How to Use Ask (Smart Search)

This article applies to:Available in these QorusDocs Editions:

Enterprise+, Proposal Pro, QPilot Essential

Ask (Smart Search) in QorusDocs is an AI-powered search experience designed to help you find answers to questions using natural language. Unlike Find (Keyword Search), which looks for exact matches to words or phrases, Ask interprets the intent and context of your question and returns results ranked by relevance across your selected content sources.

In addition, for QPilot customers, Ask can generate an AI answer for each Content Source within seconds, based on its top matching results.

In this guide you will learn how to access and use Ask to find relevant content for your documents using just few clicks.

1. Enabling Smart Search
2. Navigating the Smart Search User Interface
3. How to use Smart Search
4. Understanding Your Smart Search Results
5. Smart Search Best Practices

Enabling Ask

Before you can use Ask with one or more content sources, it needs to be enabled by a person belonging to the QorusDocs Admin role in your organization.

If you’re an Admin and need to set up Ask, see how to enable Ask for a content source.

Navigating the Ask User Interface

If you have Ask enabled for a specific Content Source, you automatically have access to Ask while performing your search from Hub Central in your web browser, or while working in a document in the QorusDocs Add-Ins for Microsoft Office. 

You can tell if a Content Source has Ask enabled by looking at the Content Source icon in the Search UI. All Ask-enabled Content Sources will have a sparkle icon displayed in the top left:

After choosing a Content Source with Ask enabled, when a question is typed into the Search box, Ask returns a list of those content sources with the number of results found next to each. Click into a Content Source to view its results, ranked by relevance.

For QPilot customers, opening a Content Source automatically generates an AI answer from its top results. The answer appears collapsed by default, so click ‘Show More’ to expand it. This reduces the need to open and review multiple documents.

Below is a quick guide of using Ask:

How to use Ask

When working on a document in the QorusDocs Add-ins for Microsoft Office, you can use Ask to find relevant content without interrupting your workflow.

Instead of manually typing a question, you can simply highlight it, and Ask will auto-populate the search box for you. This is especially useful for responding to RFPs or when you need specific re-usable content for a pitch or proposal.

To search directly from your document:

1. Click on ‘Search’ from the top menu bar.
2. Select ‘Ask’.
3. Choose your Content Sources. Note: If Ask is not available for a Content Source, it will be greyed out.
4. Highlight a question/ phrase in the document to have your highlighted text autofill the search box or type in your prompt in the Search box.
5. Click the Search icon (the magnifying glass). 

6. Review your search results and expand the AI answer provided by QPilot by clicking on ‘Show More’.
7. Insert the answer you need into your document with just one click:
   
   
8. To view the exact content items that QPilot used as sources to create the generated response, you can click on ‘Show References’:
   
   
    
9. You may also preview any reference document by clicking on the document name
   
   

To use QPilot to help you further refine the answer or if you want to ask follow-up questions, click on the QPilot icon and this will launch a new chat session with your original question and the answer QPilot had generated.

In the new QPilot session, you can review the response, ask follow-up questions, refine the answer, or request additional information, all within a conversational interface for a more interactive and efficient search experience.

Understanding Your Ask Results

Ask shows the content sources you selected with the number of results found in each, so you can see where the answers are at a glance. Click into a Content Source to view its results, ranked by relevance. If you have access to QPilot, Ask can also generate a draft answer from each content source’s top results.

• Results are ranked based on relevance.
• Content sources that are not enabled for Ask are not included in the results.
• Each result clearly shows the Content Source name in which it was found. 
• A maximum of 50 results are displayed per content source to keep performance optimal.
• For QPilot customers, a generated answer may be created from each content source’s top results, reducing the time spent opening multiple results and manually building a response.
• You can launch QPilot directly from the generated answer in Ask when you want to refine, shorten, expand, or reshape the response.
• If the results are not relevant, adjust the question or select different Ask-enabled content sources and search again.

Ask helps you find relevant content without needing exact keywords, and QPilot can turn the top results into a draft answer.

Ask Best Practices

Ask works best when you enter a clear, complete question or requirement in natural language, and select content sources likely to contain the answer. For QPilot customers, adding instructions to the question can also help shape the generated response.

1. Search in natural language.
   Enter a complete question or requirement in natural language, such as “Describe your security program and provide evidence of any audits or certifications” instead of entering only a few keywords.
2. Select the right content sources.
   Choose the Ask-enabled content sources most likely to contain the answer. Content sources that are not enabled for Ask are greyed out and cannot be selected.
3. Avoid vague references.
   Requests that rely on missing context, such as “Describe how you will deliver this capability” or “Confirm compliance with the above requirements,” may not return useful results unless the relevant context is included.
4. Include response instructions when using QPilot.
   If you want a generated answer in a specific format, add instructions such as “respond in proposal narrative format,” “limit the response to 300 words,” or “generate a table.”
5. Use QPilot Chat when more context is needed.
   If QPilot needs to read an RFP document, transcript, or other file to answer properly, use QPilot Chat with @mentions instead of Ask.
6. Review the results before reusing the answer.
   Ask can help you get to a draft faster, but you should still review the supporting search results to confirm the answer is accurate and appropriate.

Many users are accustomed to Find (keyword-based) searches, so it helps to shift towards a more natural language approach. For example, instead of searching "security compliance", a more effective query would be "What security compliance standards does our company follow?" This approach helps Ask return the most relevant and comprehensive results.