Superpower your intranet with AI
Aria Search makes finding answers simple. Employees can ask questions in natural, everyday language and Aria instantly searches your organisation's approved internal documents to deliver a clear and easy to understand answer. Instead of digging through long lists of results in the Oak search bar, you get the information you need straight away - no external sources and no guesswork.
Find out how to:
Before you begin:
- You must be a System Manager to enable Aria and whitelist content within the Site Settings
Setting up Aria Search
Aria Search isn’t turned on by default. Before you get started, reach out to your Account Manager - they’ll add Aria Search to your application list and make sure everything’s set up correctly.
Once Aria Search is switched on in your intranet, you can toggle it on and off at any time from your application's list. Go to the Actions button > Configure > Site Settings. From here, select Applications and find Aria Search in the list, followed by toggling it on/off and clicking OK at the bottom to save.
Aria permissions need to be set up at the main business level to allow people to access it within the Oak header:
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From the main homepage, go to Page options > Manage permissions/security > Aria
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Click the pencil to open the user picker
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Choose who should have access. Select All Active Intranet Users to make Aria available to everyone in your organisation, or select a specific audience to limit access to certain users - for example, if you’re trialling Aria with a test group before a wider launch. You may choose to set permissions after whitelisting content.
How do Aria Search and Aria Create work together?
If Aria Search and Aria Create are both turned on, both experiences will live together inside the new Aria Assistant. Employees can ask questions, and users with the right permissions can also create content from the same space.
If only Aria Search is turned on, the Aria Assistant will still appear within the Oak header, allowing employees to search and ask questions.
If Aria Search is turned off and Aria Create is turned on, Aria Create will be embedded into the Oak header, between Search and Messages.
Whitelisting Content
Aria Search will search for content that you approve, providing you with full control over what information is used to generate answers.
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To choose the content you would like to whitelist, go to the Actions button > Configure > Site Settings. At the bottom of the Site Settings, you'll have a new option for Aria Search
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Clicking into this will display a Content Applet where you can approve different areas for Aria to index and generate responses from
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Click + Add Area to open the object picker and select your area(s), followed by Confirm. The areas will then appear within the Content Applet and the indexing process will begin. Depending on the amount of content being indexed, it may take some time for it to be searchable within Aria. We recommend approving areas that include up to date and accurate information.
Note: Aria respects permissions, only showing employees the content they have the permission to view.
Supported content types:
- Blank pages
- News Articles
- Word Documents
- PDFs
- Policies
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Blog Posts
- An area can be removed at any time by selecting the three dots next to the area and clicking Remove. This will not delete the area and its content from the intranet.
Using Aria Search
Asking a question
- Once Aria Search is enabled and permissions have been set, you will find the Aria Assistant (magic wand) in the Oak header. Click this to open the pop-up window.
- Type your question into the search box and hit enter. Where Aria Create is also enabled, employees with the permission will also be able to create content.
- If the question can be answered using approved content, Aria will return a clear response with attached links to the relevant content. You can ask follow-up questions and continue the conversation to explore the topic in more detail.
- To start a new topic, select Start again in the bottom left of the Aria window.
Aria Overview in the Search Results
Aria Search also works directly inside the search experience that you and your intranet users will already be familiar with. When a question or term is entered into the Search bar, the query will be answered by Aria Search. The Aria Overview box will appear at the top of the All Results tab, providing a concise answer to the question, along with a link to the content source.
From here, you can click Show more or select the Deep dive button to open the Aria Search pop-up and continue the conversation.
Aria Search on the Mobile App
Aria Search is available on mobile in the same place you’re used to - within the bottom navigation bar.
Your existing Aria settings apply across both desktop and mobile. If only Aria Create is enabled, the mobile experience will remain unchanged.
If Aria Search is enabled, employees will see the updated Aria Assistant on mobile, offering the same intuitive search that they have on desktop.