Quick answer
Use this guide to understand iris, prepare the right records, and complete the workflow in 5 clear steps.
Start here
What this guide helps you do
- When officers need to look up a post order in the field instead of paging a supervisor.
- When supervisors want to publish company policies and SOPs in one searchable place.
- When new hires need quick answers about site-specific procedures during training.
- When you want to see which topics your team asks about most so you can improve documentation.
Access
Before you start
What you can view or change depends on your Arcova role. If a button or page in this guide is missing, ask an account administrator to check your access.
- Anyone signed in to your company account can ask Iris a question.
- Knowledge owners (usually a supervisor or training lead) upload and approve documents Iris is allowed to read.
- Admins control which documents are published and who can see them.
Know the pieces
What Arcova keeps track of
These are the records you will see in this area. You do not need to memorize them—use this list when a field or status is unfamiliar.
Knowledge Source
An uploaded document Iris reads from — like a post order, SOP, or employee handbook.
- Information you will see
- Document file, who can see it, version history.
- Statuses it can move through
- Draft, published, archived.
Question
Something a user types into Iris chat.
- Information you will see
- The question text, who asked it, when it was asked.
- Statuses it can move through
- Submitted, answered.
Answer
What Iris returns, including citations to the source paragraph and a confidence indicator.
- Information you will see
- Answer text, source links, confidence level (how relevant the source material was).
- Statuses it can move through
- Generated, rated, escalated.
Feedback
A thumbs up or thumbs down a user gives an answer.
- Information you will see
- Rating, optional reason, who left it.
- Statuses it can move through
- Open, reviewed, resolved.
Step by step
Follow the workflow
- 1
Upload your post orders and policies as PDF or DOCX.
- 2
Iris reads them and builds a searchable index.
- 3
Your team asks a question in chat.
- 4
Iris returns an answer with links to the source paragraph and a confidence indicator.
- 5
Users can rate the answer; low-rated answers create a review task for your knowledge owner.
Arcova in the background
What happens automatically
Arcova may update connected records, notify the right people, or check rules while you work.
Updates after a change
Other records that may change when you save or approve work.
- A newly published document becomes searchable a few minutes after upload, once Iris finishes reading it.
- A thumbs-down rating creates a review task for the knowledge owner so they can fix or replace the source.
- Every question and answer is saved so you can review what your team is asking about.
Who gets notified
Messages Arcova may send during this workflow.
- Knowledge owners get a weekly digest of questions that received negative feedback.
- Admins are alerted if a document fails to upload or process.
- Admins are notified when usage approaches their plan limits.
Checks Arcova performs
Rules and safeguards that may run before an action is completed.
- New documents are processed in the background; you can keep working while Iris reads them.
- Low-rated answers automatically rise to the top of the knowledge owner's review list.
- Admins can set a usage cap to prevent runaway questions on a busy day.
See it in context
A practical example
Situation
A new officer at the Westfield site opens Iris on his phone and asks, "What is the dress code for the Westfield site?"
- 1
Iris searches the published Westfield post orders and finds the uniform section.
- 2
It returns a short answer summarizing the requirement and a link to the exact paragraph in the source document.
- 3
The officer taps the link, confirms the source, and gives the answer a thumbs up.
- 4
The supervisor sees in the dashboard that the dress-code question is being asked often and decides to add a poster at the guard booth.
Expected result
The officer gets a verified answer in seconds and the supervisor learns where documentation could be reinforced.
Avoid rework
Common problems to check
- Unpublished and archived sources are filtered from search by default. Audit Iris responses regularly; do not rely on archival as a security control.
- Iris only sees documents your company has uploaded — it does not read the public internet.
- After uploading a large document, give Iris a few minutes to index it before expecting answers from it.
- The confidence indicator reflects how closely Iris matched your source material — not whether the answer is factually correct. Always verify high-stakes decisions.
- Iris can mask sensitive values (like SSNs or birth dates) in answers if you turn on PII redaction.
Could not find the answer?
Tell support what you were doing and where you got stuck.