Setting up a SharePoint Q&A Library for AI-enabled Auto Answer

This applies to:

Available with the following QorusDocs Editions:

Enterprise

Premium

Essential

Free

QorusDocs provides a powerful AI-enabled Auto Answer capability that can get users to draft very quickly on vendor questionnaires. Our Auto Answer AI analyzes questions, finds matching answers, and auto-suggests the answers that have the highest matching score in seconds.

Before you're able to use this feature in your QorusDocs, you'll need to configure a place where your Q&A content can be stored and managed, and that the Auto Answer AI can search.

In this article, we'll explain how to do this in SharePoint Online with a list, and then how to connect this list for Auto Answer purposes to your QorusDocs. As with all content source management operations, you'll need to belong to the QorusDocs Admin user role to do this.

Here, we'll cover how to:

Create a list in SharePoint Online for Auto Answer
Connect your SharePoint Online List as an Auto Answer content source to your QorusDocs

1. Create a list in SharePoint Online for Auto Answer

First, you’ll need to create a list in SharePoint Online – or if you already have one, make sure your list has the following columns:

Column Name*	Column Type	Required	Explanation
Question	Single line of plain text or Multiple lines of plain text	Yes	Use this column to store the question. This column can’t be blank. Note: If you choose to use the column type 'Multiple lines of text', the question can't exceed 1000 characters.
Answer	Multiple lines of plain text	Yes	Use this column to store the answer to the question. This column can’t be blank.
Alternative Question 1	Single line of plain text or Multiple lines of plain text	Yes	These columns are used to store variations of the same question, where each alternatively phrased question leads to the same answer. For example, "When was your company founded?" and "When did your company commence operations?" are two questions that might lead to the same answer: "We've been in the business of making world-class vehicles since 1989". You can leave these blank in your SharePoint list for now if you want, but you must have at least one 'Alternative Question' column. We'd recommend you have at least 3. After using Auto Answer to respond to a questionnaire, you can train the Auto Answer AI to recognize alternative ways to phrase the same question. When you do that, QorusDocs will automatically populate these columns in your list, so that the next time you encounter this question, it gets you to the right answer faster. Note: If you choose to use the column type 'Multiple lines of text', the question can't exceed 1000 characters.
Alternative Question 2	Single line of plain text or Multiple lines of plain text	No
Alternative Question 3	Single line of plain text or Multiple lines of plain text	No
Alternative Question 4	Single line of plain text or Multiple lines of plain text	No
Custom Properties	Managed Metadata	No	You can create one or more columns in your SharePoint list to store custom properties, and then use these to categorize your Q&A content. This is not required but it does help if you have a long list and you'd like to be able to narrow the scope of the Auto Answer AI to look for answers that meet custom criteria. For example, your organization may have offices in London and in New York. You could create a "Location" managed metadata column in your list to specify for each Q&A record whether an answer applies to the London branch, the New York office, or both. Later, when users respond to an RFP from a US-based client, they can focus the search, that the Auto Answer AI performs, to look for answers that apply to the New York office only if they wish.

* Note: You can call the columns in your list whatever you’d like. You don’t have to name them exactly as above.

The custom properties will become search filters in QorusDocs once your Auto Answer list is connected.

Here are a few Microsoft support resources that you might find helpful at this step:

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2. Connect your SharePoint Online List as an Auto Answer content source to your QorusDocs

If you haven’t already, log in to QorusDocs Hub and navigate to the content source management screen by clicking on ‘Manage’ and then on ‘Content Sources’.

Then click on ‘Add’ and on ‘SharePoint Q&A Library:’

On the next page, give the content source a name and then copy and paste the URL of either your SharePoint Online site or that of your list in the box provided. When you’re done click ‘Next’:

On the screen that follows, you will be shown a list of SharePoint Online Lists that exist in your SharePoint Online site. Select the one you want to configure as an Auto Answer content source and click ‘Next’:

Next, we’ll display the columns that we’ve found in the list that can be configured for Auto Answer.

You’ll need to specify:

The column in your list that contains the question (pick one)
The column in your list that contains the answer (pick one)
The column(s) in your list that contain custom properties and that you’d like to be able to use as search filters for this list (optional, pick one or more)
The column(s) in your list where alternative questions can be stored (pick one or more)

Let's go through each of these with an example.

1. The question column

In our case, our list has a column named 'Question', which we use to store, well, the question that the QorusDocs Auto Answer AI should search against first. We select this one by clicking on the radio button.

Back to the list of columns

2. The answer column

When QorusDocs finds a good match between the question in the questionnaire and the question (and alternative questions) in your list, the contents of the answer column is what QorusDocs will use to auto-populate the questionnaire. In our case, the column that contains the answer is simply called 'Answer', so that's the one we select.

Back to the list of columns

3. The filter column(s)

Users can narrow the Auto Answer AI search and limit it to only return results within the custom properties you set up in your list. These become search filters in the QorusDocs UI. In our case, we only have one for 'Products and Services', but you can have more if you wish.

Back to the list of columns

4. The alternative question column(s)

As mentioned above, the QorusDocs Auto Answer AI will look for the closest related question in both the main question column and in the alternative question columns. You need at least one, but you can specify several if you'd like.

Back to the list of columns

Once you’re done, click on ‘Finish’ (bottom left).

QorusDocs will take a moment to digest the information in your Q&A list and build up an AI-enabled database in the background. This may take a few minutes to complete, depending on how much Q&A content you have.

When it's ready, you’ll be able to see it in the Content Source management page.

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Articles in this section

1. Create a list in SharePoint Online for Auto Answer