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The Match & Map formatter compares an extracted value against a list of values you provide, and replaces it with the value you have mapped it to. Use it to normalize messy values — supplier names, product codes, departments — or to restrict a field to a known set of values. It is useful in two ways:
  • Match and map — the document says coca cola, your system needs The Coca-Cola Company.
  • Match only — you only want to accept values that exist in your list, and leave them as they are.
Both are configured with the same mapping, described below.

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Mapping format

A mapping is a JSON array of objects. Each object has a from and an optional to:
  • from is the value to look for in the document. Rows without a from are ignored.
  • to is the value the field is set to when the row matches. It is optional — leave it out and the field keeps the from value, which is how you build a match-only list:
Several rows may point at the same to, as in the first example — that is how you fold many spellings into one canonical value. You can also mix mapped and unmapped rows in the same list.

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Providing the mapping

Edit the From and To columns directly in the formatter. This is the simplest option when the list is short and changes rarely.

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Connecting a URL

When you connect a URL, Cradl AI calls your endpoint each time a document is processed and uses the response as the mapping. This keeps the list in sync with your own system — a supplier register or product catalogue — without re-importing anything. In Connect with URL you set the endpoint and choose GET or POST. While a URL is connected the mapping table is read-only, since the endpoint is the source of truth.

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Expected response

Your endpoint must answer with a success status and a JSON body that is the mapping array itself — the same format as above, with nothing wrapped around it.
A wrapped response does not work. The body must be the array, not an object containing it:
Neither does an object keyed by value:
You can check your endpoint with:
The output should start with [ and the first object should have a from key.
The endpoint is called on every document, so it needs to be publicly reachable and reasonably fast. The dialog takes a URL and an HTTP method only, so the endpoint cannot require custom authentication headers. If the endpoint returns an error status, or something that is not a mapping array, the field is left empty and the formatter reports an error — which sends the document to human review rather than silently writing a wrong value.

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Fuzzy matching

By default a value must match a from exactly. Turn on fuzzy matching to also accept small differences, measured as Levenshtein distance — the number of single-character edits needed to turn one string into the other.
  • Threshold — how many edits are allowed. 0 means exact match. Enabling fuzzy matching in the app starts at 1, and you can raise it.
  • Ignore case and locale — when on, differences in capitalization and accents cost nothing: Coca Cola and COCA COLA are both distance 0 from coca cola, and Nestlé is distance 0 from nestle.
With a threshold of 1 and case differences ignored, a from of foo matches foo, Foo, fo and foo6, but not foobar.
Raise the threshold carefully. A high threshold on short values makes unrelated entries match — with a threshold of 3, cat matches almost any three-letter word.

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What the formatter does

The formatter reads the extracted value, or the raw value if the field has not been formatted yet, and then: An error leaves the field empty and prevents the document from being automated, so it goes to human review. A warning does not block automation — it just records that the match was ambiguous, which usually means the mapping has near-duplicate from values worth cleaning up.