Sources and citations
Every answer from your documents shows where it comes from. Small citation chips in the answer point to the documents and web pages Genie used, and the Sources panel lets you open the exact passage. Use them whenever an answer matters: before you quote a policy, send figures to a customer or make a decision.
Read the citations in an answer
Citations appear as small chips inside the answer text, right after the sentence they support:
- a book icon and the document name (shortened if it is long) for a company document;
- a globe icon and the site name for a web page.
Point to a chip to see a preview: the document title and the cited passage, or the page title and its address.
Quick answers also show a summary line above the answer, such as Referenced 3 document(s) or Referenced 2 document(s) and 1 web page(s). Click it to unfold the list of documents and the passages Genie used.
website-docs/public/screenshots/en/chat-answer.pngOpen the sources panel
- Click a citation chip. The Sources panel opens on the right, directly on the cited passage.
- Or click Sources at the top right of the chat to see every source of the latest answer.
The panel lists the sources, grouped under Documents, Web and Tools when an answer used several kinds. For each document you see a number, the title and a short snippet. Click the snippet to read more of it.
Each document has two buttons:
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| View in original | Opens the original file in the panel, scrolled to the cited passage and highlighted |
| View document details | Opens the document in its knowledge base, in a new tab |
Click a web source to open the page in a new browser tab. To go back to the full list from an open document, click All sources.
website-docs/public/screenshots/en/citations-drawer.pngOpen the cited passage
When you click a document citation or View in original, Genie opens the original file and looks for the passage. You see Locating the cited passage…, then, for example, Located the source passage or Found on page 4.
How the passage is shown depends on the file:
| File | What you see |
|---|---|
| The page, with a box around the cited paragraph | |
| Word | The cited paragraph or table |
| PowerPoint | The cited slide, with the text highlighted |
| Excel or CSV | The cited rows, highlighted |
| Text, Markdown | The cited text |
| Audio or video | The recording, from the time the passage is spoken |
| Imported web page | The cited section, with a link to open the page there (Open the web page at this passage) |
If the document changed since the answer was written, or the passage cannot be pinpointed, Genie still opens the original and says so, for example Could not pinpoint the cited passage; the original is open.
Check an answer
For an answer you are going to rely on:
- Open each citation and read the passage around it. Does it say what the answer says?
- Look at the document title and date. Is it the current version of the policy, price list or procedure?
- For web sources, check the site: is it official? Is the page recent?
- Check figures against the source, especially totals and dates.
- If something is wrong or outdated, rate the answer 👎 with the reason. See Ask Genie.
When Genie finds nothing in your documents
Sometimes the documents you can read do not answer the question. Genie tells you so in one of these ways:
- An ⓘ icon under the answer: No relevant content found in knowledge base. Above is a direct response from the model. The answer comes from the AI's general knowledge, not from your company. It has no citations. Do not rely on it for company rules or figures.
- A message that it could not find the information, with tips to rephrase.
- A note that Genie looked elsewhere, for example Searched the web because the knowledge base had no good answer, or Documents were not enough, so Genie looked further.
What you can do:
- Rephrase with the words your company uses ("annual leave" rather than "holidays"), or add context (branch, period, product).
- Point Genie to the right place: choose the knowledge base or the document. See Ask your documents.
- Check that you can see the document. If the information is in a document you are not allowed to read, Genie cannot use it. See Why you may not see a document.
- Rate the answer 👎 with the reason Information not found. Your workspace admins see which knowledge bases leave questions unanswered, so the right document can be added. They see your question only if you tick Send this question and answer to the workspace admins so they can improve Genie (see Rate an answer).
Good to know
- Citations only point to what you may read. Genie never cites a document you are not allowed to open.
- No citations in an answer? Greetings, translations and calculations on text you gave need no sources. For a question about your company, an answer without citations deserves a second look.
- Shared conversations hide what readers cannot open. When you share a conversation, colleagues who cannot read a cited knowledge base see that source marked as restricted.
- Citation chips may be turned off for some agents; the Sources panel still lists the sources.