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The fastest way to create a workflow is to describe what you want to annie, anyformat’s AI assistant. annie builds a Parse → Extract workflow for you and opens it in Studio, where you refine it — by chatting with her or editing it yourself.
Prefer to build it by hand? Every new workflow starts with annie — but she doesn’t have to build the fields for you. Ask for a blank or minimal workflow (e.g. “Create an empty workflow, I’ll add the fields myself”), and she’ll hand you the same canvas in Studio to arrange and configure yourself.

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Describe it (from the home screen)

Start on the home screen, in the Create with annie chat box. Here, you can:
  • Describe the type of document you want to process
  • Explain what you want to extract
  • Upload a sample document (drag and drop, or click Add document)
Our recommendation: Provide both a description and a sample document. This gives annie the best starting point.
When you’re ready, send your message. annie proposes a workflow, shows you a preview to approve, and — once you accept — opens it in Studio with the conversation continuing in the Chat tab.

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Refining in Studio

After annie builds the workflow, you land in Studio with the document alongside the workflow. From here you refine it in whichever way you prefer:

Ask annie

Keep chatting in the Chat tab — “add a due date field”, “make total a decimal”, “split multi-invoice PDFs”. annie is the expert; ask her for field suggestions or better descriptions and accept the changes you like.

Edit by hand

Click any node to open its configuration panel and edit fields directly — add, rename, retype, duplicate, or delete. Each field has a name, a type, and an instruction.
For the full list of nodes and how to configure each one, see Nodes.

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Reviewing results

Add a sample document and run it — processing starts automatically and takes a few moments. Then check the results:
  • The document view shows each extracted value highlighted where it came from on the page. Click a field to jump to its source, or click the page to find the matching field.
  • The Markdown view lets you verify that parsing read the document correctly.
Adjust your fields and instructions based on what you see, then run again until the results look right. See Verification & review for reviewing results at scale.

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Special field types

A couple of field types have extra setup:
  • Select / Multiselect — define the option names and descriptions.
  • Object (Subtable) — define the subfields for each repeating row.
See Field types for the full list and when to use each.

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What’s next?

Running Workflows

Learn how to run workflows on documents

Verification & Review

Review and verify extracted data at scale