Working with automation projects

Understanding the automation project interface can help you efficiently create automation apps.

The default interface includes these elements:

• The document list on the left displays all documents included in your project. If your project includes classification, documents are automatically grouped by class, but you can use the filter, sort, and group icons to change the list display.

• The document view in the center displays the document selected in the document list. The view pane includes a toolbar, auto-hidden by default, with controls for viewing the selected document, including image or text-only views, keyword search, and page selection.

  Use the icons in the Documents header to switch between viewing modes: single document, document grid, or results table.

• The editing panel on the right displays classes and fields in your project, with results for the document selected in the document list. In projects that belong to organization accounts, a validation tab lets you view, create, and edit validation rules across your project, while class and field controls are displayed in a separate schema tab.

• Workflow selectors at the top right outline the development phases of your automation app: from project to app to deployment. Use the selectors to navigate between stages and review required steps for each stage.

Creating projects

A project is a collection of files and artifacts used to create an automation app. Projects correspond to your unique document understanding workflow, with document types and data points that address your specific use case.

You can create a project in various ways, depending on your AI Hub subscription and project requirements.

• Create a blank project — Starts your project in a blank state.

• Use an existing schema Commercial & Enterprise — Copies all classes and fields from another project in your organization.

• Customize an existing app Commercial & Enterprise — Copies the source project for an enabled app, including all project settings, classes, fields, validations, and up to three sample files, if available.

Creating a blank project

To get started building a new app, create a blank automation project and add files.

1. In Workspaces, select the Create tab.

2. Commercial & Enterprise In the sidebar under your organization name, verify the workspace where you want to create the project.

3. Click Create > App > Blank project.

4. Select supported files to start building with.

   Before your files are uploaded, you’re prompted to enable tables and checkboxes if needed.

   After confirming your visual object selections, files are uploaded and digitized according to your project settings. Documents are added to the document list as they finish processing.

Fast-track project development by copying classes and fields from another project in your organization.

1. In Workspaces, select the Create tab.

2. In the sidebar under your organization name, verify the workspace where you want to create the project.

3. Click Create > App > Use existing schema.

4. Select the project with the schema you want to duplicate and click Create project.

5. Select supported files to start building with.

   Before your files are uploaded, you’re prompted to enable tables and checkboxes if needed.

   After confirming your visual object selections, files are uploaded and digitized according to your project settings. Documents are added to the document list as they finish processing.

Edit any customization-enabled app by saving it as a new project, so you can modify it to suit your needs.

Customization copies all project settings, classes, fields, validations, and up to three sample files, if available. Customized apps are independent copies that aren’t automatically updated when the original app is modified.

Customizable apps display a Customize app option below the app name and owner.

1. From the Hub, open the app you want to customize.

2. Click Customize app.

3. Enter a project name and select the workspace where you want to create the project, then click Customize.

   A notification appears indicating that your project is being created.

4. When the notification indicates that your project is ready, click Open project.

Organization members can manage shared projects through collaboration, and transfer projects to and between workspaces in various ways.

Collaborating on projects

You can collaborate on automation projects with other members of a shared workspace by creating your project in that shared workspace. Collaboration uses a combination of exclusive edit access and a timed lock system to mitigate the risk of conflicts or another member overwriting your changes.

Exclusive edit access means that only one user can edit a project at a time. Examples of actions that initiate edit access include changing project settings, uploading a document, and renaming a field or the project. When you hold edit access, a banner displays at the top of the page.

The timed lock system means you can only retain exclusive edit access while actively editing the project. After a period of five consecutive minutes of inactivity, another member of the shared workspace can take over exclusive edit access and initiate their own timed lock. If another user takes over edit access, any unsaved changes made before the five minute period of inactivity are lost.

Migrating projects

Community accounts can migrate projects to their organization accounts, if both accounts share a user ID. Migration is a one-way operation. A copy of the project isn’t retained in your community account.

1. In Workspaces, select the Create tab.

2. Locate the project you want to migrate, click its overflow icon , select Migrate project, then select the organization.

3. Select the organization workspace that you want to migrate the project to, then click Migrate project.

Moving projects

Any member of a workspace can move a project from one workspace to another. After moving a project, only members of the new workspace can access and edit the project.

1. In Workspaces, select the Create tab.

2. Locate the project you want to move, click its overflow icon , then select Move project.

3. Select the workspace that you want to move the project to, then click Move.

Copying projects

Any member of a workspace can copy a project from one workspace to another.

Copying a project duplicates project settings, files, classes, fields, cleaning, and validation, but results aren’t copied. When you open a copied project for the first time, classification and extraction results are generated.

1. In Workspaces, select the Create tab.

2. Locate the project you want to copy, click its overflow icon , then select Copy project.

3. Select the workspace that you want to copy the project to, then click Copy.

File digitization

As you work with your project, you might need to modify digitization settings if default digitization processes don’t provide high-quality results.

To access digitization settings, click the dropdown indicator next to your project name, then select Digitization settings. Here, you can preview how changes impact machine-readable text with up to three documents from your project. The before-and-after preview shows a heat map overlay using a red-to-green gradient to represent OCR confidence for each word. Additionally, you can see a summary confidence score for the entire document.

Any time you change digitization settings, all files in your project are redigitized.

Choose the digitization settings suitable for your documents and AI Hub subscription.

• Tables — Provides better results when extracting information from tables, and enables table highlighting, which lets you enlarge, copy, or download highlighted tables directly from the document viewer.

  This option must be enabled to use table extraction fields in organization projects.

• Checkboxes — Provides better results when extracting information from checkboxes.

  Table and checkbox recognition change the OCR processor used, which slows digitization slightly and might impact accuracy, particularly with less common languages. Enable tables and checkboxes only if needed.

• Non-Latin characters Commercial & Enterprise — Enables support for many common languages that use writing systems other than the Latin alphabet (a, b, c…). Support for non-Latin characters is offered in standard and advanced language sets. For details, see Supported languages.

• Process spreadsheets natively — Processes Excel spreadsheets in their native file format instead of converting to PDF. This option offers better results for wide tables, but doesn’t support embedded objects or source highlighting in results.

• Treat files as images Commercial & Enterprise — Digitizes files as they appear, discarding any embedded machine-readable text. This option often provides better results for documents that use non-Latin characters, handwritten text, and visually complex documents.

• Pages Commercial & Enterprise — Limits digitization to specified pages.

Viewing results across documents

To quickly scan or compare results, click the Results table icon in the Documents header.

The results table corresponds to the current view in the editing panel, so the results you see change depending on your current task.