Platform
Concepts, agent design, plans, and security.
Use the Platform guides for task-specific workflows:
- Projects and Documents
- Dimensions and Row Shape
- Using Navi
- Working with Results
- Derived Agents
- Output Schema
- Testing and Evaluating Agents
- Apps and Navi Apps
Table of contents
Core concepts
Projects
A project is a workspace containing related documents and extraction agents. Each project has:
- A collection of uploaded documents
- Extraction agents configured for that project
- Dimensions that categorise extracted data
- Results views showing all extracted information
- Navi, the AI assistant for interacting with the data
Scope one project per subject area (e.g. “Q4 leases”, “2024 expense receipts”).
Projects can start blank, from a template, or as a duplicate. A duplicate always keeps agents, dimensions, project settings, and the output schema. Documents and results are included in the duplicate only when selected.
Documents
Documents are the source files you upload. Supported formats:
- PDF — most common; best results with text-based PDFs
- Microsoft Word (
.docx,.doc) - Microsoft Excel (
.xlsx) - PowerPoint (
.pptx,.ppt) - Images (PNG, JPG, JPEG) — text is extracted automatically
- Email (
.eml) — the message body and headers are parsed, and supported attachments become separate project documents - Additional file types — enterprise customers can enable more file types; email support@parsewise.ai.
Parsewise parses each document on upload. Status values:
- Pending — waiting to be processed
- Processed — ready for extraction
- Error — something went wrong; re-upload or contact support
Extraction agents
Agents are AI-powered extractors that find specific information in your documents. Each agent:
- Has a name describing what it extracts (e.g. “Annual rent (USD)”).
- Has extraction instructions defining exactly what to look for.
- Has a value type —
stringornumber. - Has a unit (if
number): e.g.$,%,km,kg,days. - Has optional resolution instructions for combining or choosing from
multiple extracted values. Defaults:
- For numbers: select the most relevant value, preferring higher precision and more common values.
- For text: combine values into a concise, non-overlapping summary.
- Has optional inconsistency instructions to control when values are flagged as contradictory.
- Can have dimensions to segment extractions (e.g. by Company, by Year).
- Runs when you launch the project’s extraction pipeline.
A derived agent computes from other agents’ resolved results instead of reading the documents. See Derived Agents.
Dimensions
Dimensions are categories that slice extracted data into meaningful groups. Examples:
- Company —
Acme Corp,Global Industries - Year —
2023,2024 - Quarter —
Q1,Q2,Q3,Q4 - Document — a system dimension that creates one result per source file
- Tag dimensions — system dimensions synchronized with document tags
Dimensions can be static (predefined values the agent looks for) or dynamic (values discovered automatically during extraction). Custom, Document, and tag dimensions are attached per agent. See Dimensions and Row Shape.
Extractions and results
An extraction is a single value pulled from a document by an agent, with a link to the source page. Multiple extractions across documents are then consolidated by the resolver into a final result — one canonical value per dimension combination, with citations back to every contributing source.
Output Schema
An Output Schema optionally turns project results into a chosen JSON shape. The JSON Schema defines fields, objects, and arrays; its mapping connects those positions to named agents and dimensions. You can edit both, preview existing results live, and save them together.
See Output Schema for the generated first draft, dimension arrays, mapping choices, and save behavior.
System dimensions and project modes
Attach the system Document dimension to an agent when it should produce one result per file. Attach a tag dimension when document metadata should define the groups. Use Manage Dimensions on the Agents page to apply either one across current and future agents.
The project-creation API also exposes per_document_mode and
per_tag_mode as mutually exclusive initial configurations. Changing a
project’s row shape later clears existing results; the API does not
support flipping those flags on an existing project. See
Dimensions and Row Shape and the
API FAQ.
Project Context
Project Context is global background information that applies across your entire project. Open the Project Context menu on the Documents or Agents page. It has four configurable fields:
- Project Context (general) — document type, language, currency, date formats, numbering conventions, domain abbreviations.
- Text Extraction Instructions — translation preferences, image handling, formatting preservation, technical terms.
- Document Summary Instructions — focus areas, key information to include, structure preferences.
- Agent Context — instructions applied during entity extraction, resolution, and inconsistency checking. Useful for aliases and domain-specific interpretation rules.
You can copy all project context as JSON and paste it into another project for easy sharing.
Web search on agents
Agents can optionally run targeted web searches after extracting from
your documents — useful for public data like credit ratings, sanctions
lists, filings, benchmarks, and exchange rates. Off by default. See
enable_web_search below for details.
Navi
Navi is the in-app AI assistant. It can:
- Answer questions about documents with inline citations.
- Query extracted data (“show me all revenue values for 2024”).
- Create and update agents from natural-language descriptions.
- Run Python for calculations over extracted data.
- Search the web when enabled.
It can also investigate extraction decisions and create project-specific interfaces. See Using Navi and Apps and Navi Apps.
Evaluation
Evaluation agents are derived agents that score business criteria over other agents’ results. When the Evaluation Engine is enabled, their scores and justifications appear in the Evaluation app. See Testing and Evaluating Agents.
Agent design best practices
Naming agents
Agent names appear everywhere — in results columns, citations, Navi answers — so treat them like column headers in a spreadsheet.
- Use a short noun phrase describing the value, not the question.
Prefer
Counterparty nameoverWho is the counterparty?; preferNotice period (days)overHow many days is the notice period?. - Include units or format hints when they disambiguate.
Start date (ISO 8601),Purchase price (USD),Tenure (months). - Keep it under ~40 characters so it renders cleanly in table headers.
- Avoid project-specific jargon that a new teammate wouldn’t recognise — the agent often outlives the reason it was created.
- One concept per agent. If the name needs “and”, split it into two agents so each value has its own column and its own citations.
Writing good extraction tasks
The extraction task is the prompt the agent uses to find and normalise a value on each page.
- Describe the value first, then where to find it. “The effective date of the agreement, typically in the preamble or on the signature page” beats “Look at the first page”.
- Specify the output format explicitly. Dates as ISO 8601, currencies
as ISO 4217 codes, amounts as numbers without thousands separators,
booleans as
true/false. - Pick the right
value_type. Usestringfor text (including dates, booleans, codes, names); usenumberfor values you’ll aggregate or compare, paired with aunit. - Call out what not to extract. “Ignore illustrative examples in appendices”, “Do not extract dates from the document metadata”.
- Give disambiguation rules. “If multiple effective dates are present, prefer the one in the signature block over the preamble.”
- Prefer citations-first reasoning. “Return the clause verbatim in the citation, then normalise” pushes the agent to ground its answer.
Iterating on agents
Agent design is an empirical loop:
- Start narrow. Write the minimal extraction task against one well-understood document.
- Read every citation, not just the values. A citation tells you whether the agent found the right span — the value can look right for the wrong reason.
- Tighten the task for the specific failure mode. Avoid generic “be accurate” wording; describe the concrete distinction the agent missed.
- Expand to the full set once stable, and stop when iteration stops changing results.
How many values an agent produces
By default, an agent produces one value per project, aggregating evidence across every document. That’s right for “single answer” fields (a single counterparty name, a single effective date).
To get more than one value, attach a dimension:
- Custom dimensions — one value per instance (e.g. per clause, per party, per region).
- System
Documentdimension — one value per uploaded document, attached to the agents that should report per file. - System tag dimensions — one value per document tag value.
Rules of thumb:
- No dimension when the whole project contributes to one answer.
- Custom dimension when the value repeats per entity inside the documents.
Documentdimension when each document is an independent subject.- Tag dimension when document metadata already defines the grouping.
- Keep dimensions stable across agents that describe the same underlying entity, so their results join cleanly.
Per-agent capability flags
Two optional booleans on the agent payload change how extraction runs.
Both default to false. Turn them on per agent only when you need them
— they cost extra latency (and, for web search, external API usage).
enable_web_search
- What it does. After extracting from documents, the agent runs targeted web searches to supplement document-derived values with public web data. Web sources come back as citations alongside document citations.
- When to turn it on. The value exists partly outside your documents — credit ratings, sanctions list status, public filings, benchmarks, exchange rates.
- When to leave it off. The value exists entirely inside your uploaded documents, or the data is private and wouldn’t appear publicly.
- Cost / latency. Adds a
web_searchpipeline stage and external API calls; run time per agent is materially longer.
enable_complex_calculations_in_resolution
- What it does. Enables a Python-based resolver stage that can combine per-document extractions using arbitrary arithmetic (weighted averages, conditional sums, growth rates) instead of the default “pick the most relevant value” resolver.
- When to turn it on. Your agent needs to aggregate across documents — totals, averages, weighted blends, year-over-year deltas.
- When to leave it off. You want a single canonical value per cell and the default resolver’s heuristics are fine.
- Cost / latency. Adds a resolution-stage compute step per result.
Both flags are destructive — flipping either on or off clears the agent’s existing extractions, so the next launch re-extracts that agent across every document.
When to launch
Launching consumes compute and time, so batch changes intentionally:
- Re-launch after any agent edit and after any document upload.
- Prove new agents on a small project first — launches are project-scoped.
Plans
- Free / pay as you go ($0/month) — starts with a $50 credit grant. Buy more credits when you need additional parsing or extraction capacity.
- Enterprise (custom pricing) — custom credit allocation, additional file types, custom integrations, API access, SSO, dedicated support, and custom security/compliance options.
API access is an entitlement the Parsewise team turns on per organisation. Enterprise customers typically have it enabled; the Free plan doesn’t include API access by default.
To upgrade or discuss Enterprise options, email sales@parsewise.ai.
Security & compliance
Parsewise takes data protection seriously:
- Encryption at rest and in transit
- Role-based access controls
- SSO support on Enterprise plans
- Custom data residency and compliance options for Enterprise
Security certifications, trust center documentation, and compliance artefacts (NDAs, DPAs) are available from the Security page in the app. For security questions or to request documentation, email support@parsewise.ai.
Support
- Product questions, bugs, feature requests: support@parsewise.ai
- Larger Excel exports (beyond 10,000 cells per table): support@parsewise.ai
- Enterprise features, API access, custom integrations: sales@parsewise.ai
- In the app: ask Navi how to do something — it has the platform documentation built in.