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Questionnaire assist

Questionnaire answer assist in Keel

When a prospect or customer sends you a security questionnaire, Questionnaire assist drafts answers from what you actually have in place (your frameworks, controls, and policies) so you start from a real draft instead of a blank sheet. Find it under Questionnaires you receive in the sidebar. It uses AI credits.

Draft answers

Section titled “Draft answers”

On the Draft answers tab, upload the questionnaire file or paste the questions (one per line), add optional context (for example “for a SaaS SOC 2”), and run the draft. Keel detects the questions automatically and answers each one honestly from your program, flagging anything it can’t support rather than guessing. Every draft is yours to review and edit before it goes to the prospect.

Supported uploads are .docx, .xlsx, .csv, .tsv, .txt, and .md, up to 5 MB. You can always paste the text instead.

Each run drafts up to a fixed number of questions, shown on the tab, and is charged up front at one flat rate however many questions it holds, less a refund for any question answered from your library. A longer questionnaire returns the first questions up to that limit, and the result says how many it found, so you can run the rest separately.

The evidence-readiness meter at the top of the tab shows how many of the artifacts your controls call for you have collected. Drafts are grounded in your controls and policies, so the more of that evidence you have, the stronger and more defensible your answers are.

When a run finishes, it opens on the Review drafts tab, which keeps your past runs.

Grounded answering engine

Section titled “Grounded answering engine”

The grounded answering engine is generally available. Keel:

  • Retrieves the body text of your own policies and controls (plus evidence metadata) and grounds each detected question against those snippets, abstaining rather than guessing when it has nothing to support an answer.
  • Presents the results on the Review drafts tab as a review queue where you accept a good answer into a reuse bank, so future questionnaires can reuse it automatically, or flag one for internal follow-up.
  • Also accepts PDF uploads, and when you upload an .xlsx questionnaire, writes the drafted answers back into the original workbook so you can download the filled file. Keel looks for questions on every worksheet rather than only the first, so a workbook that opens with a cover or instructions tab works the same as a single-sheet one. Only answers Keel could verify are written into the file. Anything it flagged for review stays in the app, so the workbook is safe to forward.

Your answer library

Section titled “Your answer library”

Every answer you accept is kept on the Answer library tab, under Questionnaires you receive. It holds what this workspace has already agreed it says.

When a later questionnaire repeats one of these questions in close to the same words, Keel answers with the wording you approved instead of drafting a new one, and refunds that question’s share of the credits for the run. A run answered entirely from the library is refunded in full.

Matching is on wording rather than meaning. A re-sent or renewed questionnaire reuses well; a different customer asking the same thing in their own words is usually drafted fresh.

On the library page you can search the answers by question or answer text, correct the wording of one that has gone out of date, and remove one that no longer applies. Editing an answer changes what future questionnaires say, so every edit and removal is written to your audit log.

The topic an answer is filed under is fixed. It carries the uniqueness constraint, so renaming it would either collide with another entry or detach the answer from its history.

The example question is editable, and it is what Keel scores a new question against, so changing it changes what will match. Rewording the answer itself is usually what you want.

Each answer can also carry three details that keep it trustworthy:

  • Owner: the person who keeps the answer true. If that person is removed from the workspace and you pick someone to hand their work to, the answer moves to them.
  • Source: the policy, document or link the answer is based on, so a reviewer can check it.
  • Review by: the date the answer should be looked at again. Once that date passes, the answer is marked Past review date, the page counts it, and Keel stops reusing it in new questionnaires. Set a later date or clear it after you review the wording, and reuse resumes.

The auditor role can read the library and cannot change it.

Company facts

Section titled “Company facts”

Many questionnaire questions ask about the company rather than about a policy: your legal name, where customer data is stored, your privacy contact, how quickly you notify customers of a breach, whether you carry cyber insurance. No policy document holds those answers, so Keel keeps them on the Company facts tab, under Questionnaires you receive.

Fill in the facts that apply to you and save. Each one you record becomes material Keel can cite when it drafts an answer, the same way it cites your policies and controls. Leave a field empty and Keel has nothing to cite for that question, so it flags the question for you instead of guessing. Clearing a field and saving removes that fact.

Keel does not check these facts. They are your own statements about your company, and every drafted answer that uses one is still yours to review before it goes out. Each save is written to your audit log, which records which facts changed but not their values.

The auditor role can read company facts and cannot change them.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”