Streamlining Data Extraction with Azure Form Recognizer: An Overview

An AI-powered tool called Azure Form Recognizer can automatically extract structured data from a variety of documents, including forms, invoices, and receipts. The manual data entry process, which can be time-consuming and prone to human error, can be automated with the help of this tool. We'll walk you through using Azure Form Recognizer step-by-step in this article.

Azure Form Recognizer

Step 1: Create an Azure Form Recognizer Resource.

Making an Azure resource for Azure Form Recognizer is the first step in using it. You must sign into your Azure portal account and choose "Create a resource" from the left-hand menu in order to create a resource. Then, use the search bar to look for "Form Recognizer" and choose it from the list of results. The necessary information, including subscription, resource group, location, and more, will be requested of you.

Azure Form Recognizer

Step 2: You are now prepared to start uploading your form data after creating your Azure Form Recognizer resource. PDF, JPEG, PNG, and TIFF are just a few file types Azure Form Recognizer supports. Your forms can be uploaded programmatically using the Form Recognizer REST API, the Azure portal, or Azure Storage Explorer.

Azure Form Recognizer

Step 3: The following step is to train your model after uploading your data. In order for Azure Form Recognizer to learn to recognise important data fields, you must label your form data. Using the Azure portal, a labelling tool like Labelbox, or programmatically supplying a labelled dataset are all options for labelling your data. After labelling your data, choose "Train a model" from the Azure portal's menu and follow the on-screen instructions to train your model.

Azure Form Recognizer

Step 4:  You can now analyse your form data after training your model. The analysis options offered by Azure Form Recognizer include key-value matching, table extraction, and handwriting recognition. You can analyse your forms programmatically through the Azure portal, the Form Recognizer REST API, or by integrating it with other Azure services like Logic Apps.

Step 5: You can review the results of your form analysis in the Azure portal or export them in a number of different file types, such as CSV, JSON, and Excel. You can integrate your findings with other Azure services like Power BI or Azure Search for additional analysis.

Tips for Improving Accuracy

  • Make sure your form data is clean and legible.
  • Provide a diverse dataset of forms to train your model on.
  • Use the labelling tool to label your data accurately.
  • Monitor your model's performance and retrain it as necessary.

Conclusion

Azure Form Recognizer is an efficient and powerful tool for automating data entry processes. With its AI-powered analysis capabilities, businesses can save time and resources while improving data accuracy. Following these steps and tips for improving accuracy, you can start with Azure Form Recognizer and streamline your data processing workflows today.