Separate

Separates a sequence of loose pages into documents.

Remarks

The Separation activity splits a sequence of loose Batch Pages into individual documents or folders, according to configurable separation logic.

Overview

• Applies separation to all pages that are immediate children of the folder being processed.
• To separate loose pages in the root of a Batch, run this activity at the batch level.
• To separate loose pages inside a subfolder, run the activity at the level of the folders containing those pages.

Separation Logic

• Separation is controlled by referencing a Separation Profile or by configuring a local Separation Provider.
• The Separation Profile encapsulates reusable separation settings, while a Separation Provider allows for custom, local configuration.
• Only one of these needs to be set; if both are unset, the activity will not run.

Workflow Placement

• Typically runs after Recognize, to ensure all pages have text and layout information available for separation logic.
• Often precedes a Review step configured with a Separation View, allowing a human operator to review and correct separation results.
• In review workflows, set the 'Bind Only' property to true to save separation data without applying it, so the review operator can finalize separation.
• If review is not required, set 'Bind Only' to false and proceed directly to Extract or other downstream activities.

Configuration Guidance

• Use the 'Provider' property to select and configure a Separation Provider for custom logic.
• Use the 'Separation Profile' property to apply a shared, reusable separation configuration.
• Only one of these properties should be set at a time; the UI will hide the other when one is selected.
• If neither is set, the activity will report a configuration error.

Example Scenarios

• Batch-level separation: Run at the batch root to split all loose pages into documents using a global Separation Profile. The following diagram shows a batch with 10 loose pages before and after batch-level separation:

  Before Separation

  Batch
   ├─📄 Page 1
   ├─📄 Page 2
   ├─📄 Page 3
   ├─📄 Page 4
   ├─📄 Page 5
   ├─📄 Page 6
   ├─📄 Page 7
   ├─📄 Page 8
   ├─📄 Page 9
   └─📄 Page 10
  

  After Separation

  Batch
   ├─📁 Document 1
   │ ├─📄 Page 1
   │ └─📄 Page 2
   ├─📁 Document 2
   │ ├─📄 Page 3
   │ ├─📄 Page 4
   │ └─📄 Page 5
   ├─📁 Document 3
   │ ├─📄 Page 6
   │ └─📄 Page 7
   └─📁 Document 4
     ├─📄 Page 8
     ├─📄 Page 9
     └─📄 Page 10
  

• Folder-level separation (level 1): Run at the first folder level to separate loose pages within each folder. This is useful when batches are organized into folders (e.g., by source or import) and separation should occur within each folder.

  Before Separation

  Batch
   ├─📁 Folder A
   │ ├─📄 Page 1
   │ ├─📄 Page 2
   │ ├─📄 Page 3
   ├─📁 Folder B
   │ ├─📄 Page 4
   │ ├─📄 Page 5
   │ ├─📄 Page 6
  

  After Separation

  Batch
   ├─📁 Folder A
   │ ├─📁 Document 1
   │ │ ├─📄 Page 1
   │ │ └─📄 Page 2
   │ └─📁 Document 2
   │   └─📄 Page 3
   ├─📁 Folder B
   │ ├─📁 Document 1
   │ │ ├─📄 Page 4
   │ │ └─📄 Page 5
   │ └─📁 Document 2
   │   └─📄 Page 6
  

• Separation with review: Configure 'Bind Only' to true so a reviewer can adjust separation before documents are finalized.

• Automated separation: Configure 'Bind Only' to false to automatically split and classify documents without human intervention.

Additional Notes

• The separation process can classify pages and assign Content Types as part of document creation.
• Downstream activities, such as Extract or Merge, depend on the results of separation to operate on individual documents.
• For more information, see Separation Profile, Separation Provider, Batch Folder, and Review activities.

Properties

See Also

Separation ProviderSeparation Profile

Used By

Batch Process StepProcessing JobBatch Object - Run ActivityExecute Activity