Automating Document Processing with SAP Document Information Extraction (DOX)

Is your organization missing out on the benefits of EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) integration? Or maybe implementing EDI across all your trading partners just isn’t feasible—too complex, too costly, or simply not scalable?  

If you’ve been grappling with these challenges, you’re not alone. Many businesses find themselves stuck between outdated manual processes and rigid, expensive EDI solutions.  

But what if there were a more flexible, accessible alternative? That’s where DOX comes in. 

We’ve just completed an exciting implementation that brings together the power of SAP Document Information Extraction (DOX), SAP Integration Suite, and SAP Alert Notification Service (ANS) for BTP to automate Sales Orders processing in SAP.  What does the solution look like?  

1. SAP DOX  

   Performs optical character recognition (OCR) on the document submitted, and uses AI to extract any additional fields not found in the machine-readable data

   Stores the information extracted from the document in a JSON file, which you can then query via API 
   

2. SAP Integration Suite maps and routes the structured data 

   Retrieves the DOX confirmed documents which are ready for processing 

   Maps the extracted information to an IDoc type ORDERS05, to trigger sales order creation in SAP 

3 .  SAP ANS  

Sends alerts to designated teams, via the desired channel (i.e. email, Microsoft teams, Slack etc) if documents remain stuck or unhandled beyond a defined timeframe. 

This alerting mechanism ensures that no sales order slips through the cracks 

So, what exactly does SAP DOX bring to the table? 

SAP's Document Information Extraction tackles several key challenges that organizations face when processing business documents:  1)  Manual Data Entry & High Volume 

1. DOX automates the extraction of data from invoices, purchase orders, payment advices, business cards, and more — dramatically reducing manual input and speeding up processing times when handling large batches of documents  

2. You can either use predefined SAP schemas for data extraction or define custom schemas for your own custom document types.
   

See below the list document types for which SAP provides pretrained machine learning models that allow out-of-the-box (without prior training) extraction of information based on default extractors, which are managed directly by SAP. 

2) Error Reduction & Improved Accuracy 

1. By combining OCR with machine learning and AI, DOX ensures higher precision in capturing structured and tabular data — lowering risks of transcription errors that are common in manual entry  

2. DOX assigns an Extraction Confidence Score—such as High, Medium, or Low—which you can use to guide your process workflow. For example, documents with a High score can be automatically confirmed, while those with Medium or Low scores should be manually reviewed and data corrected. 

3. DOX User Interface allows you to view and edit extraction results before confirming the document and thus, marking it as ready for further processing.   

3) Support for Diverse Formats & Scalability  It handles multiple document formats (PDFs, JPEGs, PNGs, etc.) and scales across various teams or countries, making it suitable for both mid-sized firms and large enterprises   4) Enriched Data  DOX enriches extracted data by to adding information to the document that isn't explicitly present but is inferred from the document's content combined with external data sources (typically master data records, such as supplier/customer master data or material master data).  For example, if the customer ID isn’t directly listed on the customer Purchase Order, it can be determined by matching the address information on the order with the corresponding master data you have loaded from SAP.  5) Seamless Integration 

-It's built into the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) ecosystem -It’s available in the following environments: 

-Cloud Foundry environment  -Kyma environment 

6) Continuous Learning & Adaptability  DOX learns over time and adapts to new document layouts, improving accuracy with every correction.  In Conclusion  DOX helps with the pain points of manual document handling, error-driven delays and format chaos. By automatically extracting, validating, and enriching document data — while seamlessly integrating into existing workflows — SAP enables organizations to scale operations, improve data quality, and allocate resources to strategic initiatives. 

⚠️ Warning: While the service aims for high accuracy and quality, extraction results may contain errors. This applies to both standard and custom document types, and to all extraction methods—including machine learning models, generative AI, and templates. 

Want to know more? Feel free to contact us

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