor and track assets, especially distributed assets, is important to any entity owning and supplying that asset. Along these lines it is a capability that a financial institution or a corporation should be interested in obtaining. However, this is not the major reason for looking at remote check scanner management. The major reason is improved customer satisfaction and service through the proactive notification and alert functions, along with the ability to improve scanner reliability, performance and quality through identification of problems coupled with the ability to instantly update software with new capabilities and software fixes.

The last point to talk about that is available through remote scanner management is cost savings associated with the tracking and support for scanners in the field. The use of remote scanner management and the tools incorporated will allow IT managers and help desk advisors to more quickly and accurately identify problems with resolutions that do not include returning the scanner to the manufacturer for a repair that may not be warranted.

Remote Scanner Management requires three components: a scanner module for capture of data, supplied with the scanner driver; a client agent on the PC (can be supplied with the scanner driver) and a host server for management and reporting. To reiterate a point mentioned earlier the information captured by the scanner and transmitted to the host PC and subsequently to the management host does not include any customer information but only transaction information (i.e. MICR read rate but not the MICR and image IQA scores but not the image). The check scanner manufacturers that offer the ability to capture this information include: Epson, Digital Check, Panini, Unisys and CTS. There are two software providers of the PC client and the host server application; Silver Bullet with Unisys, Epson and CTS; and Esprida working with Digital Check, while Panini has developed its own software for this purpose. More solutions are undoubtedly in the works.

As RDC continues to expand from the singular process of capturing a check, and increasingly becomes a payments platform or “Payments Hub” (see article), system reliability becomes a clear differentiating factor, and in some cases a critical requirement. Remote Scanner Management is just the latest technological advancement in the RDC space which should be a part of any good RDC Solution employed by financial institutions, corporations and businesses in a distributed environment.

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