Online learning
Online learning is a core technology of Kofax AP Essentials. It is an automatic process by which AP Essentials recognizes documents and understands where to find document information. Online learning is an AI technology that utilizes user input to increase extraction performance.
When a document enters the system for the first time, it is unknown, and you must specify the correct party (supplier or customer) during verification, so AP Essentials can learn to identify documents from the same party. Once a document is identified, the online learning begins. When a user corrects a document during verification, AP Essentials uses the corrected data to improve the online learning information on subsequent documents. As online learning improves, data extraction also improves.
AP Essentials remembers online learning data on a per-supplier basis for accounts payable processes and on a per-customer basis for accounts receivable processes. In other words, changes made to documents of one supplier/customer do not effect the online learning of documents from other suppliers/customers.
Lock online learning
You can pause, or "lock", the online learning process for a specific supplier or customer at any time. Locking stops online learning at its current state and prevents verification changes from having a detrimental effect on documents that have high identification and extraction rates. For example, assume you receive many documents from a particular supplier, and the incoming documents from this supplier are always automatically identified, and the field data is automatically extracted with a high level of accuracy. If a user accidentally draws a field incorrectly on a document from this supplier, it can alter the online learning, causing a decrease in extraction performance on subsequent documents. However, if Lock online learning is enabled, verification changes are ignored by the online learning process, no matter whether the changes were accidental or intentional. In this way, you can preserve the current state of online learning data for a particular supplier/customer and maintain high extraction rates, regardless of user input.
AP Essentials Office users with the Change lock online learning setting privilege can lock online learning during verification in the Add/Edit supplier dialog (accounts payable processes) or Add/Edit customer dialog (accounts receivable processes). You can resume online learning at any time by deselecting the Lock online learning setting.
You can also prevent users from affecting learning on an individual user basis by disabling the Update online learning privilege. Disabling this privilege prevents the user from having a detrimental effect on any documents, regardless of supplier. Consider disabling the Update online learning privilege for new or inexperienced users.