What is a Date Field

The Date field data type enables users to extract dates from their documents using the API Builder. This is done by selecting the Date field when creating and defining your data model.

The different date format that can be extracted includes:

  • Standard formats: 12/08/1980 or 1/1/19
  • Alpha characters for months: December, 8th 1980
  • Dates missing the day information: January 2019

Set Up a Date Field

After you've set up your custom API

  • Go to the define your model page.
  • Set up the date field by choosing Date from the right side menu.
    date model field
  • Enter the Field Name and API Response Key according to the data you want to extract.
    date field name and API response filled

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The API Response Key is automatically filled for you but you can change that to something most suitable for you according to your needs.

Additional Parameter

If you have additional context about this specific field and how the information is usually displayed in your documents, you can specify it during the field set-up by enabling the checkbox or choosing any of the options from the drop-down that suits your demand.
date field additional parameters

  • Format order in ambiguous cases: in the case where you have many documents with a date field, you can specify the format in which most dates are displayed in your documents and it will be interpreted as the date format you want to have in the API response scheme. This can be done by selecting from the field dropdown MM-DD-YYYY (12-02-2022) or DD-MM-YYYY (02-12-2022). If the date you are looking for is displayed in another way or you are not sure of what to select, you should use a Text field.
  • Can be handwritten: by checking this, the API will be able to detect handwritten words more accurately. This doesn’t stop the API from detecting non-handwritten words.

Training and Predictions

By specifying the data type as Date, you will force the API to only consider words and series of words that can be interpreted as a date as eligible candidates.

This means that the API will not extract any information in your document that cannot be interpreted as a date for this specific field.

If the date you are looking for is sometimes displayed in another way, you should use a String field.

 

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