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An extracted column is filled by reading another column’s free text and pulling out one thing: the prescribed medication from a doctor’s note, the contact’s mobile number from a comments field, the product mentioned in a support ticket.

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Make a column extracted

Open the column in Templates. Under Value, pick Extracted, then fill in:
  • Read from — the text column to read. It must be an ordinary column on the same template; it can’t be another calculated or extracted column.
  • What to extract — say it in words, up to 200 characters: “the prescribed medication”, “the customer’s mobile number”.
Paste a sample into the test box and press Enter to see what comes back before you save. The first test can take around 20 seconds while the model starts; after that it’s quick. A column is extracted or calculated, never both.

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What comes back depends on the column’s shape

Vern uses one dedicated text-extraction model (GLiNER2) for every extracted column. What it returns is decided by the column’s shape — the Each cell holds setting — so set the shape to match what you want: For a record or list of records, the model reads each field’s name and description to know what to look for — so a Medications column holding a list of records with name, dose and frequency fields turns “metformin 500mg BID” into [{"name": "metformin", "dose": "500mg", "frequency": "BID"}]. A match has to clear a fixed confidence bar. When nothing in the text clears it, the cell is left blank.
The model runs on Vern’s own servers in your account’s data region. Your notes aren’t sent to an AI provider, and nothing is downloaded at run time — which is why extracted columns are suitable for clinical and other sensitive free text.

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When it runs

  • On import — every row the import writes is extracted, and the import preview shows extracted values too.
  • Large imports — when a sheet has more than 20,000 distinct source texts, the import finishes first with the column blank, then a background job fills it in. The column’s header pulses, and its header info shows Extracting… N / M while it works.
  • Re-extract — click the column header in a sheet to open its info, then click Re-extract to run it again over the whole sheet, for example after you’ve edited source text. If the last run failed, the reason is shown there.
  • When the settings change — saving a new Read from or What to extract re-extracts every sheet built from the template, in the background. Changing only the column’s shape doesn’t; use Re-extract.
Only one extraction runs per sheet at a time. Calculated columns that use an extracted column are recalculated when it finishes.

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Things to know

  • Editing the source cell doesn’t re-extract. The model is too slow to run on every keystroke; use Re-extract when you’re done editing.
  • Long text is read in full. Notes longer than a few hundred words are read in overlapping chunks rather than cut off.
  • Speed. Expect roughly 1,000–2,000 notes a minute. Identical texts are only read once.
  • Failures don’t fail the import. If extraction can’t run for a column, that column is left blank, the rest of the import completes, and you can Re-extract later.
  • Read-only. Extracted cells can’t be typed over in the grid, and the import agent never writes them. Their column header shows ✦.
  • In scouts, an extracted column is treated as an ordinary field: the scout reads the value from the page directly.

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