What Azure NLP tool is best suited to parse unstructured text data into a defined format ?

Cyril Carraz 31

I built a model with Azure Form Recognizer that takes a document and returns fields and tabular-like data.

Now I need to do the same thing with text data. I need to be able to define the custom fields I need to extract, some of those fields might be tables with a dynamic number of rows (but defined columns).

Preferably, I'd like to receive a JSON as a result.

Which tool is best suited for this task ?

YutongTie-MSFT 48,586 Reputation points

2023-03-10T03:29:32.24+00:00

Cyril Carraz Thanks for reaching out to us. It seems you want to extract defined fields from the tabular? Is that correct? Could you please give us more details about your scenario?
Cyril Carraz 31 Reputation points

2023-03-10T08:37:00.9366667+00:00
Hello, this is a random text I generated as an example :

The patient JD, a 52-year-old male from the United States, experienced a skin rash and itching that resolved after stopping azithromycin on 05/10/2022. He later developed shortness of breath, chest pain, and coughing on 06/15/2022, which is still ongoing. He was found to have elevated liver enzymes on 05/05/2022, while a positive ANA (1:320) was detected on 05/15/2022. The suspect drugs are azithromycin and lisinopril.

From this text, I want the tool to give me the following field values :

Initials of the patient

Country

Age

Sex

Multiple Reactions (each with the outcome, start date and end date) (as tabular data)

Tests done (With dates, results and normal low/high range) (as tabular data)

Suspect drugs (With doses, routes of administration and start/end date) (as tabular data)
Cyril Carraz 31 Reputation points

2023-03-14T08:26:20.8766667+00:00

Is there really no tool for this is Azure ?
YutongTie-MSFT 48,586 Reputation points

2023-03-14T08:37:55.8033333+00:00

Hello @Cyril Carraz Sorry for the delay due to the weekend. I think Azure Language Service will be a good way to do so.

I will suggest you to consider Named Entity Recognition (NER) under Azure Language Service - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cognitive-services/language-service/named-entity-recognition/overview

The NER feature can identify and categorize entities in unstructured text. For example: people, places, organizations, and quantities.

If you have more requirements on customization, you can also try Custom NER - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cognitive-services/language-service/custom-named-entity-recognition/overview

Since you have already mentioned a lot of personal information elements, you may also want to take a look at Personally Identifiable Information (PII) detection in Azure Cognitive Service for Language - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cognitive-services/language-service/personally-identifiable-information/overview

The PII detection feature can identify, categorize, and redact sensitive information in unstructured text. For example: phone numbers, email addresses, and forms of identification.

They are all features under Azure Language Service, I will high recommend you to try it in the Language Studio, it is very intuitive.

Start from here - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cognitive-services/language-service/language-studio

I hope this helps.

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What Azure NLP tool is best suited to parse unstructured text data into a defined format ?