Videos
Exception Handling on the Kognitos Platform
Watch how Kognitos handles exceptions it hasn't seen before — and how anyone can teach it the right answer in plain English.
What's in this video
Most automations break the first time they meet a new document layout. Kognitos doesn't. This 90-second walkthrough shows two ways a business user can teach the platform to handle a bill of lading it has never seen before — and how every fix becomes a permanent piece of learning.
The exception, step by step
- The problem: Kognitos receives a new variant of a bill of lading and can't find the bill of lading number. Instead of failing silently, it pauses and asks for help — common causes include poor document quality, missing fields, and unfamiliar layouts.
- Option 1 — highlight to extract: A user highlights the field directly on the document. Kognitos locates the same region on similar documents and converts the highlighted area to clean text.
- Option 2 — teach a rule in English: The user writes a natural-language rule such as “next time you see this bill of lading, look for the ID number field instead of the bill of lading number.” Kognitos parses the rule, tests it on the document, and shows the extracted value for verification.
- Save to the library of learnings: Verified rules are added to a learnings library that Kognitos consults on every future run. Coverage grows automatically and human review drops over time.
Why it matters
Traditional RPA treats unknown documents as errors that require a developer ticket. Kognitos treats them as teaching moments any operations user can resolve — no code, no waiting for IT. That changes the economics of long-tail document automation.
Questions answered in this video
What kinds of exceptions does Kognitos handle?
Common ones shown in the video include poor document quality, missing fields, and brand-new document variants where Kognitos doesn't yet know which field to extract — for example, a new bill of lading layout where the expected field name has changed.
Who fixes the exception — a developer or a business user?
A business user. The video shows two no-code resolutions: highlighting the correct region on the document, or writing a plain-English rule telling Kognitos where to look next time.
Does Kognitos remember the fix for future runs?
Yes. After verification, the rule is added to a library of learnings that Kognitos references every time it processes a similar document, so the same exception never needs to be resolved twice.
How does this differ from traditional RPA exception handling?
Traditional RPA bots break on layout variations and require a developer to ship new code. Kognitos surfaces the exception to a business user, accepts the fix in English, and continues running — turning every exception into permanent learned behaviour.