Create a Workflow

Workflows allow you to define a sequence of steps to process your documents, such as classifying a document and then extracting data from it based on its type.

This guide will walk you through creating a new workflow and adding your published processor to it.

1. Navigating to Workflows

Workflows can be accessed from the main navigation menu in Extend Studio. Look for the “Workflows” section in the left sidebar.

2. Creating a New Workflow

Once in the Workflows section:

  1. Click the “Create new Workflow” button.
  2. You will be prompted to give your new Workflow a name. Choose a descriptive name that reflects the process it will handle (e.g., “Invoice Processing Workflow”, “Claim Form Extraction”).
  3. Click “Create”.

This action creates an initial draft of your workflow.

3. The Workflow Builder Interface

After creation, you’ll be taken to the Workflow Builder. This is a visual canvas where you can add and connect different processing steps. There are buttons in the bottom left corner of the canvas that allow you to add steps, configure webhooks, and manage workflow versions.

Key areas include:

  • Canvas: The main area where you drag and drop steps and connect them.
  • Step Drawer: A list of available step types you can add (e.g., Extraction, Classification, Splitting, etc.).
  • Webhook Configuration: This panel allows you to subscribe to webhooks from the workflow.
  • Workflow Versioning: This section allows you to manage the different versions of your workflow.

4. Adding and Configuring an Extraction Step

Let’s add the Extractor processor you previously published:

  1. From the Step Drawer, find the “Extraction” step (or a similarly named step for your specific processor type).
  2. Drag and drop it onto the canvas.
  3. Select the newly added Extraction step on the canvas to open its configuration panel.
  4. Configure the step:
    • Processor Selection: Look for a dropdown or selection field to choose your published processor by the name you gave it.
    • Version Selection: After selecting the processor, another dropdown will allow you to choose the specific version of that processor you wish to use (e.g., the major or minor version you just published).
  5. Click “Save” to save the configuration for this step.

5. Saving Your Workflow

As you add and configure steps, your changes are saved automatically to the draft version of the workflow.

6. Deploying Your Workflow

Once your workflow is configured with all necessary steps, you need to deploy it to make it active and usable for processing documents.

Deploying a workflow typically creates a new, immutable version of it. To do this, click the “Deploy” button in the top right corner of the workflow builder.

For detailed information on deploying workflows, managing versions, and how to run a specific version, please see the Workflow Versioning documentation.

Next Steps

Now that you have created and deployed a workflow with your processor, you might want to: