Multi-Answer Jobs

Upload an Excel file with questions, get AI-generated answers for all of them, across one or more sheets of the same workbook. Multi-Answer Jobs process hundreds of questions in minutes, using your Guru’s knowledge base to provide accurate, source-backed responses. Answers are generated through the same pipeline as the Guru’s chat interface (the same prompt, model configuration, Agentic Actions, source visibility rules, and Trust Score settings), so a question answered in a Multi-Answer job matches what you would get by asking the Guru directly. Only the formatting differs: answers are written as plain text so they fit cleanly into Excel cells.

Why Multi-Answer?

RFP Response

Complete 100+ vendor questionnaires in hours instead of weeks

Security Questionnaires

Answer SOC 2, ISO 27001, and vendor security assessments at scale

Compliance Audits

Handle GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS questionnaires with consistent answers

Due Diligence

Respond to investor or M&A questionnaires quickly

Real-World Use Cases

RFP & Vendor Questionnaires

The problem: Your sales team receives a 150-question RFP with a 1-week deadline. Manually researching and writing each answer takes days.With Multi-Answer:

Export the RFP questions to Excel
Upload to Multi-Answer Jobs
Get draft answers in minutes, backed by your 100+ real customer RFP documents, playbooks, and product docs
Review, refine, and submit

Result: RFP response time reduced from 5 days to 1 hour.

Security & Compliance Questionnaires

The problem: Enterprise customers send security questionnaires (SOC 2, VSA, CAIQ) with 200+ questions. Your security team is overwhelmed.With Multi-Answer:

Upload your security policies, SOC 2 report, and compliance docs as data sources
Import the customer’s questionnaire
Generate answers that reference your actual policies
Security team reviews instead of writes from scratch

Result: Security questionnaire turnaround reduced by 80%.

Due Diligence & Investor Questions

The problem: During fundraising or M&A, you receive extensive due diligence questionnaires covering legal, financial, and technical details.With Multi-Answer:

Upload relevant internal documentation
Process the due diligence questionnaire
Get consistent, accurate answers across all categories
Legal/finance teams review and approve

Result: Due diligence response completed in days instead of weeks.

Knowledge Base Quality Audit

The problem: You want to test if your knowledge base can answer the most common customer questions accurately.With Multi-Answer:

Export your top 100 support questions
Run them through Multi-Answer
Review trust scores and identify gaps
Add missing content to your knowledge base

Result: Proactively identify and fix KB gaps before customers hit them.

Getting Started

Open your Guru’s settings and choose Multi-Answer Jobs from the sidebar. On your first visit the page is empty. Click Create a Job to start.

Creating a Multi-Answer Job

A job is built in two passes. First you pick the sheets to answer, then you map the columns of each picked sheet. The general instruction, Answer Tools, and source/label filters are set once and apply to every picked sheet.

Step 1: Upload the Excel file

Click Select File and choose the workbook that holds your questions. Only .xlsx files are accepted, up to 10 MB.

Step 2: Choose the sheets to answer

One job can answer as many sheets of the workbook as you like. After upload, Gurubase lists every sheet with a checkbox and its row count, next to a read-only preview.

Only the first visible sheet is selected by default. Tick the other sheets you want answered, or use Select all visible sheets.
Hidden sheets carry a hidden badge and are never selected for you, since they usually hold scratch or archive data. Tick one yourself if you do want it answered.
Click a sheet’s name to preview it before you decide. The preview is useful for spotting cover pages or instruction sheets that hold no questions.

The footer shows how many sheets are selected. Click Continue to mapping when you’re done.

If the workbook has only one sheet, this step is skipped and you go straight to mapping.

Step 3: Map each selected sheet

Each sheet is mapped on its own, so sheets with completely different layouts can run in the same job. The Sheets strip at the top lists the sheets you picked, each with a status icon:

Blue dot: the sheet you are mapping now
Green check: the sheet is fully mapped and valid
Amber warning: the sheet still needs mapping

Click a sheet in the strip to switch to it. Change selection takes you back to Step 2 without losing the mappings you’ve made, and Change File starts over with a different workbook. For each sheet, the Configuration Steps guide you through the steps below. Picking the header row and the question column moves you to the next step automatically, and you can click a step’s circle to go back to it.

For large sheets, the mapping table previews the first 200 rows and 50 columns. Every row of the sheet is still processed.

Header Row

Click the row that holds this sheet’s column headers. It is often row 1, but any row works, so a sheet with a title or blank rows above its headers is fine.

Question Column

Click the column that holds the questions. Every row below the header row that has a question is processed; rows with an empty question cell are skipped. The model sees more than the question. The row’s other columns (except the answer columns) are passed along as context, so a column like Owner or Category also shapes the answer.

Answer Columns

Click one or more columns where answers should be written. Each answer column gets its own answer, which is useful for asking for different formats or lengths of the same question. Every answer column also gets an optional instruction (up to 1,000 characters) in Answer Configuration on the right (for example, “Yes or No only” on one column and “Answer in 2-3 sentences” on another). Column headers are passed to the model too, so a header like “Short Answer” already steers the response.

Only the answer cells of the sheets you process are written. Every other sheet, cell, formula, and format in the original workbook is kept in the output file.

Ignore Rows (Optional)

Some rows should not be answered: a sample question, an example row, or a section title. Click the Ignore Rows step, then click or drag over those rows on the table.

Ignored rows are highlighted on the table, and the Job Summary on the right shows how many rows of this sheet are ignored. They are skipped during processing and left untouched in the output file.

Step 4: Job-wide settings

The Configuration panel on the right shows the current sheet’s mapping in the Job Summary and its column instructions. The sections below it are entered once and apply to every selected sheet.

General Instruction (Optional)

Guidance for every answer across all sheets and columns (up to 2,000 characters), such as tone, audience, or what to avoid.

Answer Tools (Optional)

Multi-Answer jobs support the same answer tools as the chat input:

Deep Think: The model spends more reasoning effort on every answer. It is slower but gives higher-quality answers, which helps with complex RFP or compliance questions. Shown when your Guru’s answer model supports it.
Web Search: Answers can draw on up-to-date web results when the knowledge base alone is not enough. Web sources are listed in each answer’s references. Shown only when web search is enabled and available for your Guru.

Filter by Sources/Labels (Optional)

Limit which data sources or labels are used when generating answers. The filter applies to every selected sheet.

Validation

Gurubase validates the mapping automatically as you work (you can also click Validate). Each sheet is validated on its own:

While any sheet is incomplete, a banner shows how many sheets still need mapping, and Create Job stays disabled. A sheet is never skipped silently.
Once every sheet is valid, the banner turns green and shows the total number of questions across all sheets.

The validation summary below the panel covers the sheet you are mapping now:

Total Questions: Questions in this sheet that will be processed, excluding ignored rows
Answers to Generate: Empty answer cells that will be filled
Answers to Skip: Answer cells that already have a value. A row whose answer cells are all filled is skipped and left untouched. In a row where only some answer cells are filled, all of that row’s answer columns are written.
Ignored Rows: Rows you marked in the Ignore Rows step, plus rows skipped automatically for merged cells
Answer Column Breakdown: How many answers each column will generate and skip

If an answer cell is part of a merged cell and can’t be written, that row is skipped automatically and you get a warning. When every sheet is ready, click Create Job to start processing.

The downloaded result is your original workbook, changed only in the answer cells of the sheets you processed. Every other sheet, including hidden and unselected ones, comes back with its cells, formulas, and formatting as uploaded. Drawn shapes such as text boxes are not carried over, so keep your original file if it has them.If the Guru can’t answer a question (it is out of scope, or the knowledge base doesn’t have enough on it), the Guru’s standard reply for that case is written into the row’s answer cells, and the row is counted as failed.

Managing Ongoing Jobs

Jobs that are still processing appear in the jobs table.

List

See every job with its status, progress, row count, creation time, and creator. Click View Details for more.

Details

Follow the job’s progress with:

Progress Bar: How many rows have been processed so far
Summary Cards: Total questions, processed, failed, and remaining counts
Configuration: A table with each processed sheet’s header row, question column, and answer columns, plus the general instruction
Rows Table: Each row’s status, question preview, Trust Score, and a link to the full answer. Multi-sheet jobs also show which Sheet each row comes from.

Use the search field to find specific questions within the job.

Managing Finished Jobs

Finished jobs show the COMPLETED status, and their results can be reviewed and downloaded.

List

Completed jobs show 100% progress with their success and failure counts. Use the download icon to get the result file straight from the list.

Details

Review a completed job with:

Download Result: Download the Excel file with the generated answers
Summary Cards: Total questions, processed, failed, and remaining counts
Rows Table: Every processed question with its status, Trust Score, and a link to the full answer, plus its sheet in multi-sheet jobs

Use the search field to find specific questions within the job.

Tips for Best Results

Prepare Your Knowledge Base First

Multi-Answer quality depends on your data sources. Before running large questionnaires:

Upload relevant policies, documentation, and product specs
Ensure your SOC 2 report, security policies, and compliance docs are indexed
Test a few sample questions first to verify coverage

Use Column-Specific Instructions

Column headers in your Excel file are passed to the model, so a header like “Short Answer” already guides the response. For finer control, each answer column can also have its own instructions:

Column B: “Answer in 1-2 sentences, formal tone”
Column C: “Provide detailed answer with specific policy references”
Column D: “Yes/No only, with brief justification”

This lets you generate multiple answer formats in a single job.

Review Trust Scores

Each answer includes a trust score. Prioritize manual review for:

Low trust scores (answer may need more context)
Questions outside your knowledge base coverage
Answers that reference general knowledge vs. your specific docs

Filter by Labels for Targeted Answers

Your data sources can have labels (e.g., “security”, “product”, “legal”). When creating a Multi-Answer job, you can filter to only use sources with specific labels.Example: You have 500 documents, but for a security questionnaire, you filter to only “security” labeled sources. The AI will only reference your SOC 2 report and security policies, not product marketing docs.This ensures answers are grounded in the right documents.

Next Steps

Data Sources

Add the documents your Multi-Answer jobs will reference

Excel Extraction

Best practices for preparing Excel files

Prompting Your Guru

Customize how your Guru generates answers

Analytics

Track answer quality and usage patterns

Get Started

Guides

Integrations

Advanced