The right answer, its source, and nothing you are not cleared to read.
Circulars, manuals, procedures and past tickets sit in SharePoint, Confluence, network drives and line-of-business systems. We build search and answering that obeys the access rules of every source, cites what it used, and admits openly when the material does not support a reply.
For Maltese public entities, licence holders and group companies whose know-how sits in several systems, and where access rules must hold.
Sources cleared by their owners are linked up, access rights included, and indexed with descriptive tags. A member of staff puts a question; the search is limited to material that person is entitled to open. If support is lacking or sources disagree, a topic owner takes the question; if not, the reply names its sources. User ratings feed back into the sources and the test questions.
Before and after
How the working day changes
Today
With the system
Today
Today: A search that finds too much
Typing a keyword brings up hundreds of hits: drafts, copies and circulars that were replaced long ago.
With the system
With the system: Brief replies, each one sourced
The reply quotes the passages behind it, links straight to them and states when each document was last reviewed.
Today
Today: Know-how held by a handful of colleagues
Most staff ask whoever has served longest. That works until the person is on leave, changes department or retires.
With the system
With the system: Access rules stay attached
Results are filtered against the rights of the person asking, at the moment of asking, so one index never turns into a leak.
Today
Today: Replies nobody can check
Staff pass on what they recall. No one knows which edition of a procedure a given reply relied on.
With the system
With the system: Silence instead of guessing
If the documents do not back a reply, the assistant says so plainly and passes the question to whoever is responsible for the topic.
Today
Today: Guidance written elsewhere
The rule exists, but in a group manual from another country or in an EU text, not where the officer is looking.
With the system
With the system: Search across languages
A question in English also reaches sources in other EU languages, and the reply comes back in the language of the question.
Workflow
The workflow, step by step
Good replies owe more to well-kept documents than to the model. So the workflow opens with owners choosing what is indexed and closes by sending ratings back to them.
Illustrative workflow
7 steps · 2 human checkpoints
Legend
System
Person
Human checkpoint
Exception path
Enterprise knowledge with its hold-back route (illustrative)
Read the diagram as text
The main route begins with linking cleared sources and indexing them with tags, continues with a staff member’s question, a search limited to that person’s rights and a sourced reply, and finishes with ratings and testing.
The first point where people decide is at the start: no source is indexed until its owner has signed it off.
If the search turns up too little support or sources that disagree, the assistant gives no reply. The question leaves the main route for the topic owner, who answers it and decides whether a document needs to change. It then joins the main route again at ratings and testing.
01
Step 1: Link sources owners have clearedSystem
Connectors pull from SharePoint sites, Confluence spaces, network drives, ticket histories and ERP document stores, and copy across the access list of every item along with the text.
Human checkpoint
Before indexing starts, the owner of each source signs off on it and on its scope; a source that is withdrawn disappears from the index.
02
Step 2: Tag and indexSystem
Each document is cut along its headings and tagged with its owner, language, status (draft, in force or replaced) and next review date. The index mixes keyword and vector search.
03
Step 3: Ask where you already workPerson
Staff ask from the intranet, Microsoft Teams, the helpdesk console or a line-of-business application. Who they are goes along with each question.
04
Step 4: Search within your access rightsSystem
The question is broadened to other languages, matches are filtered by what the person may open, then ranked again. Replaced documents are left out and contradictions between sources are flagged.
05
Step 5: Pass to the topic ownerPerson
Where support is too thin or two sources say different things, the question goes to the person responsible for that topic, together with the passages found.
Exception path: Too little support or sources disagree· Returns to step 7
Human checkpoint
The assistant holds back rather than guesses. A person replies and decides whether a document has to be drafted, revised or withdrawn.
06
Step 6: Reply with citationsSystem
The reply is written only from the passages found. Each statement points to its document, showing who owns it and when it was last reviewed.
07
Step 7: Ratings and testingSystem
Ratings, corrections and passed-on questions are turned into test cases. Before search or prompts are changed, we score again how well replies stick to their sources and whether citations are right.
Components
The building blocks
01
Connectors that carry access rights
Incremental links that bring access lists, deletions and version status across from every source into the index.
Rewriting of questions, rights filtering at the moment of asking, re-ranking and replies tied to sources, with citation checks and the option to hold back.
Test questions per subject area, scoring of source support and citations, and reports telling owners which questions went unanswered and which documents are out of date.
Group directory and identity provider, such as Microsoft Entra ID
Salesforce Service Cloud knowledge base and consolePlatformSalesforce
SAP business objects and document storagePlatformSAP
The intranet and Microsoft Teams
IT service-management tool
Controls
Controls built in from the start
Access boundaries
We never merge access rights into a single shared index. Every item keeps its own access list, and each search is filtered on the identity and group memberships of the person asking, as they stand at that moment.
Sensitive areas such as HR, legal and security can be kept out altogether, or indexed for their own readers only.
Human review
Owners choose what goes into the index and are alerted to unanswered questions and to documents that contradict each other. In high-stakes subjects, replies can be restricted to exact quotations.
Auditability
For each reply we log the question, the passages found, the documents cited, the model and prompt version and the user’s rating, and keep the log for the period you decide.
Data protection
Personal data inside documents remains under the access rules of its source. Logs are pseudonymised where that is possible, and nothing is used to train outside models. Your data protection officer can show the IDPC how this works.
AI transparency
The screen makes clear that replies come from an AI system, shows the documents behind each one and lets users flag a wrong reply in a single step.
Measures
Indicators we would track
We settle these indicators with you in discovery, using genuine questions gathered from the staff who will rely on the assistant.
Indicators we would track
Metric
Why it matters
How we would measure it
01Support by sources
Why it mattersA reply the documents do not back is worse than no reply.
How we would measure itThe share of statements in a reply that the cited passages support, scored on test questions and on samples checked by people.
02Correct citations
Why it mattersStaff should be able to check any reply with a single click.
How we would measure itThe share of citations leading to the passage that really backs the statement.
03Questions resolved
Why it mattersTells you whether staff get what they came for, not merely whether text appears.
How we would measure itRatings, follow-up questions and questions passed on, per subject area, from usage logs and feedback.
04Time to resolve set tasks
Why it mattersLinks the assistant to actual work, for instance a front-office officer answering a question on a circular.
How we would measure itTimed comparisons of the same tasks before and after, on a fixed set of typical questions.
No targets are set before a baseline exists.
Rollout
A phased rollout
Phase 01
Discovery and review of sources
One subject area with named owners, for instance HR rules or the circulars of one department. We gather genuine questions and look at how well kept the documents are.
Exit criteria
Sources and owners settled
Set of questions gathered
Access model checked with IT security
Phase 02
Pilot with one team
One team uses the assistant through one front end, on cleared sources only.
Exit criteria
Targets for source support and citations reached
Access tests show no leaks
Owners acting on feedback
Phase 03
Add subject areas
Further sources and user groups, each going through the same check of owners, access rights and test questions.
Exit criteria
Test questions for each subject area
Document lifecycle settled with owners
Phase 04
Run
Your team takes over monitoring, test runs and content reports, and one named person owns the service.
Compliance manuals, product terms and operating procedures for staff at banks, insurers and investment services firms.
Illustrative example
Circulars and procedures for officers in a department
Situation
A Government department issues circulars and internal procedures that are revised several times a year. Officers at the front desk and in the back office keep asking senior colleagues which version applies.
System
An assistant on the intranet replies from the circulars and procedures in force only, limited to what each officer may read, and quotes the paragraph it relies on.
Human control
Each unit owns its procedures and clears them for indexing. Questions the documents do not cover are passed to the unit concerned, not answered by the assistant.
What we would measure
Support by sources and correct citations on a set of questions per unit, and the number of questions passed on to the units.
Malta
Maltese guidance, group manuals, EU texts
Staff in Malta often work from three layers of guidance at once: Maltese law and Legal Notices, group or Government circulars, and EU texts. Each layer lives in its own system with its own access rules. We build search that keeps those rules intact and draws on all three, so an officer sees which layer a reply comes from.
Hosting region, logging and retention are agreed early on with your data protection officer under GDPR, which the IDPC supervises in Malta. Where an assistant supports people in their work, we take the transparency duties of the EU AI Act into account, with the MDIA as lead Maltese authority, and document how replies are produced and tested.
01How is it ensured that staff see only what they are cleared for?
Access lists are copied from each source and enforced with the identity of the person asking, every time a question is put. We also prove it: ahead of any pilot we run tests with accounts from different groups and confirm that nothing crosses over.
02And if the assistant gets it wrong?
From time to time it will, which is why each reply shows its documents and any user can flag a problem with one click. Flags reach the document owner and are added as test cases. Where support is weak, the assistant is built to hold back instead of guessing.
03Our office suite already has an assistant. Why build our own?
In many cases you should not. If your documents sit in one suite and its own assistant meets your quality bar, we help you set it up and govern it. A tailored service is worth it when sources are spread over several systems, when you need control over search and testing, or when the default cannot keep data where your rules require.
04Our documents are untidy. Must we sort them all out first?
No, although looking after content tends to be the real constraint. We begin with one subject area, mark drafts and replaced documents, and send owners reports on copies and outdated material, so quality rises first where it counts.
05Can it work with sources in English and in Maltese?
English sources work well, and multilingual search also reaches documents in other EU languages, with replies in the language of the question and citations to the original text. For documents in Maltese we test search and reply quality on your own material before the assistant relies on them.
06How long would a pilot run?
Mostly on how quickly we get access to sources and owners. Scope and exit criteria for the pilot are settled in discovery. See how our projects run and our AI engineering work.
Show us where your know-how sits
Tell us which systems hold your documents and which staff need them. We will review sources, access rights and languages with you and suggest a first subject area.