Search Q&A (Advanced Access)

Search Q&A is a new application where you can use natural language and conversational capabilities to investigate and better understand their data, reducing the time required to find relevant information. This is an experimental capability that we are providing as part of this Advanced Access program so that Relativity can incorporate your feedback into this feature's development.

Advanced Access is an opportunity to evaluate and work with Relativity features prior to General Availability release. Relativity customers typically participate in Advanced Access programs on a feature-by-feature basis. The functionality described in this document may not be available in all Relativity environments and may not represent the functionality, appearance or behavior of the General Availability release version of this feature.

Release notes

This section includes the release information and the current functionality of the Search Q&A application.

  • Chat persistence—chat history is now saved and available for review even after user logs off their Relativity session.
  • Start a new chat—this button in the Q&A panel starts a new chat conversation below the previous one, separated by a line. The new chat conversation does not reference previous conversations for its responses.
  • Search Q&A button—the button is located on the top of the document list page and available for all users in the workspace to use.
  • "Ask a question” textbox—when the Q&A panel is open, a user can input a natural language question about the documents. Each question is evaluated and answered individually without consideration of the full conversation.
  • Workspace-level context—all indexed documents available in the workspace, up to 100,000, are subject to the querying process.
  • Chat history—a user’s chat history is visible during that user’s Relativity session. Once the user logs out of Relativity the chat history will be cleared.
  • Citations—references and citations are provided for each response. A user can filter the Document List to the show these references or can open each reference from the chat panel in the Document Viewer. Please note, that in the initial AA release, we do not confirm that the citations are grounded in the document text like in aiR for Review. See below on future feature releases.

Considerations

During Advanced Access, Search Q&A supports:

  • Up to 100,000 documents per workspace.
  • Up to 1 MB of Extracted Text per document.
  • Up to 500 MB of Extracted Text across all documents in workspace.
  • Up to 5 workspaces per Advanced Access participant.

You will receive an email reporting all documents that could not be indexed during the installation process.

Installation

During Advanced Access, the Relativity Search Q&A team will handle the installation. If you are an AA customer, you must provide the following information:

  • RelativityOne Tenant
  • Case Artifact Id for selected workspaces. For more information regarding maximum number of workspaces, see Considerations.
  • Written approval for the Relativity team to access the workspace.

Next, you must add the following individuals and email addresses to the R1-Support-Group and users in the workspace:

  • Jan Koscialkowski: jan.koscialkowski@relativity.com
  • Evan Curtin: evan.curtin@relativity.com

Once you confirm the items above, the Relativity team will install the application and index the documents for Q&A use. This takes approximately 1-2 business days.

Installation completion details and any indexing issues will be communicated to you via email.

Configuration

No further configuration is required to start using Search Q&A.

Using Search Q&A

The Search Q&A functionality is on the viewer page in your workspace.

  1. Navigate to the Documents tab in the workspace.
  2. Click the Q&A button at the top of Document List.
    Highlight of the Q&A button in a workspace.
    The Search Q&A window opens.
  3. Enter your question in the Ask a question text box using natural language, as if chatting with a person.
    The search Q&A panel.
  4. Press Enter on your keyboard to submit the question.

After submitting your question, a natural language response appears that includes a list of references, documents with control numbers, and more. For additional information on responses, see Working with responses.

Each question is processed independently, without relying on the context of previous questions or interactions.

The chat history remains available even after the user logs off their Relativity session.

Note: After each question and response, review the accuracy of the answer and its citations. Where appropriate, record your feedback and send it to the Relativity team.

To start a brand new chat conversation, click Start new chat button. A line will separate the old and new conversation. The new chat doesn't use past conversations to answer new questions.

Q&A panel

Refer to the following table to learn how to use the Search Q&A panel.

The search Q&A panel.

Element Description Purpose
The Start new chat button. Start new chat Starts a new chat conversation below the previous one, separated by a line. The new chat conversation does not reference previous conversations for its responses.
The expand icon. Expand Enlarges the Q&A panel to improve answer readability.
The close icon. Close Closes the Q&A panel.
The ask a question text box. Ask a question Use this text box to type your question and submit it by pressing Enter. Questions must be at least three characters long to submit.

Working with responses

After submitting questions, you'll receive responses. The responses include icons and options described in the following table.

The Search Q&A panel with a question and response.

Element Description Purpose
The natural language responses in the Q&A panel. Natural Language Response Provides the summarized answer to the question based on the retrieved documents, with inline citations (for example, [1], [2]) to specific References.
The list of references link to view references in response. List of References Displays the number of referenced citations generated for the response. Click this link to show or hide the list of references.
The view in document list link to view the document in the viewer. View in the Document List

Filters the Document List to display only the referenced documents.

Note: The selection of a specific folder in the Folder Browser may affect the visibility of references in the Document List. To ensure all references are visible, select the root folder level.
The control number link that can open the document being referenced. Control Number Click this link to open the document in the Viewer.
The more link to view more response information. More Click this link to reveal a larger part of the citation. This will only show for citations longer than three lines.

Troubleshooting

Search Q&A may sometimes fail to understand your question or provide a meaningful response. The current version has limited error-handling capabilities. If so, you might see this error message: I didn't quite understand your question, please try asking it differently. Try rephrasing the question and asking again. If the issue persists, report it to search-qa-help@relativity.com for troubleshooting.

I didn't quite understand your question, please try asking it differently

Removing the Search Q&A application

Currently, the Search Q&A app is available to all users on the workspaces where this capability enabled. Control access to those workspaces with the standard workspace access permissions. To disable Search Q&A from a given workspace, email the Search Q&A team at search-qa-help@relativity.com.

Frequently asked questions

Listed are questions you might have using the Search Q&A application.

Search Q&A can handle questions related to the documents in the current workspace. Questions that answer general knowledge questions are not supported. You can ask questions in natural language, such as "Who are the key people in this case?" or "Which documents mention [topic]?"

Search Q&A primarily works in English. If your workspace contains documents in other languages, the effectiveness of answers may vary.

Search Q&A relies on indexed data to generate answers leveraging retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). While it aims to offer correct responses, always verify the offered information and citations for accuracy. Feedback can help improve the tool over time.

There is no set limit, but long or highly complex queries may take more time to process. For best results, keep your questions concise and focused.

Yes, multiple users can use Search Q&A within the same workspace concurrently. However, each user's session and chat history are independent.

Indexing is currently managed by the Relativity team during this AA program and cannot be performed through the Relativity user interface. Please email Relativity at search-qa-help@relativity.com to coordinate an index update.

The commercial model is still being finalized and is expected to be introduced around June/July 2025. For now, all usage of Search Q&A is free of charge within the agreed-upon workspaces.