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How Astrea works

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Please note that elements related to the product, including documentation are likely to change during the beta test period.

Core elements​

Astrea is designed to be deployed on a per-project basis, as such, its important to understand how these work together when developing the initial configuration during project start-up

Project​

A project is the overarching structure that contains all of the document types for that specific project, it also defines the configuration file that stores all of the document types, extraction and validation fields and reporting data within it.

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The project configuration files are json file format and can be copied and re-used as a basis for other projects.

There will be further updates to enable this in via the GUI in future versions of the module.

Document Type​

A Document Type is the container that holds all of the the extraction and validation fields for that specific document type. Depending on the type of the project, this could be a few document types for a small nubmer of documents or a higher number from multiple vendors of the same type and or multiple configurations of those types. For example:

  • Project A
    • Design Drawings
    • Shop Drawings
    • Submittals

This project may have three document types

  • Project B
    • Design Drawings
      • Vendor A
      • Vendor B
      • Vendor C
    • Shop Drawings
      • Vendor A
      • Vendor B
      • Vendor C
    • Submittals
      • Vendor A
      • Vendor B
      • Vendor C

Depending on the complexity and variety in your project, you can define the document types you need to contain the extraction and validation fields.

Extraction and Validation Fields​

Each document type will contain a number of extraction and validation fields, these fields define two things:

  • Extraction Location: where in the PDF the data you want to extract and validate is stored.
  • Validation Type: what kind of validation is being done against the data once its extracted.

Currently we support the following validation types:

  • Fixed
  • Regular Expression
  • Field (cross-reference another field)
  • Filename
  • Excel/CSV/JSON comparison
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  • For more information on what exactly these validators do and how to use them, please read the validator types section for more detail.
  • More validation types and integrations will be developed through beta and initial launch phases.

Once the extract and validation fields are set up, the report template is now ready to use and checks can be done prior to deliveries or milestone gates in projects.

Reports and Data​

When the document type report runs, it steps through the following process:

  • Extract data from each PDF
  • Validate the data against the rules setup
  • Determine pass/fails for each
  • Provide a detailed report
  • Provide a full table export of the data (excel/csv)
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Basic analytics will be added for projects/programs in future releases.