📗 Regular vs Meta Fields. Field Selection Rules

Parsio allows you to extract text data from emails and documents. In some cases, you may also want to extract metadata, such as the sender’s email address or the email received date and time.

Regular fields (template-based parser only)

They are used to extract data directly from the document content by highlighting text in a template. If you’re new to templates, see: Create your first template.

Below are some advanced details about how regular fields work.

Field creation rules

When adding regular fields, the following restrictions apply:

1. Chained fields are not allowed. You must leave at least one character between two fields. For example, two fields cannot touch each other directly.

2. A field cannot include another field. Continuing the previous example, you cannot extract support@example.com as one field and support as another.

Field scope and reuse

Regular fields are created at the mailbox level.
This means that when you add a new field, it becomes available in all templates within the same mailbox.

• If a field is not used in a template, it is marked as unused

• Unused fields are exported with an empty value

Template priority

When multiple templates exist in the same mailbox, Parsio prioritizes them based on the number of fields:

• A template with more fields has a higher priority

• If parsing fails with the highest-priority template, Parsio tries the next one

Example:

• Template A → 3 fields

• Template B → 5 fields

Parsio will try Template B first, then fall back to Template A if needed.

Learn more about regular fields

• Field mask

• Field types, data formatting, and normalization

Meta fields

Meta fields are used to extract generic information about emails or documents, rather than content from the document body.

Examples include:

• Sender email address

• Received date and time

• File name or document metadata

Unlike regular fields, meta fields are created at the mailbox level and apply to all documents in the mailbox, regardless of the parser type.

How to add meta fields

• For all mailbox types: Go to the mailbox Fields page.

• For template-based parsers only: You can also add meta fields from the Meta tab in the Template editor.