Azure document Intelligence - Invoice Model stopped returning Date data we rely on

Question

Until very recently, the invoice model returned two fields that are critical to our service's value:

fields.ServiceStartDate

fields.ServiceEndDate

^ These represent the start and end date of the service. This was being extracted perfectly, until today, we noticed the dates weren't coming back at all anymore. We've re-tested with some of the same exact documents that previously were correctly returning these fields and confirmed they're no longer available.

This is a huge issue for our app and represents a big reason why we chose the invoice model / azure in the first place.

Answer 1

Hi @Joe Roddy,

We understand the importance of the ServiceStartDate and ServiceEndDate fields, are currently not being returned, even for documents where they were previously extracted. This may be due to a recent model update or internal change. If these fields are critical, you might consider creating a custom model to ensure consistent extraction.

I tried to repro the issue with the below code and able to extract ServiceStartDate and ServiceEndDate fields:

from azure.core.credentials import AzureKeyCredential
from azure.ai.documentintelligence import DocumentIntelligenceClient
from azure.ai.documentintelligence.models import AnalyzeDocumentRequest

# Replace with your values
endpoint = "YOUR_ENDPOINT"
key = "YOUR_KEY"

# Image URL
form_url = "XXXXXX/invoice_sample.jpg"

# Create client
client = DocumentIntelligenceClient(endpoint=endpoint, credential=AzureKeyCredential(key))

# Create request object and call with correct argument position
request = AnalyzeDocumentRequest(url_source=form_url)
poller = client.begin_analyze_document("prebuilt-invoice", request)

# Get result
result = poller.result()

# Display results
# Assuming doc is a Document object from the analysis result
for idx, doc in enumerate(result.documents):
    print(f"\n-------- Recognizing invoice #{idx + 1} --------")
    
    # Extract and print main fields with their confidence values
    fields_to_print = [
        "VendorName", "VendorAddress", "VendorAddressRecipient",
        "CustomerName", "CustomerId", "CustomerAddress", "CustomerAddressRecipient",
        "InvoiceId", "InvoiceDate", "InvoiceTotal", "DueDate", "PurchaseOrder",
        "BillingAddress", "BillingAddressRecipient", "ShippingAddress", "ShippingAddressRecipient",
        "ServiceStartDate", "ServiceEndDate", "RemittanceAddress", "RemittanceAddressRecipient"
    ]
    
    for field_name in fields_to_print:
        field = doc.fields.get(field_name)
        if field:
            content = getattr(field, 'content', None)
            confidence = getattr(field, 'confidence', None)
            print(f"{field_name.replace('Address', ' Address')}: {content if content else 'Not found'} has confidence: {confidence if confidence else 'Not found'}")
    
    # For invoice items (if present, assuming it's an array)
    items = doc.fields.get("Items")
    if items:
        print("\nInvoice items:")
        for i, item in enumerate(items.value_array):
            print(f"...Item #{i + 1}")
            for item_field_name, item_field in item.items():
                item_content = getattr(item_field, 'content', None)
                item_confidence = getattr(item_field, 'confidence', None)
                print(f"......{item_field_name}: {item_content if item_content else 'Not found'} has confidence: {item_confidence if item_confidence else 'Not found'}")
    
    print("-------------------------------------")

Output:

I hope this helps. Thank you.

Answer 2

Thanks for the reply @santoshkc

The fields started appearing again a few hours after I originally posted this. We're getting them back again, ty so much for the code sample, appreciate your time!