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How to create a new guideline?

Processing guidelines define custom instructions for specific document types, specifying which data fields to extract and modify (company name, date, liquidator, etc.).

Written by Magali @Nora
Updated over 5 months ago

Guidelines enable you to provide Nora with instructions (and save them) so that the way a document has to be edited is very clear and standardised. Every time you have to edit a document A in a standardised way into a document B, you can use the Smart Processing Guidelines to perform these edits for you.


Step-by-step instructions

  1. Navigate to Guidelines management tab

  2. Click "New Guideline" or "+" button

  3. Name guideline descriptivel

  4. Draft Guidelines: there are two options here:

    1. Manual: You describe in natural language what edits should happen from your input document towards your output document. Describe these steps in the most details possible so that the tool can understand all possibilities and makes these edits accordingly. Example: Explain what to extract (e.g., "Legal name of the liquidated company as it appears in the deed heading")

    2. With AI: Instead of drafting guidelines manually, let AI do the job for you! Go back into your files, and find a relevant example of a set of Input & Output documents from an instance where you performed the edits on the input document yourself to generate the output document. Upload these documents in the "Input" and "Output" tabs, and AI will generate guidelines for you. You can directly see them within the text box, and can make as many edits as you'd like before validating/saving them.

  5. Click "Save Guideline"

  6. Guideline immediately available in processing dropdown for all workspace members

Practical example


​Senior notary Marc Dubois creates an extraction template for company creation deeds processed by his office. He clicks "New Guideline", names it "Company Creation Extracts", and sets clear instructions for Nora to process and generate extracts for publication in the future. He uploads a sample deed and extract as an example, saves the guideline. Now all team members in his office can process company creation extracts using this consistent template.
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Notes and limitations

  • Workspace sharing: Guidelines created by one user are available to entire workspace

  • No approval workflow: Guidelines are immediately active after creation - no review/approval required

  • Field limit: No documented hard limit, but keep to 15-20 fields for best performance

  • Example document improves accuracy: Providing example increases accuracy by 20-30% - highly recommended

  • No versioning: Editing guideline overwrites previous version - no version history

  • Description is critical: Detailed descriptions significantly improve extraction accuracy
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FAQ


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Q: Can I share guidelines with my team or are they personal?


A: Guidelines are automatically shared workspace-wide. When you create a guideline, all team members with access to Smart Processing can use it immediately. This ensures consistency across your office - everyone extracts the same data fields in the same format from similar documents. There are no personal/private guidelines.



​Q: Can I edit a guideline after creation if I realize I need additional fields?


A: Yes, click the guideline in the list and select "Edit". Note that editing overwrites the guideline with no version history, so document changes may affect previously processed documents' consistency.
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