This guide will provide a walkthrough of the Affinda web app to help you configure your account and start processing documents quickly. The guide below provides an overview of working with the web app; however, once you have created your account, these actions can be completed programmatically via the API.

Affinda offers a risk-free opportunity to experience the power of Affinda's document processing solution with a no-obligation trial. Discover how Affinda can add value to your work and streamline document processing. 

Create an Account

To create an account, navigate to the registration page. We ask for some information to better understand your use case, however, after clicking "Create Account" you will be given instant access to the application.

When you create a new account, we also create a new 'Organisation'. You can add new users to this account as admins or members (see below).

Create a Workspace & Collections

You will be prompted to create a Workspace when you first access your account. A Workspace is where documents are processed and can contain one or many collections of documents. It can also have restricted access to only permitted users within your Organisation.  

Once you have clicked "Create Workspace", you will be prompted to select one or more document types you would like to process in this Workspace. Select the document types you would like to process and click Continue. A new Workspace will be created containing separate Collections for each document type that you selected. (See Organisations, Workspaces & Collections for more information.)

Start uploading documents

Now that you have created a Workspace and Collections, you can start uploading documents and extracting the data. You can upload a range of different file types, including PDF, DOCX, JPG, PNG, TXT and HTML.

There are 3 options for uploading documents:

• Manual upload - drag and drop files from your computer
• API - API Key can be found in your user profile and can be used to post documents using the API. More information about the API is available in our API documentation.
• Email upload - send your documents as attachments to the email address specified in the settings of the relevant Workspace or Collection

Users have the option to upload documents to a Workspace or Collection.

• If documents are uploaded to a Workspace, Affinda will classify the document and route it to the appropriate Collection
• If documents are uploaded to a Collection, Affinda will apply the extractor associated with this Collection

Users can configure settings on Workspaces to reject documents that aren't the right type for the Workspace or Collection that the document is sent to. 

Review documents

When documents are first uploaded, they will move to the 'For Review' list. These documents require human validation to confirm the model predictions. Users can either start reviewing individual documents by clicking the file name, review multiple documents by selecting the relevant documents and clicking 'Review', or simply click 'Review All' to review all documents in this list.

When you review your first document in a Collection, you will be first prompted to select which fields you would like to review. Our standard models will extract a number of fields, but generally, customers will only need to review and extract a subset of these. Reducing the number of fields visible in the review stage will improve speed and accuracy during this step in the process.

Note, resumes and job descriptions are not able to be reviewed and thus have a different workflow without this element of review and data validation.

Export data

Once documents have been reviewed, they can be exported to your downstream platform. This can happen in 3 ways:

• Through the web app - users can download files in JSON format (and XML and Excel for some document types)
• Via the API - on upload, users will receive a unique identifier which can be used to get the validated data from that document once reviewed
• Webhooks - can be set up to push data to you when an event occurs, such as when a document has been validated. See here for more information on setting up webhooks.

Configure your account

Affinda has implemented a range of different customisations and configuration options to ensure that your desired workflow and processes can be met to automate as much of the process as possible.

For more information on configurations, keep reading.