Document AI in an Inquiry

What Document AI adds to an Inquiry

Document AI is how an Inquiry collects a document that is not a government ID, such as a utility bill, a bank statement, or articles of incorporation, and decides what to do with it. The piece you place in the flow is a Document Verification: the user uploads a file, Persona classifies it, extracts the fields you asked for, runs your checks, and returns a result.

Because the decision happens while the user is still in the flow, the flow can act on it. A document that is the wrong type, too old, expired, or missing a required field can send the user straight back to upload a compliant one instead of landing in a review queue days later.

Where you configure it

Everything lives in Inquiries > Templates, inside the Flow Editor for one template.

Getting the pieces into the flow. Insert the Document Verification module, which brings a document capture screen, a Document Verification step, and a pass, retry, or fail branch with it. See Inquiries: Document AI Module. Alternatively, create the template from a starting template that already includes Document Verification: search document on the Choose a template screen.
Tuning what the Verification does. Select the Document Verification in the flow to open its Document Verification Template, where Classifications, Extractions, Verification Checks, and Insights are configured per Document Group. Document Verification: Configuring Documents AI overview is the full walkthrough.

Inserting the module does not finish the job. No document classifications are pre-set, so a new module accepts anything until you tell it what you want.

What you decide while building the flow

Which documents you accept. Classifications are the list, and they are also what the Type Detection check reads, so this is the setting that makes an Inquiry reject the wrong document at all. A flow left with only the General Document Group never fails Type Detection. See Document Verification: Classifications and document types.
Which fields have to be there. An extraction can be marked required, which fails the document when the field is missing, and that failure is what a retry branch acts on. Requiring an address on a proof of address flow is the common case.
What you compare against. An extraction set to Inquiry comparison checks a value on the document against data the Inquiry already holds, such as the name from a Government ID Verification collected on an earlier screen. Ordering matters: the Verification you want to compare with has to run first.
What happens on a failure. A retry keeps the user in the flow and asks again. A fail ends it. Failing checks can also be routed onward for manual review instead of being decided in the flow.
How the file is submitted. Capture Methods control whether a user takes a photo or uploads a file, per device. Accepted file types can be narrowed further in the flow, and the per file and per request limits are in the Document AI FAQ.
What the on-screen copy asks for. Persona’s hosted and embedded UI lets you rewrite the copy on the capture screen, which is where you name the documents you will actually accept. A user who cannot tell which document to send retries for the wrong reason.
Who the document belongs to. Passing an Account Identifier files the collected documents against an Account, so they sit with that person’s Verifications and Reports rather than only on one Inquiry.

Flows people start from

A document on its own, when the document is the whole question.
Government ID Verification, then Selfie Verification, then a document.
Database Verification, falling back to Government ID Verification, Selfie Verification, and a document when it does not clear.

When to reach for it

Reach for Document AI in an Inquiry when the evidence you need is a file a person has to hand over, and you want the flow to accept or re-prompt while they are still there. If you are sending documents to Persona programmatically rather than collecting them from a user, configure a Document Verification template under Verifications > Templates and reference it by template ID instead.

Results appear on the Inquiry’s own detail page as well as under Verifications, so you do not need a separate place to look.

Plans Explained