This guide covers the steps that apply to all ALK workflows, except the Reconciliation Workflow.
<aside> đź’ˇ
Use this guide to understand the standard steps for running any ALK workflow, including how to access a workflow, create sessions, upload documents, run processing, review results, and export outputs.
</aside>
Ensure you have the following ready before you begin:
Go to app.alk.work and sign in with your credentials.
On the home page, select the Workflows tab on the navigation bar at the top.
On the workflow page, scroll until you see Explore. Select the workflow you want to run. If you do not see it, click “See all”, then select the workflow.
After selecting a workflow, you will see three steps for setting up your workflow:
Step 1: Overview. This shows the workflow name, what ALK can do, the description or instruction provided to ALK, and the workflow use cases. Feel free to edit the workflow name and instructions as needed. If you are satisfied with the default template name and instructions, click Continue. If you make any changes, Continue is replaced by Reset and AI Assist. Click AI Assist to continue to the fields and allow ALK to generate the necessary fields based on your updated instructions. Click Reset if you want to revert to the default template.
If you selected AI Assist, you will see the prompt below asking you to confirm whether you want to replace the default fields with the newly generated ones from ALK based on your updated instructions.
Step 2: Fields. Here you will see the fields from either the default template or those newly generated from your updated instructions. There are five columns to note: field, task type, field type, dependency, and instructions.
The field column contains the set of fields ALK generates based on your instructions, such as invoice number, vendor name, and other key information you typically review for the workflow you are running.
For each field, you will see the task type. Some fields are Extraction, where ALK pulls information directly from the document. Others may be Classification, Validation, Reasoning, Summarization, or even Generate, depending on what you need.
You can also choose the field type, such as text, number, or date. For example, if you want ALK to extract when an invoice was created, set the field type to date.
Another powerful column is dependencies. For later fields, you can tell ALK which earlier fields to consider before answering, which helps keep outputs consistent across the entire screening.
In the instructions column, you can fine-tune exactly what ALK should look for. For example, you might specify: “Extract the vendor's tax identification number (TIN, EIN, VAT number, or equivalent).” These kinds of instructions help prevent common extraction mistakes and keep your results clean.
You can also decide to add more fields where necessary.
Step 3: Stages. Stages are the named stops in your workflow. They help you structure review and routing. They are essentially categories. You can create a stage that requires reviewer approval before moving forward.
Tip: To route properly to a stage, ensure you have a Recommendation, Decision, or Summary field set up. You can go back and change this field to a Single Select or Multi select field type, then route it to one or more stages. Also ensure the instruction given to ALK clearly states what to return and where to route it. For example, a stage instruction in this case could be