VERSION 11 FEATURES

Version 11 of UnForm contains many significant features that make it faster, easier to use, and more powerful than previous releases.  Here is a summary of the major enhancements.

New Base Server

The main listener, which handles client connections, has been rewritten to support many more active connections and respond more quickly to client requests, which are used to submit print and other jobs to the UnForm server.  The result is faster submissions and better concurrency support in high volume environments.

The same new server also supports the http/https service, previously supported with a private instance of the Apache http server.  This enables more control over how the back-end processes requests from the browser user interfaces, so some requests run faster and future development under the developer's control can provide additional performance boosts.

AI-based Inbound Document Processing

The new IDP module leverages AI to perform structured data extraction without zone-based OCR and barcode methods.  It supports both simple and complex documents, with line item detail, automatic document splitting, and attachment handling. This enables faster implementations to handle documents sent from third parties such as vendors and customers, and is flexible enough to support a wide range of document types.

New idp and idpdoc objects have been created to support custom coding within IDP definitions.

Improved Security

User logins support 2FA to enhance id/password security.  UnForm 11 also supports authentication via third party Open ID Connect (OIDC) providers.  For example, users can be authenticated with Microsoft Entra, Okta, and others.  Such email-based user IDs can be automatically created through pattern matching (such as @example.com), easing the task of maintaining UnForm users.

New archive libraries support AES256 encryption, and all encrypted data tables, such as user and group tables, are automatically upgraded to AES256 upon startup.

New Library Structure

Archive libraries have been upgraded to support 40-byte doctypes, docids, and subids.  This enables a wider range of docids to be used without structure restraints.  To achieve this, the number of category index segments has been reduced from 10 to 8, a theoretical reduction in capability, though this is not a practical reduction as no known implementation ever used more than 5 segments.

Existing libraries can be used without conversion.

New Browser Interface

The browser interface has been structured around a new menu system, and all administration options have been consolidated into one menu tree.  The new interface runs entirely on Material design principles for consistency.

The archiving interface has been streamlined and the browse feature in particular has been upgraded to support column sorting and full-set loading.

Upgraded Client

The UnForm client has been rewritten to be fully compiled and no longer rely on a Perl interpreter.  The Perl version is still included for older systems that will not support the compiled client, such as Unix systems or old Linux systems.

The new -attach option supports uploading of client-side files for use in jobs that run on the server.  An example of this is to upload signature image files for use when printing documents that require a copy of the signature.

Client-side PDF printing is supported, with options to control scaling, duplex, copies, and more, though the new "printer:name;options" output destination.  If the output destination is structured to be server-side, a local client is used to perform the printing.  On Windows, the options will trigger Windows printing features; on Linux, the options are translated into CUPS command line options.

Deprecations

The Windows Support Server is not included with Version 11.  All of its features, with the exception of Windows Fax support, are supported at the UnForm server with greater reliability and performance.  Any users that rely on Windows fax can utilize a third-party cloud fax service if necessary.

Fax options have been removed from the archive browser interface.  For marked images, a zip export option has been added in its place.