Logical Structure Details

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The structure of UnForm archiving is a hierarchical one, where an image of a document is at the bottom of a nested structure.  In fact, what you may consider a "document", such as an invoice or a purchase order, is at the middle of this structure, as there can be many versions of a given document.  Here is a description of this structure:

 

Library

A library is a folder or directory path to the location where archived documents are stored.
 
There can be one or many libraries to store documents. Access and security is controlled by library, so the process of designing a single or multiple library structure, and determining which documents will be stored in which library, needs to take into account the access rights of groups and users.

 

Beneath a library path UnForm uses a file storage algorithm with a theoretical capacity for over 4 billion distinct documents, each of which can contain multiple images.  All data about documents and images, as well as the images themselves, is encrypted and compressed.

Document

A document is one or more related files which share a unique Document Type and Document ID combination, different from any other document in the archive.

 

The document unit in UnForm can be seen as an "envelope" or "wrapper" which surrounds one or more associated files, stored as "image" records.

Image

An image is a single  file with a distinct ID (called a sub ID) which distinguishes it from other files associated with the same document.  An image can be any type of file, not limited to image files.  For example, when UnForm adds an archive from an UnForm print job, it adds both text and PDF images, with ID values of @text and @unform.
 
Think of a "text image" of an invoice, versus a "PDF image" of the same invoice, versus a signed delivery slip "image file" pertaining to the invoice, versus a Word document "image" of the order quotation preceding the invoice, all associated with the same document ID.

 

Each image within a document is identified with a unique sub ID.