Classifying documents

Before you begin

To train the document classifier model, you must provide sample documents that are labeled appropriately. Prepare the following files:

Training data

Required. CSV file that is used to train the document classifier machine learning model. The file can contain key data points per column. The data points can vary, but the file must include the following columns:

• Natural language text that you want to classify or label.
• Label or class name that categorizes the idea that is expressed in the document text. You can apply more than one label to a text sample. Separate multiple label values with a semicolon.

Test data

Optional. CSV file that is used to test the document classifier machine learning model after it is trained. If you don't specify a separate file for testing, a subset of the training data content is used for testing purposes.

Target data

Required. CSV file with the data that you want to classify.

All of the CSV files (training, test, and target) must have the same column names. The data in the columns must have the same data types, such as string, number, and so on.

You can use a CSV file that you uploaded at the time that you created the Content Mining project or you can create a new collection.

For more information, see the following topics:

• Adding collections
• Analyzing CSV files

Opening the Content Mining application

If you didn't do so, create the project and add a collection to it. If you already created the project and collection, you can skip this procedure and create the document classifier.

1. In Discovery, create a Content Mining project.

2. Choose to upload data to create the collection. Name your collection, and click Next.

3. Upload the CSV file that contains your training data.

   The training data file must contain the following information at a minimum:

   • A column that contains sample text that you want to classify. For example, the sample text might be a product review.
   • A column that contains a class or category label that is assigned to the sample text.

4. After collection processing is complete, click Launch application to open the Content Mining application.

   The facet details are displayed for the collection.

Creating a document classifier

To create a document classifier, complete the following steps:

1. From the Content Mining application, click the Collections link in the breadcrumb to open the Create a collection page.

   The status of index creation is displayed. Wait for the collection to be fully indexed before you continue with this procedure.

2. To create a classifier, click collection, and then choose classifier from the list.

   

3. Click Create classifier.

4. Name your classifier.

   When you deploy the model as an enrichment later, the enrichment is given a name with the format {classifier name} - {model name}. For example, if your classifier is named Product reviews and the model is named v0.1, then the enrichment name is Product reviews - v0.1.

   Optionally, add a description and identify the language of your training data by selecting it from the Language field.

5. Click Next

6. On the Training data page, select the file that you uploaded previously from the list, and then click Next.

   Alternatively, you can upload a CSV file that contains your training data.

   The Fields page is displayed. It shows details about the fields that are generated from the file that you added. Typically, each column in a CSV file is converted into a field and is assigned a name that is copied from the column header.

7. Deselect any metadata fields that you want to exclude from the data set for your document classifier to learn from, and then click Next.

   Any fields that you include are used as additional features in the classification. All of the fields are selected by default. You might need to scroll horizontally to review all of the fields.

8. On the Classifier page, specify the fields to use for machine learning training and prediction.

   Answer field

   Select the field from your training data file with the classification label. From the earlier example, the Label field is the best choice.

   Predicted field

   The name of the facet that is generated for the predicted class values. By default, the facet name has the syntax <Answer field value>_predicted. For example, Label_predicted.

   Test dataset

   Specifies the data set to use to test the classifier model. By default, the training data CSV file that you uploaded and configured is split into three data sets that are used for training, validation, and test respectively. However, you can optionally specify a separate data set to use for testing the model.

   Train federated model

   Creates more than one model, based on values from a specific field in the data set. For example, if the document has a Product field, you can configure the classifier to create a separate classifier model for each product name value that is specified in the field. By default, the classifier creates one machine learning classifier model.

   You don't need to specify the field that contains the text to be classified. The system detects this field automatically. You can check which field the analyzable text is extracted from and change it or augment it by changing index type of another field. For more information, see Identifying the text field.

   Click Next.

9. If you want to apply an enrichment to the text in your training data, select at least one field from the Target fields list where you want to apply enrichments.

   Typically, you want to choose the field that contains the body of text that you want to classify. From the earlier example, the Feedback field is the best choice.

   Next, select any annotators that you want to apply to enrich the text in the target field or fields, and then click Next.

   The Part of speech annotator is selected by default.

10. On the Confirm page, review your classifier configuration settings. To make changes, use the Back button. Otherwise, click Save.

    An Overview page is displayed.

11. Click New model to create and train your machine learning model.

12. You can optionally change the name of the model and add a description.

    You can change the default ratio values that are specified for the following data sets:

    • Training dataset: Updates the weights of the training model.
    • Validation set: Monitors the accuracy of the training model during training. The accuracy result is used to draw a training loss graph.
    • Test dataset: Calculates the score of the trained model.

13. Click Create.

    It might take several minutes for model training to complete.

Deploying the document classifier model

After the model is trained, deploy the model as an enrichment.

1. Click the overflow menu icon in the Actions column, and then click Deploy model. Specify the name and other details, and then click Deploy.

2. Do one of the following things:

   • To apply the document classifier to a collection in your Content Mining project, see Enriching your collection.

   • To apply the document classifier to a collection in a different project, complete the following steps:

     1. In Discovery, create or open the collection that has the documents that you want to classify.

        The data in the collection where you apply the enrichment must have the same fields as the collection that you used to train the model.

     2. In the Enrichments tab, locate your classifier in the Name column. From the Fields to enrich field, choose the same text field that was used to train the model. (This field is determined by the system and is indexed as the Analyzable text content field. For more information, see Identifying the text field.)

     3. Click Apply changes and reprocess.

Results of classification

After the enrichment is applied to a collection, a facet is generated that you can use to find the predicted classes. In this example, the predicted field is named label_answer_predicted.

Use the generated facet to filter documents by classification and analyze subsets of documents. Doing so helps you to find patterns and discover other insights. You can export these target documents to share with team members or to analyze further. For more information, see Exporting data.

When the document classifier classifies a document, it stores the classification in the document_level_enrichment.classes.class_name field.

For example, the following JSON excerpt shows a document that was classified with the package_container class.