Overview
The AI Question Routing feature lets SafeBase route each questionnaire question to the right person on your team automatically for completion, review and approval. When you upload a questionnaire and run AIQA, the system analyzes every question, identifies which Subject Areas each question falls under, and displays what designated subject matter experts are available for the selected subject matter area.
Subject Areas are configured once in Settings. Each area is defined by a name, a description that acts as the routing rule, and a list of SMEs marked as primary or secondary contacts. From that point forward, every questionnaire processed by AIQA can leverage your team’s expertise without manual lookup.
Benefits
Eliminate manual routing and lookup for question review— AIQA reads each question and matches it to the correct Subject Area and SME automatically.
Handle questions that span multiple topics — a single question can be tagged with up to three Subject Areas and up to three primary contacts for each question.
Choose how much control you keep — use Recommendation mode to spot-check AIQA’s suggestions before assigning, or fully auto-assign when you trust the routing. • Override on the fly — if AIQA picks the wrong Subject Area or contact, you can correct it directly from the question.
Keep a single source of truth — your Subject Areas page becomes the org-wide record of who owns what, including secondary backups.
Prerequisites & Notes
Subject Area setting must be turned on and set up prior to running AIQA for SMEs to be analyzed and assigned within a questionnaire
Additional notes:
Default Subject Areas pre-created by SafeBase cannot be edited. You can create and fully customize your own Subject Areas alongside them.
A question can carry up to three Subject Areas, and three SME primary contacts assigned to a given question.
Step 1: Navigate to Subject Areas
Subject Areas and their SMEs are configured in Settings. Once configured, the routing applies automatically the next time you run AIQA on a questionnaire.
Open Settings from the main navigation.
Select the Questionnaires tab
Scroll down to the Subject Areas section.
Review the list of default Subject Areas that SafeBase has pre-created for you.
Step 2: Create a custom Subject Area
If the defaults don’t cover everything your team handles, create you own.
Select Create subject area.
Enter a name for the area.
Enter a description.
Important note: The description acts as the rule AIQA uses to decide when this area applies to a question, so write it clearly and specifically.
Toggle the Questionnaire assistance setting so it becomes available for questionnaire assistance to use in classifying questions.
Tip: Treat the Description like an instruction to AIQA. The more precisely it captures the topics in scope, the more accurate the automatic routing will be. |
Step 3: Add Subject Matter Experts to a Subject Area
Open any Subject Area to add the experts who own it.
Select the desired Subject Area to add an expert for.
Then, select Add Expert.
Select a member of your organization.
Choose the product the expert covers for this area.
Mark them as Primary or Secondary contact.
Primary — The SME that AIQA will recommend or assign by default whenever this Subject Area is detected in a question.
Secondary — Backup contacts. They aren’t auto-assigned, but they appear in the list so you can quickly swap them in when filling out a questionnaire.
Repeat to add as many experts as you need.
Note: The same person can be added to multiple Subject Areas with different products and different primary/secondary relationships. This is useful for SMEs who cover more than one domain. |
To remove an expert, use the delete control next to their name within the Subject Area.
Feature Walkthrough
1. Running AIQA with Question Classification and Subject Matter Expert Assignment on
When you run AIQA on a questionnaire with this feature setting turned on, AIQA analyzes each question, identifies and tags the relevant Subject Areas, and surfaces the SMEs designated as primary contacts for those areas when they are available:
2. Recommended vs. Assigned states
SMEs surface on a question in one of two visual states. The state tells you whether the assignment is final or still awaiting your confirmation.
Recommended — Shown in a purple box with a dashed border. The SME is suggested but not yet assigned. This state appears when Recommendation has been turned on (for example, when the Questionnaire Agent is running).
Assigned — Shown in a white box. The SME is fully assigned to the question.
To convert a Recommended SME into a full Assignment, select the recommended user(s) and save. Once saved, the dashed purple state changes to the solid Assigned state:
You can also use the dedicated button in the bulk actions toolbar to Assign recommended experts for selected rows:
3. Correcting a Subject Area on a question
If AIQA tags a question with the wrong Subject Area, you can fix it directly from the question’s Subject Area list.
Open the question.
Remove the incorrect Subject Area.
Select the correct Subject Area from the list.
Review the updated list of primary contacts for that Subject Area.
Assign the appropriate SME, or remove an SME if needed.
Take a second to review your Subject Area’s descriptions to ensure they are accurate in order to ensure AIQA has the most information possible to classify a question.
4. Questions that span multiple Subject Areas
Some questions genuinely cover more than one topic. For these cases, AIQA can tag a question with multiple Subject Areas, each with its own set of contacts.
Up to three Subject Areas per question.
Up to three primary contacts per Subject Area on a given question.
Each Subject Area and its assignees can be edited independently from the same question view.
Wrap-up
Once your Subject Areas are defined and your SMEs are in place, AIQA can take over the heavy lifting of routing questions to the right people on every questionnaire that comes in. Combine this with Recommendation mode and the Questionnaire Agent to strike the right balance between automation and human oversight for your team