Outcome · Find answers
Stop asking the one person who knows where everything is
Your team finds the right procedure, spec or past example quickly, with a link back to the source document.
Sound familiar?
- Files are spread across shared drives, SharePoint, email and personal folders
- New staff take months to learn where things are
- Senior people are interrupted all day with the same questions
- Work gets redone because nobody could find the last version
What changes
Answers with sources
Ask a question in plain language and get an answer that links to the document it came from.
Faster onboarding
New staff can find procedures and examples without waiting for someone to be free.
Fewer interruptions
Experienced people spend their time on work that needs their judgement.
Tidier information
The clean-up needed to make search work also makes your files easier to manage.
How we'd approach it
Pick a body of knowledge
Start with one area, such as procedures, past proposals or technical standards.
Tidy and set permissions
Organise the source files and confirm who should see what, so search respects your access rules.
Choose the right search
Often the search or AI already in Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace is enough. If not, we compare options for fit, cost and privacy.
Test with real questions
Your team checks answers against the sources during the pilot.
What it might look like
Geoscience consultancy · 30 staff
Past project knowledge on tap
Project managers search past reports and proposals by site type and method, and get summaries that link to the original documents.
Manufacturer · 60 staff
Procedures at the workstation
Shop and quality staff look up the current procedure for a part or process from a tablet, instead of asking a supervisor.
These are illustrative examples of the kind of work involved, not results from specific clients.
What we measure
We agree a baseline before changing anything, then check the same numbers afterwards.
- Time to find a document or answer
- Repeat questions to senior staff
- Time for new staff to work independently
- Answers that pass a source check
Works with what you have
Usually built on SharePoint and Microsoft 365, or Google Drive and Workspace, using search and AI features you may already have. For highly confidential material, we can look at options that keep data inside infrastructure you control.
Questions
Will staff see documents they shouldn't?
What if the answer is wrong?
Does our data leave Canada?
Where does your team's knowledge live?
Tell us about the questions your senior people answer most often. We'll suggest where to start.