Distributed Processing

Laserfiche Distributed Processing lets you divide resource intensive processes among multiple CPUs and computers. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is a very resource intensive task and a queue of documents can quickly build if documents are being processed one at a time. If you can distribute the OCR process, then documents can be processed in parallel. How many documents can be processed at the same time depends on the number of CPUs you allocate for processing.

Because Workflow cannot actively wait for documents to be OCRed, the Schedule OCR activity adds documents to the queue of items to be OCRed by the specified Distributed Processing Scheduler. A Distributed Processing Scheduler is responsible for distributing the OCR job among other worker machines.

Specify a Distributed Processing Scheduler for Workflow to use from the following places:

• The Distributed Processing node of the Workflow Administration Console.
• In the Schedule OCR activity's Distributed Processing Scheduler property box, select Manage Schedulers from the Use the following scheduler drop-down menu.
• If you have already configured one or more Distributed Processing Schedulers with the Schedule OCR activity, you can configure schedulers from the workflow's Referenced Objects property box. (To view and edit this property box, select a blank area in the Designer Pane and click the Advanced button at the top of the Properties Pane.) Select Distributed Processing Schedulers from the drop-down menu, and click the Manage referenced properties link. In the Referenced Object Manager, click Add or Edit.

To add or modify an Distributed Processing Scheduler

1. In the Distributed Processing Scheduler Properties dialog box, next to Name, give the scheduler a unique display name. This name is necessary to distinguish between multiple Distributed Processing Schedulers.



2. Next to Host, type the name of the machine that handles distributed processing.
3. Next to Port, specify the port you want to use when communicating with the Distributed Processing Scheduler.
4. Optional: Click Test to ensure Workflow can connect to the scheduler.
5. Select the Enabled checkbox to enable the Distributed Processing Scheduler, or clear the Enabled checkbox if you want to disable the scheduler. You may have multiple Distributed Processing Schedulers and want one disabled while you configure another one.
6. When finished, click OK.
7. Optional: If you accessed this dialog box from the Workflow Administration Console, the Distributed Processing Scheduler Manager dialog box will appear. You can select an existing scheduler and click Edit to change it, click Delete to remove it, or double-click the green check or red X in the Enabled column to toggle its status between enabled and disabled. Learn more.
8. Optional: If you accessed this dialog box from the Workflow Designer, the Referenced Object Manager will appear and you can select an existing Distributed Processing Scheduler and click Edit to change it.
9. Click Close to exit the Distributed Processes Scheduler Manager or Referenced Object Manager.

To assign a different scheduler to multiple activities in a workflow

Tip: You are setting up a new Distributed Processing Scheduler and want your workflows to use this new scheduler. Instead of individually updating each Schedule OCR activity, you can update all the activities at once with the Reassign option.

• Follow the instructions to Reassign Objects.