CRM Software for Economic Development Organizations
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How do I enable the AI Summarization features in Neoserra

Neoserra offers a number of AI-powered summarization features:

The AI features are currently provided at no additional charge. However, OutreachSystems reserves the right to modify, suspend, or discontinue these features, or to introduce fees for their use, at its discretion and based on factors such as the costs associated with providing and maintaining the AI functionality. Because of cost considerations, all AI Sumaries are limited to a certain number of words. Any applicable fees or changes to the availability of these features will be communicated to users well in advance before the fees are applied.

AI in Neoserra: Helpful, Private, and Always in Your Control

Neoserra's AI-powered features help your team work faster and more efficient by summarizing existing counseling session notes and by creating new counseling session notes from recordings.

We want to assure you, that nothing happens behind the scenes. AI runs only when a user clicks to request a summary or create a "Smart Note". Your data is never sent to AI in the background or through automated processes.

AI is turned off by default. Your database administrator chooses whether to turn it on for your organization, and they can furtermore decide to turn it off for certain users. The individual AI features can also be enabled independently. Simply log in as a database administrator and go to Administration|Configuration|AI:

On the AI page, there are several configuration options:

You can choose which of the AI features you want to enable. Each of the feature sets are described below. Once your have decided what functionality you want to use in your database then the next step is to decide whether you want to offer this functionality to all users, or whether you want to limit some of the features to just some of your users.

The checkbox: Require account permissions to use restricted AI features (not checked means all users have access)? allows you to decide if you want to restrict access to some of the enabled AI features. If everyone is allowed to have access to all enabled features, then do not check this box! If you want to restrict access to some of the enabled features to only certain selected users then you can check this box and select those features that require user permissions.

If you do check this box, then remember you will also need to check the "Allow use of restricted AI features (xxx)?" checkbox on each user account that is allowed to use AI in Neoserra, where "xxx" represents those features that require user permissions:

When the AI feature(s) are enabled, it is important to note that your data always stays in a private, secure environment. Our AI runs on Amazon Bedrock inside our private Amazon Web Services (AWS) environment. Your data travels over private AWS connections, never across the public internet, and only the information needed to answer your request is shared with the AI. Once the AI answers your request, it forgets it. Your prompts, data, and responses aren't stored in the AI's memory, and they aren't logged. And perhaps most importantly, your information is never used to train or improve AI models, ours or anyone else's.

Safety and protection of personal information is our number one concern. If we see any indication where the data is being misused, we will disable these features. And, while AI is amazing and can assist, it is important to note that AI-generated content may be incomplete or inaccurate. Users should always review the AI information before relying on it exclusively.

FAQ AI Summarization

The FAQ AI Summarization feature is displayed within your Neoserra top banner bar by way of a question mark:

Get quick, helpful answers using the existing Neoserra FAQs as the foundation. Let AI help find the answers you need. Just type in your question in the box provided (see orange highlight below) and the answer will be provided below:

Of course, OutreachSystems does not know if the answer provided by AI is correct. If you doubt the answer, then we recommend that you find the appropriate FAQ created by OutreachSystems for additional details, or you are more than welcome to contact our Customer Services team, which consists of knowledgeable humans.

And, while we have added this functionality in Neoserra, in all honesty, a regular Google query probably provides a better result. Simply go to Google, preface your question with "In Neoserra,..." and Google will provide you with near perfect answers and reference the FAQ from which it deduced this information.

Client, Counselor and Narrative AI Summarizations

Neoserra offers four different client, counselor and narrative Summarizations:

  • Client Notes AI Summarization
  • Client Intake AI Assessment
  • Counselor Notes AI Summarization
  • Narrative AI Summarization

Client Notes AI Summarization

The Client Notes AI Summarization is displayed as a link at the top of the client's data stream:

Clicking the icon will provide you with a concise overview of a client's existing session notes, making it easier to quickly understand their history and key interactions at a glance. For cost considerations the summary is limited to 300 words. Keep in mind that your filter will determine the sessions to be taken into consideration for the AI Summary. Thus, if you client filter is limited to the last 30 days, then the AI Summary will be based upon the last 30 days. Similarly, your permissions may limit the sessions included in the filter. If a client is counseled by two centers, but you only have permissions to see the sessions under one center, then only the notes entered under the center to which you have permissions will be included in the AI Summary.

The Client AI Summarization, for clients only, is broken down into four sections:

  • Key discussion points: This section summarizes the client client notes
  • Customer sentiment: The section looks for the client's participation and engagement
  • Action items: This section looks for outstanding items
  • Possible future impact: This section looks for impact such as job growth; sales growth; business start; capital infusion; contract awards; socioeconomic certifications; business plan; federal or state registrations; and cybersecurity certifications, among others.

No AI Summarization is offered on the pre-client record, unless they are a new intake request as described below.

Client Intake AI Assessment

As noted above, the "AI Summary" icon is not offered on existing pre-clients in your database. However, Neoserra offers a custom "Client Intake AI Assessment" for new intakes only.

The Intake Assessment's goal is to provide a quick summary of the client's current status in 200 words or less, as entered into their client record. If the client responded to your intake survey then their answers will also be included in the assessment. The AI Assessment is designed to identify the client's immediate needs and it does not take counseling notes into consideration. Additionally, the assessment verifies that the client completed the agreement page and provided a complete address, and it will try to determine what future economic impact this client may have:

Some sections may not appear, if they do not apply. Furthermore, the Intake AI Assessment icon will disappear once the client has been accepted into Neoserra as either a client or pre-client. If they were accepted as a pre-client, then no AI link is offered until they become a client; if they were accepted as a client then you will see the AI Summary link, which will provide a summary of counseling session notes.

Counselor Notes AI Summarization

The Counselor Notes AI Summarization is displayed as an icon at the top of the counselor's data stream:

Again, the AI Summarizations will be based upon the records included in your filter. However, for the Counselor AI Summarization, Neoserra will only consider the first 500 records. If there are less than 500 records in your filter, then all records will be taken into consideration. If your filter generates more than 500 records, then you should be aware that Neoserra, for cost consideration reasons, will only analyze the top 500 records, and the summary itself is limited to 300 words.

Clicking the icon will provide you with a summary of the counselor's activity from a top level perspective. Since the counselor will have talked to many different clients regarding many different topics, the breakdown is a little different from the Client AI Summarization:

  • Counseling areas: This section will provide you with the five primary areas of assistance provided by this counselor.
  • Time: The section will provide you with this counselor's average time per session and it will highlight the outliers (most/least amount of time)
  • Communication method: This section shows how this counselor most commonly meets with their clients (in-person/online/phone/etc.)
  • Impact areas: This section shows the top three areas of impact that this counselor has focused on.

Narratives AI Summarization

The Narratives AI Summarization is based upon the Narratives module in Neoserra that is primarily used by SBA-funded programs. The summarization is intended to take all the narratives related to one Narrative Type and summarize it, while highlighting the center(s) who entered the narratives.

It is important to realize that the Narrative module in Neoserra defaults in list view, and the AI Summary functionality is only offered on the data stream view. Thus, when you select Activity|Narratives the default view will not show the AI icon. You should first select to go into the data stream view by clicking on the data stream icon:

Once you are looking at the Narrative data stream then you will see the AI Summary icon:

The Narrative AI Summarization is similar but slightly different from the client or counselor summarizations. First of all, it is important to know that for cost considerations, it is limited to 500 words of output. Secondly, the goal of the Narrative AI Summarization is to summarize by Narrative Type:

Since the summarization is limited to 1000 words, it is possible that not every Narrative Type will be summarized. You may want to adjust your filter to just one center, or one counselor or perhaps to just your top Narrative Types to get a complete summarization of all your activity.

Smart Notes Counseling Sessions

The Smart Notes feature allows you to upload your existing transcripts from previously recorded counseling sessions (in a .txt file format) directly into Neoserra; or, alternatively it allows you to create your own new recording directly in the Neoserra interface to be converted to a properly formatted counseling session with recommended milestones, capital funding records and/or state or local contract award records, as configured in your datebase.

Assuming the feature is enabled, then the Smart Notes link can be accessed from the client record's New menu:

Note: You must have a counselor record associated with your user account in order to take advantage of this feature.

Selecting the Smart Notes menu item brings you to the interface where you can either upload your recording or create a new recording. When uploading your previously recorded transcripts, it is important to note that only .txt files are accepted:

The recording will be summarized by the Neoserra Smart Notes system and put into the proper template format as determined by the database administrator under the Administration|Configuration|General Settings page, as shown in green below.

Furthermore, the Neoserra Smart Notes will recommend potential milestones, capital funding and/or state and local government contract award records to be created at the same time (as shown in orange below) based upon the contents of the recorded session. Only milestone or capital funding types will be recommended that are configured in your database. In other words, if you have disabled the "HUBZone Certification Obtained" milestone in your database, and your counseling session notes reference that the client obtained HUBZone certification, then no such milestone recommendation will be identified. On the other hand, if you have created your own custom milestone for "Increased Child Care Capacity" then Neoserra's Smart Notes will recommend this milestone if it is identified in the counseling notes. The same is true for Capital Funding types. If you have created a custom "USDA Agricultural Grant" and your session recording references that the client obtained this grant, then Neoserra's Smart Notes will prompt the user to create the appropriate Capital Funding record.

The Neoserra Smart Notes carefully listens for events that are expected to happen at some point in the future vs. events that have indeed taken place. For example, Neoserra will not suggest the creation of a Capital Funding record if session notes indicate that the client is in the process of completing the loan application; however, if the notes suggest that the counselor and the client successfully completed the SAM Registration during their session, then such milestone will be offered. Ultimately, it is up to the user to determine whether these milestones/capital funding/contract award records should indeed be added based upon their discussions with the client. If so, then they should be checked by the user and they will be created upon clicking Continue.

Note: Neoserra already imports federal contract awards from USASpending, so Smart Notes will not suggest creating federal award records. This avoids creating duplicate award records. Smart Notes will still suggest state and local awards when they come up during a recording.

Keep in mind that the summary and the recommended actions were generated by artificial intelligence based solely on the session narrative entered by the counselor. They are meant to support the counselor's work, not replace professional judgment. The AI can only work with the information in the session narrative. If a topic, concern, goal, or detail discussed with the client was not recorded in the narrative because it was an understood fact between the client and the counselor, then the AI would not be able to consider it, and no recommendation related to it will appear. A missing recommendation does not mean an action is unnecessary.

However, even when information is included in the narrative, the AI may not identify every relevant issue, opportunity, or next step. It may also misinterpret context, overlook nuances specific to the client's business, industry, or location, or suggest actions that are not appropriate for the client's circumstances. The counselor is responsible for reviewing the summary and all possible milestones/capital funding/contract awards for accuracy, completeness, and suitability before checking them.

Clicking "Continue" will bring you to the full counseling session record where you can review the information, enter the appropriate prep/contact time of the session and correct any of the fields, as appropriate:

Upon saving the message you will see the associated milestones/capital funding/awards records listing in the right-hand margin (see orange highlight below):

Note: Deleting the counseling session will not delete the related activity.



Want more? Browse our extensive list of Neoserra FAQs.