Getting your RFx from Draft to Complete and tracking progress

Once you’ve got your RFx response to draft in Word or in Excel using the QorusDocs Auto Answer AI, the next step is to review, edit, and complete it.

In this article, we’ll explain how to:

1. Use the Auto Answer completion bar to track progress

2. Navigate the Auto Answer results pane
3. Preview an answer result
4. What to do when there's 'No good answer'

5. For auto inserted answers

   • Use a different answer

   • Edit an auto-filled answer

   • Mark an auto inserted answer as ‘Complete’

   • Make changes to an answer that was marked as ‘Complete’ and that was either inserted or auto inserted
   • Make suggestions to improve the Q&A Library
6. For answers that were not auto inserted
   • Use any answer
   • Edit an answer that you inserted
   • Mark an answer you enter as ‘Complete’
   • Make changes to an answer marked as ‘Complete’ when ‘do not auto insert answer’ was selected
   • Make suggestions to improve the Q&A Library when ‘do not auto insert’ is selected
7. Clear an Auto Answer result 
8. Perform bulk actions

Please note that although many of the screenshots and examples in this article were taken in Excel, this process is exactly the same for Word. 

1.     Use the Auto Answer completion bar to track progress

QorusDocs keeps track of the overall answer completeness with a convenient status bar displayed above the Auto Answer results:

Completion tracking is intended to make it easy for you to see at a glance how many questions QorusDocs’ Auto Answer AI has:

• managed to find matching answers for with a high enough match score based on your answer sensitivity settings (in a ‘Draft’ state),
• how many remain unanswered because a good enough match was not found in your Q&A content, (in an ‘Empty’ state)
• and how many you have marked as ‘Complete’ (in a ‘Complete’ state)

It also doubles up as a useful filter for your Auto Answer matches. For example, if you click on ‘Draft’ below the Completion status bar, it will filter out all the answer records to show you only the ones with a status of ‘Draft’:

As you navigate the Auto Answer results, the question’s cell reference is displayed in a color that corresponds to the status of its answer.

For example, when you’re filtering on ‘Draft’ (see the screenshot above), all the cell references (above these are: B11, B12, B15, B16) are displayed in yellow, which is the color used to indicate a ‘Draft’ status in the Auto Answer completion bar.

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2.   Navigate the Auto Answer results pane

To start the review process, click on the answer record in the QorusDocs Add-in.

This will expand the answer record so that you can view more information, including other matching answers, as well as available actions. Here's what this might look like: 

Since it is helpful to see answers next to their questions, QorusDocs will automatically move your mouse cursor to the corresponding answer location in the questionnaire when you click on an Auto Answer result.

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3.   Preview an answer result

If you’d like to preview an answer in a larger preview window than the thumbnail preview provided in the QorusDocs Add-in, you can do that by clicking on the ‘more’ menu (the three dots) and then on ‘Preview’:

This will bring up a preview window a bit like the one described here.

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4. What to do when there's 'No good answer'

When QorusDocs can’t find matching answers within your Q&A content that fall within the specified range in your answer sensitivity settings, you’ll see ‘No good answer’ in the QorusDocs Add-in and the response will be marked as ‘Empty’:

When you encounter an answer with a status of ‘Empty’, you can enter one manually into the answer location, in the same way you would edit any other Excel spreadsheet or Word document. Alternatively, you could assign it to a Subject Matter Expert (SME).

When you’re done and you’ve marked the answer as ‘Complete’, you can then ‘Suggest’ the answer back to your Q&A library, so that the next time you encounter this question, QorusDocs will be able to answer it.

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5. For auto inserted answers

• Use a different answer

If in your Auto Answering preferences, either in Word or in Excel, you’ve elected to have QorusDocs auto insert the top matching answers directly into your RFx response or questionnaire, either next to or below the questions, you have the option of picking a different matching answer from the answer results pane.

To do that, as you’re browsing through other matching answers, click on ‘insert’:

This will replace the answer in the questionnaire with the one you selected:

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• Edit an auto-filled answer

If you’d like to make a change to an answer that QorusDocs has auto-filled, you can edit it directly in the questionnaire, just as you would normally edit any other Excel spreadsheet or Word document.

You can fix typos, update an outdated answer, or tailor the answer to better respond to the client’s specific question. In the example below, we updated an auto-filled answer to bring it up to date with the most current information (the originally inserted answer is visible in the Auto Answer pane):

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• Mark an auto inserted answer as ‘Complete’

When you’re happy with a ‘Draft’ answer, you can click on ‘Complete’ in the QorusDocs Add-in.

As you mark questions as ‘Complete’, you’ll see the tally of ‘Complete’ answers increase in the Auto Answer completion bar and the tally of ‘Draft’ answers decrease. The bar will move from yellow to green as you progress through the questionnaire.

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• Make changes to an answer that was marked as ‘Complete’ and that was either inserted or auto inserted

If you edit an answer in after you’ve marked it as ‘Complete’ and that you’ve either inserted manually or elected for QorusDocs to auto insert, QorusDocs will alert you to the fact that you’re editing a completed answer.

You’ll then have a choice then to undo your changes by clicking on ‘Revert’ or to send it back to a ‘Draft’ state.  Click on ‘Make draft’ to keep your edits:

Alternatively, you could mark it as ‘Draft’ first, and then edit the RFx response:

When you’re done and happy with the changes, you can then mark it as ‘Complete’ as explained above.

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• Make suggestions to improve the Q&A Library

QorusDocs Auto Answer AI can learn from the changes you make and improve the quality of your Q&A content over time. To do that though, you’ll need to suggest your changes back to the Q&A library.

You can suggest back to the Auto Answer library in the following scenarios:

• you’ve chosen a different matching answer to the one QorusDocs auto-filled, Auto Answer can be trained so that it uses the answer you selected next time a similar question is asked.
• you’ve manually edited an answer auto-filled with QorusDocs, the corresponding Q&A record can be updated with your edits.
• you’ve answered a question for which there was ‘No good answer’, this can get added to the Q&A content going forward as a brand new Q&A record.

To suggest an answer, it must first be marked as Complete, and then you’ll see the Suggest button light up in orange:

Your suggested changes or your answer to a new question will now be added to the Auto Answer AI change management log.

A user belonging to the QorusDocs Admin user role can then review it, edit it further if needed, and approve or reject it, before training the Auto Answer AI.  You can learn more about this here.

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6. For answers that were not auto inserted

• Use any answer

QorusDocs will present you with a list of answer results, ranked from highest to lowest match score by the QorusDocs Auto Answer AI. You can browse and insert any answer by clicking on ‘insert’:

IMPORTANT: Before you click on the ‘Insert’ button, be sure to have your cursor placed in the location where you’d like the answer to go. Otherwise, you may get a ‘selection error’ from QorusDocs if your cursor is currently positioned on the question:

If that happens, just click ‘ok’, select the correct cell QorusDocs should insert the answer into, and click on ‘insert’.

Although there are no cells in Word, the experience is exactly the same. If your cursor is placed where the question is located, you’ll get the same ‘selection error’ as illustrated above.

Just click ‘ok’ if that happens, place your cursor in the right location in the document, and then click on ‘insert’.

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• Edit an answer that you inserted

If you’d like to make a change to an answer that you’ve inserted, you’re free to edit it directly, just as you would normally edit any other Excel spreadsheet or Word document.

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• Mark an answer you enter as ‘Complete’

When an answer in an ‘Empty’ or a ‘Draft’ state has been answered to your satisfaction, you can click on ‘Complete’ in the QorusDocs Add-in.

QorusDocs will then increase the tally of ‘Complete’ answers in the Auto Answer completion bar, so you can see the overall completion rate of the document.

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• Make changes to an answer marked as ‘Complete’ when ‘do not auto insert answer’ was selected

If you’ve chosen the ‘do not auto insert answer’ option in the Answering Preferences, you’re free to edit answers even after you’ve marked them as ‘Complete’.

As a best practice, it’s a good idea to put answers that you still need to work on back into ‘Draft’ before you work on them further.

This way, you’ll have a more accurate view of how complete the questionnaire really is in the Auto Answer completion bar and if applicable, in the Pursuit. You’ll also avoid confusing the ‘Completed’ answers that are in fact ‘Complete’ and that require no rework, with the ones you are editing further. It is entirely up to you though.

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• Make suggestions to improve the Q&A Library when ‘do not auto insert’ is selected.

The QorusDocs Auto Answer AI can be trained based on your suggestions. You can suggest new answers, better matching answers, and updates and improvements to existing answers.

To do that, when you have elected to go with the ‘do not auto insert answers’, you’ll have to do two things first before the ‘Suggest’ button will become available for you:

1. Mark the answer as ‘Complete.’
2. Select the answer text in the document or spreadsheet.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll be able to click on the orange ‘Suggest’ option:

Your suggested changes or your answer to a new question will now be added to the Auto Answer AI change management log.

If no good answer was found and you're working in Word, with 'do not auto insert' turned on, then you can once again either assign the question to a SME or you can find an answer from another source and add it manually to your document. 

With 'do not auto insert' turned on, QorusDocs won't know where you've manually provided the answer. For that reason, after you've clicked on 'Complete', you will need to select the answer in the document, and then click on 'Suggest'. If you don't select anything, 'Suggest' will remain greyed out. 

A user belonging to the QorusDocs Admin user role can then review it, edit it further if needed, and approve or reject it, before training the Auto Answer AI.  You can learn more about this here.

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7. Clear an Auto Answer result 

There might be times when you want to remove an answer result from the Auto Answer results pane. For example, if you’d like to run a question a second time against another Auto Answer library to find a better response.

To do this click on the more menu (the three dots), and then on ‘Remove’:

Please note that this will not actually delete anything from the spreadsheet or document. It will just remove the answer result from the QorusDocs Add-in. If you’d like to delete an answer, you can simply edit the RFx response as you normally would any other Word doc or Excel spreadsheet.

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8. Perform bulk actions

QorusDocs also provides a way to update all the answers in the Auto Answer results pane in one go, rather than individually, one at a time. Here are the bulk actions that are supported:

• Suggest all

You can use ‘Suggest all’ to bulk suggest updated and new answers back to your Q&A library.

This however only works for answers that you inserted using QorusDocs, by either clicking on the ‘insert’ option, or for questions where you elected to use Auto Answer to automatically populate your RFx or questionnaire.

For questions where you selected the ‘do not auto insert answer’ in your Answering Preferences and then did not click on ‘insert’ in the QorusDocs Add-in (perhaps you chose to write a new answer manually instead), QorusDocs will need a little help from you to identify the locations where those specific answers can be found.

With these answers, you won’t be able to use the bulk suggest tool. When you click on ‘Suggest all’ you might get a message like this:

You can still click ‘ok’, and QorusDocs will bulk suggest all the answers it can. The others will need to be suggested individually.

How do you know which answers those are? Well, all the answers that could and have been suggested will have their ‘Suggest’ button greyed out, like this:

For the ones that have not been suggested, and that you can still suggest individually after telling QorusDocs where the answer is, the ‘Suggest’ button will be orange and clickable, like this:

• Complete all

This marks all the answers in the Auto Answer results pane as Complete.

• Remove all

This clears all the results from the Auto Answer results pane:

Please note that this does not delete anything from the RFx response document or spreadsheet you are working on.

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