This tutorial shows how to extract abbreviations from your knowledge base using a Needle workflow that scans documents and compiles them into a structured directory.

Overview

The workflow reads documents from your Needle collection, uses AI to extract abbreviations and their definitions, and compiles them into a Google Sheet or Google Doc. Choose the format that works best for your team—structured data in Sheets or a formatted glossary in Docs.

Key Actions

1. Manual Trigger – Start the workflow when you have new documents
2. Loop Through Files – Paginate through your document collection (20 files at a time)
3. Get File Contents – Extract text from each document (PDFs, Word docs, markdown)
4. AI Abbreviation Extraction – Identify abbreviations and their definitions
5. Merge with Existing Data – Check current document for existing entries
6. Add to Output – Append new abbreviations to Google Sheet (structured) or Google Doc (formatted text)

What You'll Need

• Needle Collection containing your documents (technical docs, policies, internal wikis) Tip: Works best with documentation that naturally contains abbreviations and their definitions
• Output Choice – Either Google Sheets OR Google Docs:

Option 1: Google Sheet (for structured data)

Option 2: Google Doc (for formatted glossary)

• Creates a nicely formatted text document

• Easy to share and read

• Great for onboarding materials

• Google Connector – Connected in Needle for read/write access

How It Works

1. The workflow loops through your Needle collection in batches
2. For each batch of files (20 at a time):
   • Retrieves file contents
   • AI analyzes the text to identify:
     • Abbreviated terms (e.g., "API", "RAG", "SQL")
     • Full word/phrase (e.g., "Application Programming Interface")
     • Definition/context from the document
3. For example, from a technical document:
   • Word: Retrieval-Augmented Generation
   • Abbreviation: RAG
   • Definition: An AI technique that enhances language model outputs by retrieving relevant information from a knowledge base before generating responses
4. The workflow fetches existing entries from your Google Sheet
5. AI agent merges new abbreviations with existing data:
   • Skips duplicates
   • Adds only new abbreviations
   • Formats consistently
6. New entries are appended to the Google Sheet in structured format
7. Process continues until files are processed

Use Cases:

• Onboarding Documentation – New employees can quickly learn company-specific abbreviations
• Technical Documentation – Maintain glossaries for product docs automatically
• Compliance & Legal – Extract and organize regulatory abbreviations from policy documents
• Research Projects – Build glossaries from academic papers and research notes
• Internal Wikis – Keep your company wiki's abbreviation section up-to-date

Setup Guide

1. Create Your Document Collection

1. Go to needle.app/dashboard/collections
2. Create a new collection (e.g., "Technical Documentation")
3. Upload your documents:
   • Technical documentation
   • Policy documents
   • Internal wikis
   • Research papers
   • Meeting notes

Supported File Types:

• PDFs
• Word documents (.docx)
• Markdown files
• Text files
• Google Docs (via export)

2. Set Up Your Output Document

Option A: Google Sheet (Structured Data)

1. Create a new Google Sheet
2. Add these exact column headers in row 1:
   • Column A:

     Word

   • Column B:

     Abbreviation

   • Column C:

     Definition

3. Connect Google Sheets to Needle:
   • Go to Needle Settings → Connectors
   • Add Google Sheets connector
   • Grant necessary permissions

Option B: Google Doc (Formatted Text)

1. Create a new Google Doc for your glossary
2. Give it a clear title (e.g., "Company Abbreviation Directory")
3. Connect Google Docs to Needle:
   • Go to Needle Settings → Connectors
   • Add Google Docs connector
   • Grant necessary permissions

Both options work equally well - choose based on whether you need a searchable database (Sheets) or a readable document (Docs)!

3. Configure the Workflow

Update Collection ID:

1. Open the "List Files" node
2. Select your collection from the dropdown
3. The loop will automatically paginate through files

Connect Your Output Document:

For Google Sheets:

1. Open the "Get Values in Range" node
2. Paste your Google Sheet URL in the instructions
3. Open the final "AI" node with tools
4. Add your Google Sheet URL to the system prompt
5. Ensure the Google Sheets connector is selected

For Google Docs:

1. Remove the Google Sheets nodes
2. Add a Google Docs "Append Text" node after the AI extraction
3. Configure it with your Google Doc URL
4. The AI will format abbreviations nicely for the document

4. Run the Workflow

1. Click the manual trigger to start
2. Monitor the execution:
   • Watch files being processed
   • See abbreviations extracted in real-time
   • Verify Google Sheet updates
3. Review the output in your Google Sheet

Customization Tips

Fine-tune AI Extraction

Modify the AI prompt to focus on specific types of abbreviations:

• Technical terms only
• Business acronyms
• Domain-specific jargon
• Include plural forms

Add Filtering

Insert a transform node to filter by:

• Minimum definition length
• Specific document types
• Date ranges
• Source documents

Schedule It

Replace the manual trigger with a schedule trigger:

• Daily: Process new documents added each day
• Weekly: Compile abbreviations from weekly reports
• On file upload: Trigger when new docs are added to the collection

Advanced Features

Multi-Language Support

Add language detection and create separate sheets per language:

• Detect document language
• Route to language-specific sheets
• Maintain multilingual glossaries

Category Tagging

Enhance the AI prompt to categorize abbreviations:

• Technical (e.g., API, SQL, HTTP)
• Business (e.g., KPI, ROI, OKR)
• Industry-specific (e.g., HIPAA, GDPR, SOC2)

Conflict Resolution

If abbreviations have multiple meanings:

• Store multiple definitions
• Include source document references
• Add context or usage examples

Export Options

Beyond Google Sheets, output to:

• Notion pages
• Confluence wiki
• Markdown files
• JSON for API consumption

Troubleshooting

No abbreviations found?

• Check that documents contain abbreviations in clear format (e.g., "API (Application Programming Interface)")

Example Output

After running the workflow on a technical documentation collection:

Wrap-up

This Needle workflow extracts abbreviations from your document collection and compiles them into a structured directory. It works well for technical documentation, internal wikis, and knowledge bases where abbreviations are clearly defined in the source materials. The AI identifies abbreviations and their definitions, then organizes them in your chosen format (Google Sheet or Doc).