April 19th, 2022: New and improved Auto Answer capabilities

In our next release, planned to go live on April 19th, you can look forward to some major updates to our Auto Answer AI capabilities, plus the usual ‘under the hood’ work to make sure things are running smoothly and several bug fixes.

Here’s what’s coming:

• New in Auto Answer preferences: the ‘Do not auto insert answer’ option
• New in Auto Answer for Word: Respond to questions outside a table
• New features and improvements to the Q&A Library Change Management user experience

New in Auto Answer preferences: the ‘Do not auto insert answer’ option

We’ve added a new option in your Auto Answer preferences: ‘Do not auto insert answer’.

As you’ve probably guessed, when you select this option, QorusDocs Auto Answer won’t automatically pre-populate your questionnaire with the highest matching answers it finds, even if the match score is higher than 50%.

Instead, you’ll see all the answers returned in the QorusDocs Add-ins like this, and you’ll be able to choose an answer and insert it:

There are a few things you should know about when setting your answering preferences to ‘Do not auto insert answer’

• Inserting answers
• Suggesting new answers when ‘No good answer’ was found
• Bulk suggesting all completed answers

Inserting answers

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.

In Excel, if your cursor is currently on the cell that contains the question and you click on ‘Insert’, you’ll get the following error:

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’.

Suggesting new answers when ‘No good answer’ was found

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:

If that’s the case for you, then you can respond to the question by entering an answer manually, or you could assign the question to a subject matter expert.

Once the question is answered to your satisfaction, you can mark it as ‘complete’ in the QorusDocs Add-in:

If you’d also like QorusDocs to take the new answer on board and create a new Q&A pair, then you’ll need to first tell QorusDocs where the answer is by selecting it, and only then click on ‘Suggest’.

This is important because with the ‘Do not auto insert option’ turned on, and when you haven’t clicked on ‘Insert’, QorusDocs doesn’t know where your answer is. You in fact have the freedom to select any cell in the Excel spreadsheet or any text in the Word document you’re working on and use that as the answer.

In Excel, mark the answer as complete, select the answer cell, then click suggest:

In Word, mark the answer as complete, select the answer text, and then click ‘suggest’:  

Bulk suggesting all completed answers

As we mentioned earlier, with the ‘Do not auto insert answer’ option turned on, and for answers for which you haven’t clicked on ‘Insert’ in the Answer pane, QorusDocs doesn’t know where your answer is.

So, when you click on ‘Suggest all’ you might get a message like this:

You can still click ‘ok’, and that will suggest all the answers you first inserted and then edited. QorusDocs keeps track of the answers where you clicked on ‘insert’ and knows where those are.

However, the other questions you answered without clicking on ‘insert’ will not be suggested as part of the bulk ‘Suggest all’.

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:

Back to the top

New in Auto Answer for Word: Respond to questions outside a table

Previously, to use Auto Answer in Word, questions needed to be housed inside a table. While this is still supported, it is no longer a requirement.

You can now use Auto Answer in Word with questions that are not in a table. This useful for questions you receive in the form of numbered or bulleted lists or styled as simple paragraph text.

You can also answer questions that are contained within a table, and other questions that live outside a table, in the same RFP response document.

Setting your Answering Preferences

First things first, you’ll need to select one or more questions (inside or outside a table) and set your answering preferences.

If you click on ‘Answer’, there will be an ‘Answering preferences’ window that will pop up on your screen, giving you the opportunity to specify how, and if applicable, where, the answers should be auto inserted.

For questions in tables

You can either select the whole table, the first row in the table that contains a question, or the question text inside a cell in the table.

Once you have made your selection, your answering preferences window will look a like this:

If you choose ‘Do not auto insert answer’, then you can manually insert each answer and choose where the answer should go, as described here.

Regardless of the option you choose, QorusDocs will search for and return matching answers to all questions within that table – even if you’ve only selected one question.

For questions outside of tables

You can either select one question at a time, or you can select multiple questions, provided that each question is on a separate line.

Once you have made your selection, your answering preferences window will offer up the following options:

As with questions within tables, if you choose one of the insert options (next to or below the question), then QorusDocs will auto insert the answer with the highest match score.

More specifically, this is what each of these options does when the questions are outside of a table in Word:

• Next to question: This inserts the answer on the same line as the question and adds a space between the question and the answer.
• Below question: This inserts the answer immediately below the question on a new line.
• Do not auto insert answer: QorusDocs will search for answers but will not automatically insert them in your document. You are free to review the answers, choose the one you want to use, and then insert the answer anywhere in the document.

This is especially useful for teams who are responding to questionnaires, where the answer is expected to be entered in a location that is not near the question, or where table structures are more complex and include many merged cells.

An important difference between questions in a table and outside of a table, is that the questions you select outside of a table, are the only ones that QorusDocs will attempt to find matching answers for. If a question outside of a table is not selected, it will not be answered by QorusDocs.

This gives you more flexibility, as you can easily change the Auto Answer answering preferences (for example, change the search filters applied) for each series of questions you select and answer with Auto Answer.

Back to the top

New features and improvements to the Q&A Library Change Management user experience

UI improvements

When you’re reviewing suggestions in your Q&A library’s change management screen in Hub Central, you’ll notice that the UI has changed slightly.

Simpler naming convention for headers

To make things simpler, we’ve renamed the headings that appear at the top of the suggestions page:

• ‘User asked’ is now called ‘Question in Document’
• ‘Question’ is now called ‘Question in Library’
• ‘Current answer in library’ is now called ‘Answer in Library’
• ‘User suggested answer’ is now called ‘Answer in Document’

So now if you want to know which question and answer are in your library, well, that would be ‘Question in Library’ and ‘Answer in Library’. See? So much simpler.

More descriptive options for actioning suggestions

Then, previously, for each different type of suggestion (new Q&A, better match, or edited answer), the options available to you to action the suggestion were indicated by clickable icons displayed in different places:

With the new UI, you’ll see this has now been simplified and made easier to navigate with buttons that appear on the right side of the screen only and with text that describes exactly what each action does:

Users can still suggest new Q&A pairs, suggest a better matching answer to be used next time instead of the one QorusDocs had ranked as the top match, and suggest updates to existing answers.

We’ve just simplified, as well as added, to the range of options you have for each suggestion type.

Reviewing new Q&A pair suggestions

For all new Q&A pair suggestions, you’ll now see two options: ‘Discard’, and ‘Add new’

Discard

Clicking on ‘Discard’ will remove the suggestion entirely and permanently delete it.

Add new

Clicking on ‘Add new’ will let you first review and edit the suggestion, and then add it to your Q&A library.

Before the new Q&A pair gets added to the library, you’ll have the ability to edit the question or the answer or both:

If you get interrupted and are not quite ready to send it to the library yet, you can click on ‘Save draft’ and then come back later to finish editing it. When you’re ready, click on ‘Send to library’.

This will create a brand-new Q&A pair in your SharePoint Q&A Library.

Reviewing ‘better matching’ answer suggestions

For all better matching answer suggestions, you’ll now see two options: ‘Discard’, and ‘Add Question’

Discard

Clicking on ‘Discard’ will remove the suggestion entirely and permanently delete it.

Add Question

Clicking on ‘Add Question’ will let you first review and edit the suggested question, and then add it to your Q&A library:

If you get interrupted and are not quite ready to send it to the library yet, you can click on ‘Save draft’ and then come back later to finish editing it.

When you’re ready, click on ‘Send to library’. In your SharePoint Online Q&A list, you’ll see that the question in the document has now been added to the Q&A entry in the library:

Reviewing edited answers and turning updates into new Q&A pairs

We’ve heard your feedback. We know you want to create new Q&A pairs, regardless of whether QorusDocs found a suitably high ranking matching answer or not.

Your wish has been granted.

On the Change Management screen, you can now choose between the following three options when you’re reviewing edited answer suggestions: Discard, Add New, and Update.

Discard

Clicking on ‘Discard’ will remove the suggestion and permanently delete it.

Add new

Clicking on ‘Add new’ will create a completely new Q&A pair and will leave the existing Q&A pair that was modified in the questionnaire unchanged.

Before the new Q&A pair gets added to the library, you’ll have the ability to edit the question or the answer or both:

If you get interrupted and are not quite ready to send it to the library yet, you can click on ‘Save draft’ and then come back later to finish editing.

When you’re ready and you click on ‘Send to library’, you’ll see a new entry in your SharePoint Online Q&A list:

Update

Alternatively, you could choose to update the original Q&A with the suggested edits. To do that, click on ‘Update’. This will bring up the following window on your screen:

Here you can view the original question and answer (the ‘Question in Library’ and ‘Answer in Library’), the question that was asked in the client questionnaire (‘Question in Document’), and finally, the suggested answer (‘Answer in Document’).

You are free to edit the answer on this screen, and even save your work as you go with ‘Save draft’. When you’re ready, you can click on ‘Send to library’:

Back to the top