IQ Bot 11.x: Use Microsoft Azure Computer Vision OCR engine

IQ Bot automate some installation steps for Microsoft Azure Computer Vision OCR engine.

  • Microsoft Azure Computer Vision OCR engine is a cloud OCR engine and is available to all customers of IQ Bot.
  • Data is not stored and is removed immediately.

    For additional information on privacy for data retention see: Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services

See a list of allowed service URLs for using Microsoft Azure Computer Vision OCR engine in the example section below.

Note: When creating a learning instance, you can select any language from the IQ Bot's drop-down list. During processing, the OCR engine tries to auto-detect the primary language and can override the user selection. For example, you can specify English, but if you upload Spanish, the API would try to process Spanish.
Microsoft Azure Computer Vision OCR engine provides approximately 18% STP and 80% accuracy with data extraction.
Tip: If IQ Bot is unable to extract data from low quality or handwritten documents, troubleshoot the issue:

IQ Bot unable to extract data from low quality and Handwritten documents (A-People login required)

Follow the steps to configure the Settings.txt file and use Microsoft Azure Computer Vision OCR engine.
Important: Configuring the settings.txt file is not applicable to Automation 360 IQ Bot Cloud

Procedure

  1. Ensure your IQ Bot server has internet connectivity and external DNS resolution.
    Check to enable communication for the API endpoint on default port = 443: default endpoint = https://aai-iq-bot-ocr.cognitiveservices.azure.com/.
    Note: To validate connectivity to the API endpoint and the server open a web browser on the server and type in the complete URL for the API endpoint. If the browser returns a "404 error", then a response from the API endpoint was received.
  2. You can use your own Microsoft Azure Computer Vision OCR engine subscription or spell-check keys. See IQ Bot 11.x: Use your own keys for Microsoft Azure Computer Vision OCR engine for more information.
  3. From the C:\Program Files (x86)\Automation Anywhere IQ Bot <version number>\Configurations folder, open the Settings.txt file, and change the OCR engine value to OCREngine=Tesseract4 or OCREngine=Abbyy to OCREngine=MicrosoftAzureAPI. Then save the file.
  4. Run the stopanduninstallallservices.bat file at C:\Program Files (x86)\Automation Anywhere IQ Bot\Configurations.
    Note: After stopping the services, run installandstartallservices.bat file to install and start the services.
  5. Create learning instances in IQ Bot, and use Microsoft Azure Computer Vision OCR engine for the text segmentation and OCR engine for these learning instances.
    At the same time, for these learning instances, you would continue to use the IQ Bot capabilities for document classification, auto-mapped fields, cognitive extraction, and field value auto-correction.
List of service URLs used for Microsoft Azure Computer Vision OCR engine (optional)
Use the following allowed URLs if required:
Note: All URLs point to a global service region in the US.
  • https://aai-iq-bot-ocr.cognitiveservices.azure.com/
  • https://aai-iq-bot-ocr-spellcheck.cognitiveservices.azure.com/
Note: If IQ Bot is unable to process a document using Microsoft Azure Computer Vision OCR engine, see IQ Bot unable to process the document with Microsoft Azure OCR (A-People login required) for troubleshooting tips.