- Introduction
- Setting up your account
- Balance
- Clusters
- Concept drift
- Coverage
- Datasets
- General fields
- Labels (predictions, confidence levels, label hierarchy, and label sentiment)
- Models
- Streams
- Model Rating
- Projects
- Precision
- Recall
- Annotated and unannotated messages
- Extraction Fields
- Sources
- Taxonomies
- Training
- True and false positive and negative predictions
- Validation
- Messages
- Access Control and Administration
- Manage sources and datasets
- Understanding the data structure and permissions
- Creating or deleting a data source in the GUI
- Uploading a CSV file into a source
- Preparing data for .CSV upload
- Creating a dataset
- Multilingual sources and datasets
- Enabling sentiment on a dataset
- Amending dataset settings
- Deleting a message
- Deleting a dataset
- Exporting a dataset
- Using Exchange integrations
- Model training and maintenance
- Understanding labels, general fields, and metadata
- Label hierarchy and best practices
- Comparing analytics and automation use cases
- Turning your objectives into labels
- Overview of the model training process
- Generative Annotation
- Dastaset status
- Model training and annotating best practice
- Training with label sentiment analysis enabled
- Training chat and calls data
- Understanding data requirements
- Train
- Introduction to Refine
- Precision and recall explained
- Precision and Recall
- How validation works
- Understanding and improving model performance
- Reasons for label low average precision
- Training using Check label and Missed label
- Training using Teach label (Refine)
- Training using Search (Refine)
- Understanding and increasing coverage
- Improving Balance and using Rebalance
- When to stop training your model
- Using general fields
- Generative extraction
- Using analytics and monitoring
- Automations and Communications Mining™
- Developer
- Exchange Integration with Azure service user
- Exchange Integration with Azure Application Authentication
- Exchange Integration with Azure Application Authentication and Graph
- Fetching data for Tableau with Python
- Elasticsearch integration
- Self-hosted Exchange integration
- UiPath® Automation Framework
- UiPath® Marketplace activities
- UiPath® official activities
- How machines learn to understand words: a guide to embeddings in NLP
- Prompt-based learning with Transformers
- Efficient Transformers II: knowledge distillation & fine-tuning
- Efficient Transformers I: attention mechanisms
- Deep hierarchical unsupervised intent modelling: getting value without training data
- Fixing annotating bias with Communications Mining™
- Active learning: better ML models in less time
- It's all in the numbers - assessing model performance with metrics
- Why model validation is important
- Comparing Communications Mining™ and Google AutoML for conversational data intelligence
- Licensing
- FAQs and more

Communications Mining user guide
Configuring Fields
- At any point during the model training process, you can set up a new extraction, modify your schema, or add any additional fields to your existing schema in Explore.
- By setting up your
extractions in Explore, you can:
- base your fields off data from your messages.
- add new fields to extractions as you see them.
- At any point during the model training process, you can set up a new extraction, modify your schema, or add any additional fields to your existing schema in Settings.
- If you know what fields you want to extract upfront, set up your extractions in bulk, in Settings.
To set up your extractions, set up your fields that require a name and a field type. It is recommended to do this at the lowest child-level label.
Be descriptive and concise. Choose field names that accurately describe the data they represent. Aim for a balance between brevity and clarity. Give your field an accurate and descriptive name, as it gives the model the necessary context on the role of the field.
For example, for an address change, if you only want to extract a new address, it is helpful to have configured field names called: new street address, new town, new postcode, and new city.
Avoid ambiguous field names. Ensure that field names are unambiguous and not easily confused with other fields or concepts in your project. For example, instead of using Value, use a more specific name like Sales Amount or Account Balance.
You can have extraction fields with the same field type in, but not for multiple general fields. To address this for general fields, create another field type with the same settings to address this.
A Field Name is used to prompt the model. If your extractions are not performing as expected, adjust your Field Name to be more specific to your use case. Adjusting the field name may help with performance.
The following field names are just examples, so how you name your fields is use case dependent, and depends on the context of what you are trying to extract.
Use case | Not recommended Field Names | Better performing Field Names |
---|---|---|
As part of an address change request, you want to extract the details of the new address to input into your system downstream. |
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|
As part of a logistics shipping request, you want to identify the total tax breakdown, both the VAT amount, and the VAT rate, on each of your goods to input into SAP. |
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As part of an invoice change request, you want to identify what the old invoice number was and what it needs to be changed to, to cancel the old invoice, and re-issue a new one. |
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|
There are two different types of fields that help facilitate end-to-end automation:
- General fields
- Extraction fields.
It is important to understand the different types of fields available in Communications Mining, and when to use each one.
GENERAL FIELDS | EXTRACTION FIELDS |
---|---|
General fields are fields that you may want to extract, that can be found across multiple
different topics or labels in a dataset.
| Extraction fields are the fields conditioned and created on a specific label. In other words,
it is tied to a specific label that you want to automate.
|
The following table captures the key distinctions between General fields and Extraction fields. Check the differences because two completely different models predict these field kinds.
Field type | Predicted | Reviewed at | Spanless* vs. Spanful* | Overlap spans? | Share field types between fields of same kind | Supported Data Types** |
General Fields | Automatically across dataset | A paragraph level | Only spanful | No | No |
|
Extraction Fields | Only on demand | A message level (in the label context) | Both spanful and spanless | Yes | Yes |
|
*For more details, check Spanful field and Spanless fields.
**For more details on the data types each field supports, check Setting up field types.
In this example, the platform can identify the Extraction fields relevant to facilitating the end-to-end automation of these two labels.
In this example, the platform is not confident enough that a certain label in the taxonomy applies to this message. The platform can still extract certain fields from the message itself. When you set up General fields, the platform can pick up these fields, irrespective of a label prediction.
To set up or modify both your General fields or Extraction fields through the Explore page, apply the following steps:
Make sure that a field type uses the correct data type for each field, since you cannot change the field type without losing annotations. After you change the field type, you can only manually re-annotate the field, which can be time-consuming.
- On a communication containing a label, where you want to define your extraction field in Explore, select Annotate Fields.
- If you set up an extraction field, hover next to the label name in the Field annotations bar on the right, and select Manage fields. If you set up a general field, hover next to General fields and manage your fields there.
- Select New extraction field to add a new extraction field. You can add more than one field.
- Fill in the extraction Field name(s) and field type that you want to extract. You can select an existing field type or create a new one if what you’re trying to extract is not
configured.
- Select Save to save the extraction fields.
To set up or modify both your general fields or extraction fields through the Settings page, apply the following steps:
Make sure that a field type uses the correct data type for each field, since you cannot change the field type without losing annotations. After you change the field type, you can only manually re-annotate the field, which can be time-consuming.
To configure fields via Train as well, follow these steps:
- Go to Settings, then Taxonomy.
- To create an extraction field, go to the Labels and fields tab.
- On the specific label that you want to create an extraction field on, select the dropdown menu. Selecting the dropdown expands the list of all the fields on a given label.
- To add a new extraction field, select Extraction field at the bottom.
- Fill out the Field name, as well as the Extraction field type to configure your new extraction field.
- To create a new general field, go to the General fields tab. Select New field in the top right corner.
- Fill out the Field name and General field type to configure your new General field(s).
- Date
- Exact Text
- Inferred Text
- Monetary Quantity
- Number
The following table details when to use each field type:
Field Types | ||||
Data Type | General Field | Extraction Field | Description | Examples |
String | X | X | Strings can include any characters, such as letters, numbers, and so on.
Strings can also have input values that are explicitly present (spanful) in the message or inferred (spanless). Check out more details about spanful fields. |
|
Date* | X | X | Dates come in varying unstructured formats and use the UiPath® pre-trained
date field.
|
|
Number | X | X | Quantities come in varying unstructured formats and use the UiPath®
pre-trained quantity field to interpret
numbers.
|
|
Monetary Quantity* | X | X | Monetary quantities typically come in varying unstructured formats and use the UiPath ® pre-trained monetary quantity
model.
|
|
Regex | X | | If a specific field always needs to be extracted in a specific format, the rules can be configured with RegEx. For more details, check Building custom regex general fields. |
|
Template | X | | Check the list of supported templates. |
|
Many fields may need to be normalized into a structured data format for downstream processes.
*Within the platform, monetary quantities and dates are general field types that are automatically normalized. For more details on on field normalization, check General fields formatting.
A spanful field is a data point that is explicitly stated in the text, such as a Trade ID, Policy Number.
A spanless field is a data point that might not be explicitly stated in the text but needs to be extracted from the message (i.e., can be inferred from the message). In other words, the span of text you want to extract might not necessarily be present in the message.
When setting up general fields, specify if the input value must be present in the message, or if it can be inferred from the message (i.e. – needs to be extracted exactly as-is from the text), or not.
Some examples of fields that may need to be spanless:
- Values that need to be normalized, such as a date.
- Values that need to be concatenated across different areas in an email.
- Values that are not present anywhere in an email, but are implied through the nature of the email
- Values that span across multiple paragraphs, lines, or columns, that is, that do not appear in a continuous span.
A field type is the initial state of your new field. If you do not have a field type to use, apply the following steps to set up a new field type. You can set up the new field type from the dropdown menu when creating a field, but also on the field type page itself.
Add the broadest field type possible, then fine-tune it to be more specific. Configure the field type as follows:
- Give your field type a name. Check highlight A
in the following image.
Note: The field type name is not used by the model for context the same way that field names are.
- Define whether you are setting up a new field type for an extraction field, or a general field. Check highlight B in the following image.
- When setting up your general fields or extraction
fields, select the specific data type for the
field type. Check highlight C in the following
image.
Note: Depending on whether you set up a new field type or general field for an extraction, your data type that you can configure may vary. Additional configurations are also applicable, depending on the data type that you select.
You can set up a new field type either through the Explore tab, or the Settings tab in the Train tab.
Once the data type has been configured on a field type, you cannot change it. Select the correct data type when creating a field type. If you do not select the correct data, you have to delete the field type and recreate it with the correct data type.
You can set up a new field type for both Extraction fields and General fields through the Settings tab.
To set up a new field type in the Settings tab, follow these steps:
- Navigate to the Settings page.
- Select the Taxonomy tab.
- Select the Field types tab.
- Select New field type.
- Configure your new field type.
To set up a new field type, apply the following steps:
- Under the Explore tab, select Annotate Fields.
- Select the vertical ellipsis next to either the general fields or the extraction fields.
- Select Manage fields.
Note: You can only create a new field type in the respective section of the extraction fields.
- In the Manage fields section, select the field type dropdown menu.
- Select New field type, and set up your field type.
- Overview of setting up extraction fields
- Explore page
- Settings page
- Train page
- General guidance
- Field name best practice
- General vs. extraction fields
- Extraction Fields Example
- General Fields Example
- Setting up fields in Explore
- Setting up fields in Settings
- Setting up field types
- Spanful field
- Spanless field
- Creating a new field type
- Creating a new field type (Settings tab)
- Creating a new field type in Explore