Creating apps

Automation apps transform your document processing requirements into reusable, shareable solutions. The app creation process guides you through defining document types, specifying data extraction needs, implementing quality controls, and packaging everything into a deployable app.

The app creation workflow

Building an automation app follows a structured development process.

  1. Working with projects — Start by creating an automation project and uploading representative documents. Projects function as blueprints that outline your document processing requirements.

  2. Extracting data from documents — Define document classes, or types, and specify the data fields you want to extract. Configure different extraction methods for text, tables, lists, and complex reasoning tasks.

  3. Cleaning results — Transform extracted data into the format you need through cleaning operations like reformatting dates, standardizing text case, or applying custom processing functions.

  4. Validating documents — Implement validation rules to ensure data quality and flag questionable results for human review. Set confidence thresholds and create custom validation logic.

  5. Creating or versioning apps — Package your completed project into a reusable app that can be shared, deployed, and managed through version control.

Getting started approaches

There are several ways to get started with automation apps, from pre-built apps for common document processing needs to fully customized apps.

Customize an existing app — Start with a customization-enabled app similar to your use case. Optionally modify the underlying project to suit your specific needs.

Use existing schemas — Accelerate development by copying classes and fields from other projects in your organization, then customize as needed.

Create a blank project — Create a blank project and build your document processing logic step by step with your own documents and requirements.