Ask approved company knowledge

A private document assistant that shows its sources and its limits.

The target is not a chatbot that sounds confident. It is a controlled retrieval service that finds approved evidence, cites it and declines when support is weak.

Decision in one minute

Start with one bounded document set and a representative question set. Expand only after retrieval, permissions and answer support pass.

A private deployment starts with the permitted data path, access policy and logging boundary.

Workload before hardware

Describe the queue, the quality bar and the operating owner.

01 / Work unit: Size from model, context, concurrent users and peak demand.
02 / Acceptance: Agree quality, latency, citation or output checks before buying.
03 / Operations: Plan updates, monitoring, support and a fallback route.

Diagram showing approved documents moving through a searchable index to an answer with a source citation — A retrieval workflow should connect each useful answer to approved source material and defined refusal behaviour. Original explanatory plate. It sets out a decision method, not a measured result.

Scope the knowledge base

Choose one business process, source owner, document set and update frequency. Remove duplicates and obsolete material before ingestion.

A smaller controlled corpus is a better pilot than “all company knowledge”.

Work unit: Tokens, frames, files or jobs.
Duration: How long one active job occupies capacity.
Concurrency: How many jobs overlap.
Deadline: Interactive response or queued completion.

A measured queue or user pattern is more useful than an unsupported user-count claim. Decision aid for: Scope the knowledge base

GPU server remote management dashboard with system status, access logs and sensor monitoring panels — Supplier screenshot of the platform management interface. The final management features and access policy depend on the ordered system. OEM supplier reference image. Written reuse permission pending.

Diagram of an evidence pack containing an asset schedule, burn-in record, health readings, workload test and admin guide — A credible handover records the supplied assets, checks, operating evidence, instructions and unresolved items. Original explanatory plate. It sets out a decision method, not a measured result.

Preserve permissions

Retrieval must not give a user access to a passage they could not open in the source system. Separate collections or group-aware filtering may be required.

Permission design is part of the workload, not a later UI setting.

Output quality Correctness, support or usable result.

Service quality Latency, throughput and availability.

Control quality Permissions, logs and refusal.

Pass Named reviewer accepts the combined result.

A fast result is not acceptable when it is wrong, unsupported or shown to the wrong user. Decision aid for: Preserve permissions

Evaluate with real questions

Measure whether the right passage is retrieved, whether the answer is supported, whether the citation is usable and whether refusal works.

Human review remains mandatory for material legal, financial, clinical or safety decisions.

Observe Demand, errors and resource state.
Review Quality drift, access and incidents.
Change Versioned model or runtime update.
Retest Focused acceptance before wider use.

The operating owner needs a repeatable route for change, rollback and evidence. Decision aid for: Evaluate with real questions

Choose hardware after the test

Daily demand depends on model, context, response length and concurrent questions. Ingestion and embedding can be scheduled separately.

The fit test determines whether Team 32, a larger workstation, a rack server or a hosted route is proportionate.

Questions answered

Straight answers to common questions

Can the assistant read all our company files?

It can ingest approved sources after format, permission, retention and quality review. “All files” is not a safe default.

Will every answer cite a source?

The system can be designed to cite retrieved passages and refuse unsupported questions. The behaviour still needs evaluation.

Is SharePoint integration included?

Not in the baseline package. Source connectors and permission mapping require a separate defined scope.

Continue the decision

Useful next steps

Put the claim to work

Turn this guidance into a testable requirement.

The brief asks about workload and operating conditions - not just budget.

Plan your requirements Compare proposed systems

A private document assistant that shows its sources and its limits.

Describe the queue, the quality bar and the operating owner.

Scope the knowledge base

Peak demand can matter more than the daily average

Trace the work before sizing the capacity.