Imagine you have a massive collection of files like drawings, contracts, reports, or anything else.
Each of these files contains valuable information, but to make that information findable and useful, you need metadata.
You’ll want details like the document title, project name, delivery date, and more to be able to query to find what you need when you need it.
Like what you see? Want to see more? I invite you to chat with my team at Shinydocs.
Historically, there were only two ways to extract and set up this metadata:
- Manual Entry: Rely on humans to read through each file and type in the relevant details (slow, tedious, and prone to errors).
- Custom Code: Get a developer to write scripts to pull out the data programmatically (can be expensive, slow and require ongoing maintenance).
But, now a new alternative has arrived that enables you to easily fill in your missing metadata with text prompts like you would use with ChatGPT!
How It Works
Instead of writing complex code or burdening users with manual data entry, you can set up AI-driven prompts to extract metadata automatically.
It's similar to giving instructions to a human, but done faster and with fewer errors.
Here are some examples of AI prompts in action:
Prompt 1: Extracting a Document Title
"The title of the drawing is immediately above the logo. It is usually about 10 words long or less. If you find it, return it as a single word: TITLE."
Prompt 2: Extracting Scale Information
"Scale is usually a number or a text like 'As Noted' and appears right after the revision number. Return the scale value as a phrase or single word."
Instead of coding or manual input, you can create a series of prompts like these, apply them to your files, and automatically generate metadata to make your documents searchable, organized, and reportable in ways that were never this easy before.
I think back to my conversation with David McComb in August of 2021 and it makes me wish I knew then what I know now about artificial intelligence and metadata!
You Can Start Doing This Right Now
By leveraging AI, you’re not just speeding up the process, you’re eliminating the need for manual entry and custom development.
Set up the right prompts once, and let AI handle the rest.
If you’d like to learn more, I invite you to chat with my team.
Comments