In some scenarios, you might need to provide additional data alongside your documents for review. Our platform allows you to store “external data” with your document family. This guide will walk you through how to use this feature through the user interface.

We commonly use external data when we are working with data elements whose source is “Review”, below is a short video that show-cases how external data and review can be used together.

To associate external data with a document family, use the following endpoint:

Uploading Documents with External Data

When uploading a document, you can provide the external data by setting the externalData header. Ensure that the value is a valid JSON object representing the data.

Configuring External Data in Data Definitions

Our platform allows you to specify how and where to use external data through the data definitions. This involves two main settings at different levels:

Data Group Element Level

At this level, you can indicate that the data is external and define the expression to create the data object.

External Data Checkbox: When editing a data group, check the “Create using External Data” checkbox.

External Data Expression: Enter the expression to determine how the data object is created.

Each result of this expression creates a new data object, and the result of the expression is available as a variable called data in the expressions used in data elements or child data objects.

Data Element Level

At this level, you can specify that the data comes from external data and provide an expression to capture the value.

Source: Set this to “External”.

External Data Expression: Provide an expression that specifies where to capture the value from the external data

On the server side, the platform ensures the proper loading of the external data and the resolution of expressions using the external data object. When the Extraction Engine processes the document, it will check for data objects created using external data and create a data object for each one based on the defined expressions.

By following these steps, you can efficiently work with external data in your document processing workflows, ensuring that all necessary data is accurately captured and utilized.