Turn your SOPs into an AI assistant your staff can ask
Start with the manual you already have. Connect data later — or never.
Every business runs on documents nobody reads twice: standard operating procedures,
onboarding manuals, the how-we-do-things pages someone wrote carefully and everyone
asks a colleague about instead. Give those documents to Sonela and your staff can
ask them questions in plain language, inside the application they already work in —
and get answers the way your business does things, not the way software generally
works. Your documents become the knowledge layer of the platform, and the assistant
answers from it.
1
In your dashboard
Upload the manual you already have
Paste a chapter in, or pick a .md or .txt file and your browser reads the text
out of it. A spreadsheet, a Word document or a PDF, scanned pages included, is
converted for you and handed back as text to check before it is saved.
Each document holds up to 100,000
characters — a real
manual chapter. Anything longer is refused with the exact count, never silently
cut, because a silent cut would leave you believing the assistant was told
something it will never read.
2
Still in your dashboard
Put the chapters in your order
The chapters go in the order you set, and a small library is read exactly that
way — whole, first to last. When it grows past what one question can carry, Sonela
finds the paragraphs that answer wherever they sit, and the assistant reads them in
your order: no
chapter is out of reach because you uploaded it last. Either way the assistant
answers from what it was shown and says when the manual does not cover something,
instead of inventing the missing chapter.
3
In your app
Paste one script tag
The same one line that installs every Sonela assistant. Drop it into your ERP,
CRM or internal tool and the assistant appears where your staff already are —
nothing else about your application changes, and if you later connect live data
it is the same widget, the same workspace, the same key.
No database required
Guidance alone is a complete setup
A Sonela workspace can run on your written material and nothing else — no database
connected, nothing of your infrastructure touched. That is not a degraded mode; it
is the first rung of the same ladder every workspace stands on.
On guidance alone, the assistant knows what it cannot see. Ask it for a count, a
total or a live status and it says, in one sentence, that no database is connected
here and that connecting one would unlock answers from the live data — then helps
with whatever part your manual does cover. It will not invent, estimate or recall a
value as if it had read one.
When you want live answers, the same workspace climbs: connect your data through
the Sonela Gateway — one small service on
one server inside your network, dialling out over port 443 — and everything you set
up stays set up: the widget key, the branding, and every chapter you uploaded.
Two inputs, two jobs
Procedures and vocabulary are different inputs — keep them apart
The workspace takes two kinds of written material, and they do different work. The
grounding context is vocabulary: one note, up to 4,000 characters,
read before every question — what your status codes mean, which numbers people
actually ask about, what a word means in your business.
SOP documents are procedure: the chapters the assistant answers from, up to 100,000 characters
each, in your order. Put what words mean here in the context and
how we do things here in the documents, and each question gets both.
Beyond the upload
The material you keep elsewhere, and how answers show it
Your manual is the start. The same library reads what you already keep in other
places, and every answer from it shows where it came from.
Files from Google Drive and SharePoint
Share a Drive folder with a service account your organisation owns, or let your
own Microsoft app read SharePoint or OneDrive for work or school. The files are
read every hour and kept like a manual you uploaded. On Growth and Scale.
Your social pages
Add a public Facebook page or Instagram profile, and it answers from the latest
posts, each with its link, so a change you announced there reaches the answers too.
On Growth and Scale.
A knowledge base on any subject
Switch a key to knowledge base and your documents become a library it can hold a
conversation about: any subject they cover, from them alone, in its own voice,
naming no document unless someone asks where an answer came from. On every plan.
Every passage, cited
A small number after a sentence opens the passage of your manual it came from, in
your words, under the answer. The server keeps a citation only where it can hold it
to a passage that answer was given.
Suggestions from your own manuals
As someone types, it offers questions and headings taken word for word from your
manuals, built with no AI. Your public assistant suggests only from the manuals you
made public.
In your customers’ language
Each key speaks the one you choose of English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and
Albanian, whatever language the question came in. Your manuals are searched and
quoted as you wrote them, never translated.
Honest limits
What answering from SOPs cannot do
The same candour as everywhere else on this site: here is where the edges are. The
assistant also stays in its lane: it declines questions that are not about your
application and your material, briefly, with a pointer to something it can help
with instead.
It cannot see your live records
On guidance alone there are no counts, totals, statuses or documents to read, and
no tool to query for them. The assistant says so — one sentence, then back to what
your manual covers. Live answers arrive when you connect data, not before.
It reads scanned pages too, and says which
Paste it in, or upload a .md or .txt file, a spreadsheet, a Word document or a PDF.
A page that is a picture of a page — a manual scanned on the office machine — is
read by Google Cloud Vision, and the preview names every page read that way and
where Google was unsure of a word, so you check those before anything is saved.
A scan whose pages are mostly tables is refused rather than guessed at: a table
belongs in a spreadsheet. The old .doc format is refused too — one Save As in Word
turns it into a .docx.
Your data
Your manual is kept — we say so
Uploaded procedures are stored in your workspace — that is what makes the answers
possible — and go to the AI provider with the question they help answer. Only your
workspace can read them; deleting a document, or the workspace, removes it. Our
usage records carry sizes and counts only, never the text.
Its answers
A document cannot rewrite the rules
Chapters reach the model after the rules that govern it, framed explicitly as
background data with none of the rules' authority. The assistant ignores a sentence
in a document that tries to change them, and the rest of the chapter still answers
questions.
What it costs
It is in every plan, the free trial included
The SOP library is not a tier or an add-on: every Sonela workspace carries one,
whatever the plan. The free trial — 14 days or 320 question credits, whichever
comes first, no card — is enough to load your manual and let your team ask it real
questions, and if the trial ends before you decide, the workspace pauses with every
chapter preserved. Paid plans differ in connected data sources and included answered
questions, not in whether the assistant reads your manual:
the current prices are here.
Questions
Asked about SOPs, specifically
Can staff ask questions about our internal procedures?
Yes — that is what the SOP library is for. Upload your written procedures and the
assistant answers "how do we do this here" questions from them, inside the
application your staff already work in, the way your business does things rather
than the way software generally works. When your manual does not cover a
question, it says so instead of guessing.
Do we need to connect a database first?
No. A workspace can run on your written guidance alone, with no database connected
at all.
On that footing the assistant knows it cannot see live records: ask it for
a count or a status and it says, in one sentence, that no database is connected
here and that connecting one would unlock answers from the live data — then helps
with whatever part your manual does cover. Connect data later through the Sonela
Gateway, or never; it is the same workspace either way.
Is this a chatbot we put on our website?
It is an assistant inside your own business application — your ERP, CRM or
internal tool — added with one script tag, for the staff who work there. It is
not a public marketing-site chatbot: each widget key answers only to the sites
you list for it, and the assistant declines questions that are not about your
application and your material.
What formats can we upload our SOPs in?
Text, markdown, spreadsheets, Word documents and PDFs. Paste a chapter in, or pick
a .md or .txt file and your browser reads the text out of it. An .xlsx workbook, a
.docx document or a PDF is converted for you and handed back as text you can
correct before any of it is saved, so nothing reaches the assistant that you have
not read.
Spreadsheets suit reference tables, a fee schedule or a rota, rather
than a data export. A PDF of scanned pages is read too: Google Cloud Vision reads
the words off each picture of a page, and the preview names those pages and where
it was unsure of a word, so you know what to check. The one format we do not take
is the old .doc, which one File → Save As turns into a .docx.
Where do our procedures go?
They are kept in your workspace — that is what makes the answers possible — and
they are sent to the AI provider with the question they help answer: the provider
you chose if you brought your own key, the one Sonela runs if you did not. Only
your workspace can read them, and deleting a document, or the workspace, removes
it. Our usage records carry sizes and counts only, never the text.
Can it read the files we keep in Google Drive or SharePoint?
Yes, on Growth and Scale. Share a Drive folder or files with a service account
your organisation owns, or let your own Microsoft app read SharePoint or
OneDrive for work or school. The files are read every hour, a file that leaves
is removed at the next sync that reads everything, and how many you can add
depends on the plan.
Which languages does it answer in?
English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Albanian. Each key speaks the one
you choose, its buttons and refusals included, whatever language the question
was asked in. Your manuals are not translated: they are searched and quoted as
you wrote them.
The manual you already wrote is the setup
Open a workspace, paste in a chapter, and ask it a question — before you have
connected anything at all.
