How to Automate Document Processing with Power Platform & Azure
In an increasingly digital world, document management plays a critical role in the operations of businesses across industries. The process of handling documents manually—scanning, copying data, correcting errors, and managing paper trails—has proven to be not only inefficient but also prone to human error. As businesses face growing demands to process large volumes of documents quickly, automating these tasks becomes not just a luxury but a necessity.
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Introduction
Luckily, Microsoft’s Power Platform, in tandem with Azure’s artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, provides a robust solution to help organizations automate document processing efficiently. By combining tools like Azure Document Intelligence, Power Automate, Power Apps, and AI Builder, businesses can revolutionize how they handle documents—from intake to data extraction, validation, and storage.
In this whitepaper, we’ll take a deep dive into the various tools and technologies offered by Microsoft to automate document processing and how they can be leveraged to streamline workflows, improve data accuracy, and reduce operational costs.
Azure Document Intelligence: Unlocking the Power of AI for Document Data Extraction
Azure Document Intelligence (formerly known as Form Recognizer) is one of the most powerful tools available for automating document processing. Azure Document Intelligence uses machine learning to extract structured data from various document types, including invoices, receipts, contracts, and forms. With the ability to work with both structured and unstructured documents, this tool can efficiently transform raw data from documents into usable insights.
Key Features of Azure Document Intelligence:
- Text Extraction: Automatically extracts text from documents, making it easy to convert scanned files into editable content.
- Table Extraction: Detects and extracts tables within documents, allowing for accurate processing of data from spreadsheets or invoices.
- Key-Field Extraction: Identifies and extracts specific data points from documents, such as dates, amounts, names, or invoice numbers.
- Structured and Unstructured Document Support: Works with both pre-formatted documents (like invoices) and free-form documents (such as contracts) without the need for predefined templates.
By automating the extraction of key data from documents, businesses can eliminate tedious manual entry and significantly reduce the time spent on document management.
AI Builder in Power Platform: Empowering Businesses with No-Code Automation
For businesses that want to start automating their document processes quickly without needing a developer’s expertise, AI Builder within Power Platform provides an excellent solution. AI Builder is a no-code tool that makes it easy to train AI models for document classification, data extraction, and text recognition. Whether you’re dealing with invoices, forms, or receipts, AI Builder can help automate many document processing tasks, even for businesses without a dedicated IT team.
Key Features of AI Builder:
- Document Classification: Automatically categorizes documents into predefined groups (e.g., invoices, receipts, purchase orders), streamlining the sorting and processing of incoming documents.
- Data Extraction: Leverages AI to identify key data fields (e.g., amounts, dates, names) from structured documents and automatically extracts them into usable formats.
- Custom Model Creation: Users can create custom AI models that are tailored to their specific needs, ensuring the model works best for their unique document types.
- No-Code Interface: AI Builder’s user-friendly interface allows anyone in your organization to start building and deploying AI models without writing a single line of code.
AI Builder is a game-changer for businesses looking to automate their document processing workflows quickly and efficiently, without the need for specialized technical knowledge.
Power Automate + SharePoint: Seamless Document Intake and Workflow Automation
Once data is extracted from documents, it needs to flow smoothly through your business’s various systems. This is where Power Automate comes into play. Power Automate allows businesses to automate workflows by connecting different apps and services—like SharePoint, OneDrive, Outlook, and more—without needing to write complex code. When paired with SharePoint, Power Automate offers a simple yet powerful solution for automating document intake, processing, and storage.
Key Features of Power Automate & SharePoint Integration:
- Automated Document Intake: Documents can be automatically retrieved from SharePoint, OneDrive, or even email attachments, saving valuable time and reducing human error.
- Data Flow Automation: Once the document is processed and key information is extracted, Power Automate can automatically transfer the data to relevant systems like Dataverse, SQL databases, or even Excel.
- Workflow Triggers: Power Automate enables the creation of automated triggers based on document types or specific data points, ensuring the right actions are taken at the right time.
- Seamless System Integration: Power Automate’s integrations with SharePoint and other systems mean that businesses can automate document intake, approval workflows, and data entry with little to no manual intervention.
This integration helps businesses create streamlined workflows, eliminating bottlenecks caused by manual document handling and reducing the time it takes to process, store, and act on documents.
Not all documents are neatly typed and formatted—many organizations still handle scanned PDFs and handwritten notes. This can present a challenge when attempting to automate data extraction. Thankfully, Azure AI Vision combined with OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology provides an intelligent solution to process and extract text from scanned images and handwritten documents.
Key Features of Azure AI Vision OCR:
- Handwritten Text Recognition: Azure AI Vision’s powerful algorithms can recognize and extract text from handwritten documents, providing businesses with the ability to digitize physical forms.
- OCR for Scanned Documents: Azure’s OCR capabilities can process scanned PDFs, extracting and converting text into machine-readable data.
- High Accuracy: Azure’s AI vision technology is built to accurately read and interpret even the most challenging handwritten or scanned documents, reducing the likelihood of errors and the need for manual review.
- Multilingual Support: Azure AI Vision’s OCR technology can work with documents in multiple languages, making it ideal for businesses operating globally and handling diverse content.
Power Apps for Human Validation: Ensuring Accuracy Before Final Submission
While automating document processing is essential for improving efficiency, it’s also important to maintain the accuracy and integrity of your data. Power Apps provides a powerful solution to integrate human validation into the automation process, ensuring that extracted data is accurate before it is sent to other systems for processing or storage.
Key Features of Power Apps for Human Validation:
- Custom Validation Screens: Power Apps allows organizations to build custom validation screens where users can review and confirm extracted data, ensuring accuracy before submission.
- User-Friendly Interface: Power Apps provides an intuitive interface that simplifies the review process, even for non-technical users, reducing the burden on employees and speeding up the validation process.
- Integration with Other Systems: Once the data is validated, it can be sent to other business systems (like Dataverse, SQL, or Excel) for further processing, enabling smooth workflows and data integrity.
By integrating human validation into your automated workflows, businesses can strike the right balance between automation and human oversight, ensuring data quality and minimizing the risk of errors that could impact decision-making.
Why Automate Document Processing?
Automating document processing offers significant benefits for businesses across industries. Some of the key reasons to adopt automation include:
1. Increased Efficiency:
Manual document handling is time-consuming and often leads to delays. Automation speeds up the entire process, from document intake to data extraction, storage, and validation.
2. Reduced Errors:
Human error is a major risk when handling documents manually. By using AI-powered tools like Azure Document Intelligence and AI Builder, businesses can minimize mistakes and improve the accuracy of their data.
3. Cost Savings:
By eliminating manual document processing tasks, businesses can reduce operational costs associated with labor, document storage, and manual data entry.
4. Improved Compliance:
Automation ensures that documents are handled consistently, reducing the risk of non-compliance with industry regulations and ensuring that data is processed securely and in accordance with compliance standards.
5. Better Decision-Making:
With more accurate and timely data at your fingertips, your organization can make better-informed decisions faster, leading to improved business outcomes.
Real-World Applications of Document Processing Automation
Businesses in various sectors can benefit from automating their document processing workflows. Here are some real-world examples of how document processing automation is being used:
- Finance: Automating invoice processing, tax form management, and financial reporting reduces the time spent on data entry and allows financial teams to focus on analysis and decision-making.
- Legal: Automating contract management and legal document review improves accuracy and speeds up the legal workflow, helping law firms handle large volumes of paperwork efficiently.
- Healthcare: Automating the intake of patient records, insurance claims, and medical documents ensures better compliance, quicker access to patient data, and improved service delivery.
- Retail: Automating purchase order processing and supplier invoices ensures that retail businesses can streamline procurement and inventory management, reducing manual oversight.
By leveraging Power Platform and Azure, companies across industries are not just improving their document handling processes—they’re also enhancing their overall operations.
Conclusion: Transforming Document Processing with Power Platform & Azure
Automating document processing with tools like Azure Document Intelligence, AI Builder, Power Automate, OCR, and Power Apps can drastically reduce the time and effort required to manage documents. By automating the intake, data extraction, storage, and review of documents, organizations can enhance operational efficiency, reduce errors, and cut costs.
Are you ready to transform your document processing workflows? If you’re already automating document processing, we’d love to hear about your approach. If you’re still exploring your options, schedule a consultation with our experts at Topnotch Technology today to learn how we can help you implement these powerful tools into your business operations.
Additional Resources
For further reading on document automation, check out some of our additional resources:
OCR + AI for Handwritten Documents: Extracting Data from Scanned PDFs & Handwritten Notes
