Executive Summary

Release 26.8.2 delivers updates across AP Invoices and SmartResearch.

In AP Invoices, Business Rules moves from Early Availability to General Availability, so rules that populate invoice fields automatically are available to all tenants.

In SmartResearch, users can create their own reusable skills and run them on request. Users can also attach a document to a question and ask SmartResearch about its contents, rather than querying only the connected system of record (SoR) and mailboxes. Users who rate an answer with a thumbs-down can raise a support ticket from the same window, with the question and answer attached automatically.

This release also fixes defects in AP Invoices and SmartResearch. See Fixed Bugs.

• AP Invoices – Business Rules General Availability: Business Rules is promoted from Early Availability to General Availability, so automated IF/THEN/ELSE field population is available without a request to Auditoria.

• SmartResearch – Skill Builder: Users can create, edit, and share reusable skills from a description, a recent prompt, a template, or a conversation, with a name and a purpose as the only required fields.

• SmartResearch – File Upload as a Data Source: Users can attach a document to a question and ask SmartResearch about its contents, with spreadsheet attachments shown as a table.

• SmartResearch – Support Ticket from Thumbs-Down Feedback: Users can raise a support ticket from the thumbs-down feedback window, with the question, answer, and session details attached automatically.

Bugs Fixed: Included in this release. New Known Bugs: None reported in this release.

1. New and Updated Features

AP Invoices: Business Rules General Availability

Business Rules lets an AP administrator define IF/THEN/ELSE rules that populate invoice fields automatically before a clerk opens a document. The feature was previously available on request. This release promotes it to General Availability, so it is available to all tenants.

Business Rules is configured on the Business Rules tab under SmartVendor > Settings. Rules evaluate header, line, and vendor fields and then set a value, copy a value from another field, apply vendor defaults, calculate a value, or set a field blank. Each rule has a name, a description, and an Order Of Execution number that determines which rule takes precedence when several rules apply. Rules can be enabled or disabled individually, and a rule can be marked to apply to every document regardless of field values.

What's New

• General Availability: Business Rules is available to all tenants without a request to Auditoria.
• Condition operators: The operators offered depend on the field. Every field offers Equals, Not Equals, Is Blank, and Exists. Text fields add Contains. Amount and quantity fields add Greater Than, Less Than, Greater Than or Equal To, and Less Than or Equal To. Date fields offer Is Within and Is Beyond only.
• Action types: A rule sets a field using Set to, Copy from another field, Vendor Defaults, Calculate As, or Set Blank.
• Execution order: The Order Of Execution number determines precedence when more than one rule matches a document.
• Apply to all documents: A rule marked to apply to all documents runs on every invoice, regardless of field values.

Notes

• Business Rules was documented in release 26.8.1 as an Early Availability feature. This release changes its availability status. The rule behavior described in 26.8.1 is unchanged.

• Amount and quantity fields display a value of 0.00 rather than a blank value when no amount is present. Take this into account when building a condition on those fields.

A skill is a saved, repeatable instruction set that SmartResearch can run on request, such as a recurring accounts payable (AP) exception review. This release adds a Skills page and a skill builder, so users can create and manage their own skills instead of retyping the same request.

A skill needs only a name and a purpose to be runnable. The other fields can be left blank: the phrases that trigger it, default parameters, the steps to follow, and the shape of the output. SmartResearch works these out from the purpose, and users can override any of them.

What's New

• Skills page: A Skills page lists the skills available to the user, with filters for domain, status, and owner.

• Create from a description: The Describe a new skill option scaffolds a draft skill from a single sentence describing what it should do.

• Create from a recent prompt: The Reuse a recent prompt option turns a recent question into a skill.

• Create from a template: The Start from a template option opens a template catalog to use as a starting point.

• Create from a conversation: The Open Skill builder action carries an answer from the chat window into the builder.

• Required fields: A skill is runnable with a name and a purpose. The name must be unique.

• Inferred fields: Trigger phrases, default parameters, steps, and output shape are optional. SmartResearch infers each one from the purpose, and the inference is shown so it can be accepted or changed.

• Editing and deletion: Users can edit their skills and delete the ones they own.

• Sharing: A skill is either private to its owner or shared with everyone.

Notes

• Users can delete skills they own. Skills shared with them cannot be deleted.

SmartResearch: File Upload as a Data Source

SmartResearch previously answered questions only from connected sources such as your system of record (SoR) and mailboxes. Finance teams hold records outside those systems, such as a vendor statement sent as a PDF or a spreadsheet, and had no way to ask questions about them in SmartResearch.

This release lets a user attach a document to a question. SmartResearch extracts the content and answers questions about it, and the file can be referenced by name in the conversation.

What's New

• File attachment: Users attach one or more files in the message composer and ask questions about their contents.
• Supported formats: PDF, comma-separated values (CSV), Excel workbooks (.xlsx), PowerPoint files (.pptx), PNG, and JPEG.
• File size limit: Each file can be up to 50 MB, within a total of 1 GB per user.
• Spreadsheet preview: CSV and Excel attachments are shown as a table in the preview panel, with a tab for each sheet in a multi-sheet workbook.
• Pinned files: A user can keep up to five files pinned for reuse across questions.
• Upload validation: The composer checks each file's type and size before upload and reports the reason a file was refused. Where several files are selected and one is refused, the remaining files still upload.

Notes

• Older Excel workbooks (.xls), Word documents (.doc and .docx), and plain text (.txt) files are not supported. Save the file as .xlsx, PDF, or CSV before attaching it.
• An attached file is available for the session in which it was uploaded.

SmartResearch: Support Ticket from Thumbs-Down Feedback

Rating an answer with a thumbs-down previously recorded the feedback with no acknowledgment and no way to follow it up. This release adds the option to open a support ticket from the same feedback window, with the question, the answer, and the session details attached automatically.

What's New

• Support ticket option: The thumbs-down feedback window includes an Also submit a support ticket checkbox. The option does not appear on thumbs-up feedback.
• Required detail: Selecting the checkbox makes the Type of issues list and the Describe the problem field required. The issue types are Data Accuracy, User Experience, Summary or Insight, and Other.
• Automatic context: The ticket carries the question asked, the answer that was rated, the issue type, the company, the SmartResearch instance the answer ran against, the chat and message identifiers, and the time of submission. None of this is retyped.
• Ticket confirmation: After submission, a confirmation message reports the ticket number.
• Feedback retained on failure: If the ticket cannot be created, the thumbs-down rating is still recorded and a message reports that the ticket was not opened.
• Unchanged default: Leaving the checkbox clear records the rating as before, with the issue type and the details remaining optional.

Notes

• Tickets are raised against the email address on your Auditoria account. If no email address is on file, the rating is recorded and no ticket is opened.

2. Fixed Bugs

SmartResearch: Assistant interrupted when a metric with its own time range is queried over a different period

• Symptom: Asking a question with a custom time frame, or with the time range set in user preferences, against a metric that defines its own time range interrupted the assistant before it returned an answer.
• Impact: The question returned no answer and had to be asked again without the custom time range.
• Workaround: No workaround was available.

SmartResearch: Questions accepted when no SmartResearch instance is enabled

• Symptom: SmartResearch accepted questions in tenants where no SmartResearch instance had been created or enabled, and those questions returned no usable answer. SmartResearch now reports that no instance is enabled and offers a Set up an instance action.
• Impact: Users could submit questions that could not be answered, with no indication of why.
• Workaround: No workaround was available.

3. New Known Bugs