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A workflow is made of five steps. Most workflows only use the first two — Parse and Extract. The other three are there for when your documents are more complicated.

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Parse

Parse step Reads the document. Parse turns your file (PDFs, images, CSVs, and more) into clean text and tables that the rest of the workflow can work with. Every workflow starts with a Parse step.
  • You configure: usually nothing — Parse works out of the box. Advanced options let you give a hint about the document or tune how figures are handled.
  • Add it when: always. It’s the first step in every workflow.
Example: upload a bank statement PDF — Parse reads and prepares all the text and layout.
Configuring the Parse step

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Extract

Extract step Pulls out the fields you ask for. Extract takes the text from Parse and returns structured data according to the fields you define.
  • You configure: the list of fields — each with a name, a type, and an instruction. This is your schema.
  • Add it when: you want specific values back (the usual case). Skip it only for a parse-only workflow.
Example: define fields like “Account number”, “Transaction date”, and “Amount” to get them from every statement.
Configuring the Extract step

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Classify

Classify step Sorts documents into types you define. Classify looks at each document and labels it as one of the categories you set up, so you can handle each type differently downstream.
  • You configure: a list of categories, each with a name and a short description of what belongs in it.
  • Add it when: one workflow needs to handle several kinds of document — for example a mailbox that receives both invoices and contracts. After Classify, connect a separate Extract step for each category.
Example: automatically label incoming files as “Invoice”, “Contract”, or “Statement”.
Configuring the Classify step

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Split

Split step Breaks one file into several documents. Split takes a single file that actually contains multiple documents and separates it into pieces, so each piece is processed on its own.
  • You configure: the split rules, each with a name and a description. Anything that doesn’t match a rule is grouped as “other”.
  • Add it when: your uploads bundle several documents together — for example a single PDF with four invoices, or a 50-page report you want handled page by page.
Example: a 50-page report gets split so each section is processed separately.
Configuring the Split step

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Validate (Beta)

Validate step Checks the results against rules you write. Validate takes the data from an Extract step and tests it against rules you describe in plain language, then flags anything that fails — so problems surface automatically instead of slipping through.
Validate vs. verify — two different things. The Validate step is an automatic check built into the workflow: anyformat runs your rules on every document. Verifying is something you do by hand afterward — marking a value as correct with the thumbs-up (see Verification & review). One is the machine checking your rules; the other is you confirming the result.
  • You configure: a list of rules, each with a name and a plain-language description (for example, “the IBAN is a valid format” or “the document is not expired”).
  • Add it when: some results must meet conditions you can state in words, and you want failures flagged automatically. Place Validate after the Extract step whose output you want to check.
  • Where results show up: failures appear in the Validation tab of the results, alongside the extracted data.
Example: check that the name on an ID matches the name on the contract, verify an IBAN’s format, or flag expired documents.
Configuring the Validate step

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What’s next?

Using Studio

Open Studio, add steps, and connect them

Field types

The kinds of values an Extract step can return