Answer employee questions from internal policies
Retrieve the relevant sections of company documents and draft a grounded answer in the team’s messaging app.
How this works
Retrieve the relevant sections of company documents and draft a grounded answer in the team’s messaging app.
Answer only from policies that apply to the employee’s role and location. Retrieval should expose the exact supporting passage and effective date, while unanswered or contradictory questions move to the policy owner.
Before you start
Defined operating scope
Employees repeatedly ask questions answered in current approved policies.
Required source material
Obtain Internal procedures. If connectors are unavailable, use authorized files with the same fields.
Decision and exception rules
Only an expired policy answers the question. Report that current guidance is unavailable and request the replacement.
Prepare the inputs
- employee_scope
- Required
Role, location and access group
Use authenticated attributes, not claims inside the question.
- question
- Required
Text
Identify the requested policy topic.
- policy_corpus
- Required
Documents with versions and permissions
Exclude superseded or inaccessible material.
- owner_map
- Required
Topic-to-owner routing
Provide a responsible fallback for unanswered questions.
Implementation, step by step
Establish the working record
- Confirm the selected records, effective versions and responsible owner.
- Check employee_scope, question, policy_corpus, owner_map before beginning. Record the source version and the selected scope; an unavailable value stays unknown rather than becoming an inferred fact.
Checkpoint: The input record identifies the selected employee_scope and any missing required fields.
Index the current approved policies with document permissions
- Index approved policy versions with access metadata; maintain replacements and effective dates instead of appending every version equally.
- Check every material answer sentence against an accessible, current passage.
Checkpoint: A saved intermediate result for: Index the current approved policies with document permissions.
Retrieve the relevant passages for an employee’s question
- Retrieve passages matching the topic and employee scope, checking jurisdiction or location applicability where the policy distinguishes them.
- Test a question from another access group to verify that restricted content is not revealed.
Checkpoint: A saved intermediate result for: Retrieve the relevant passages for an employee’s question.
Draft an answer supported by those passages
- Draft a direct answer with citations and clearly stated limits; do not combine incompatible regional rules into one invented policy.
- Check every material answer sentence against an accessible, current passage.
Checkpoint: A saved intermediate result for: Draft an answer supported by those passages.
Hand off missing or ambiguous answers to the policy owner
- Send the owner a focused question containing the applicable passages and ambiguity, while giving the employee an honest unresolved status.
- Test a question from another access group to verify that restricted content is not revealed.
Checkpoint: A saved intermediate result for: Hand off missing or ambiguous answers to the policy owner.
Package the result and unresolved work
- Check permissions and answer accuracy.
- Policy documents provide evidence, not permission to access other employee records.
Checkpoint: Policy answers. Unresolved items remain visible in the review record.
Decisions along the way
Only an expired policy answers the question.
Report that current guidance is unavailable and request the replacement.
Two current documents conflict.
Quote the conflict and refer it to the policy owner rather than choosing by wording confidence.
The employee lacks access to the retrieved document.
Exclude its content and route through the authorized support channel.
What you will produce
internal-policy-assistant-result.json
JSONPolicy answers. Label proposed and completed states separately.
Include: question · applicable_policy · answer_draft · citations · uncertainty · handoff_owner · status · evidence_reference · review_note
internal-policy-assistant-review.md
MarkdownKeep the evidence and unresolved decisions needed to apply this result, including exceptions involving owner_map.
Include: source_reference · question · owner · next_action
Check the result
- Check every material answer sentence against an accessible, current passage.
- Test a question from another access group to verify that restricted content is not revealed.
- Inspect employee_scope and question in both the original and output; confirm that record identity and interpretation survived the transformation.
- Check permissions and answer accuracy.
When something goes wrong
Only an expired policy answers the question.
Report that current guidance is unavailable and request the replacement. Retain the affected evidence and recovery status.
Two current documents conflict.
Quote the conflict and refer it to the policy owner rather than choosing by wording confidence. Retain the affected evidence and recovery status.
The employee lacks access to the retrieved document.
Exclude its content and route through the authorized support channel. Retain the affected evidence and recovery status.
A worked example
SYNTHETIC EXAMPLE · NOT A REPORTED BUSINESS RESULT
Request
Answer employee questions from internal policies for the following bounded example; prepare the result for review.
Inputs
Synthetic example: Employee scope is Location B. Policy P-4 says Location A may expense travel meals; P-7 covers Location B but contains no meal guidance.
Expected result
Synthetic expected result: Answer states that the available Location B policy does not establish meal eligibility. It does not apply the Location A rule; route the question to the expense-policy owner.
Run a small pilot
Start small
Trial a representative batch containing the ordinary case and the exception demonstrated above.
Record the baseline
Record current preparation time, review effort and correction types for the same records.
Agree success criteria
Agree acceptable review and error limits; measure correct grounded answers in a reviewed sample; appropriate escalation rate.
Stop or revise
The employee lacks access to the retrieved document. Pause affected records and apply this recovery: Exclude its content and route through the authorized support channel.
Keep the scope clear
- Policy documents provide evidence, not permission to access other employee records.
- The assistant explains approved wording; exceptions and policy changes belong to responsible people.
Check before using
Check permissions and answer accuracy.
Business activities
- Support and develop employees
- Maintain shared company knowledge
FROM A RECIPE TO YOUR WORKFLOW
Bring the company context together.
This workflow needs reliable inputs before it needs a better prompt. Moat8 Vault brings working information into a readable archive for the AI tools you use.
For this recipe: Internal procedures
Start with one recurring task, agree which sources to use, and review the first result with your team.
Discuss this workflow