Q&A (Question & Answer) lets users ask questions directly in the Data Room and get answers from the deal team. Every question, response, and file link stays in one place, with a full history.

Turn on Q&A

Only users with Admin or the Manage Users & Settings permission can turn on Q&A.

  1. Go to the Manage Users & Settings tab.
  2. Select Settings.
  3. Select Enable Question & Answer (Q&A) module within the data room.
  4. Click Save Changes.

Q&A appears in the left-hand panel for everyone with a Q&A role (see Q&A roles below).

Share questions with the submitter's Permission Group by default

If you select By default, share question thread with the Question Submitter's permission group, choose when sharing happens:

  • Share question thread immediately after the question is submitted: the question is shared with the submitter's Permission Group as soon as it's submitted.
  • Share question thread after Q&A Manager replies to the question: the question is shared automatically with the submitter's Permission Group when a Q&A Manager answers it. The Q&A Manager can adjust who it's shared with before answering.

Important: Shared questions are visible to everyone in the selected Permission Groups, including users added to those groups later.

Q&A roles

Each Permission Group has a Q&A role. Everyone in the group gets the same role.

Q&A role What users can do
Q&A Manager (Full Access) View and respond to all questions. Share, assign, resolve, and delete questions. Add and delete internal notes.
Q&A Manager (View Only) View all questions and internal notes. Add and edit their own notes. Can't respond to questions.
Q&A Question Submitter Ask questions and reply to their own questions. See questions that a Q&A Manager has shared with them.
None No access.

New Permission Groups are set to Q&A Question Submitter. To change a group's role, open the group in Manage Permission Groups and choose an option under Q&A Permissions. Under Category Access, you can also limit which question categories the group can see.

Ask a question

There are two ways to ask a question:

  • From the main Data Room view, about a specific file or folder
  • On the Q&A page

From the main Data Room view

You can ask about a file or folder in any of these ways:

  • Right-click the file or folder and select Ask a Question.
  • Select the file or folder, then click the Ask a Question icon at the top of the page.
  • Hover over the file or folder and click the Ask a Question icon in the actions that appear over Date Modified.

On the Q&A page

  1. In the left-hand panel, click the Q&A icon (View Q&A).
  2. Click Ask a Question.
  3. If your question is about a specific file or folder, click Select file/folder and choose it.

Note: You can edit or delete your question until someone replies to it.

Upload many questions at once

  1. On the Ask a Question window, click Bulk Upload Questions.
  2. Click Download Questions Template and fill it in.
  3. Click Upload Excel and choose your file.

You can upload up to 200 questions at a time. If a row has a problem, the Data Room lists the row number and the error so you can fix it and click Reupload XLS.

Question limits

Admins can limit how many questions a Permission Group can ask. If a limit applies, the Ask a Question window shows how many questions the group has left. When the group reaches the limit, the Ask a Question button is turned off.

Respond to a question

Only Q&A Managers with Full Access can respond.

  1. On the Open Questions tab, click the question.
  2. Type your answer in Add Response.
  3. If you want to point to a document, click Link a file or folder to response and choose it. Only users with access to that file can open it.
  4. Choose who to share the question with.
  5. Click Respond, or Respond & Resolve to close the question at the same time.

The submitter sees your response in their thread.

Respond Anonymously is selected by default. Submitters then see "Responder" instead of your name. Q&A Managers always see who responded.

How sharing works

  • Q&A Managers share a question when they respond to it. The exception is when Share question thread immediately after the question is submitted is turned on in Settings.
  • Users the question is shared with can read the whole thread but can't reply.
  • If the submitter asks a follow-up, shared users see it only after a Q&A Manager responds again.
  • Questions about a file or folder can be shared with anyone. Users without access to that file or folder can read the question and responses, but they don't see any information about the file or folder.

Manage questions

Q&A Managers see the questions on two tabs: Open Questions and Resolved Questions. Use the category filter and the search box to find a question by ID, text, or contact.

Q&A Managers with Full Access can also:

  • Resolve or re-open questions: hover over a question and click Mark as Resolved. Resolved questions move to the Resolved Questions tab, and you can re-open them there.
  • Assign questions: in the Q&A Thread panel, click the pencil icon and choose Q&A Managers under Assign to. You can also change the Category and Priority there.
  • Act on several questions at once: select them to resolve, re-open, share, or delete them together.
  • Export questions: click the Excel icon to download the questions on the current tab.

Important: Deleting a question can't be undone and also removes it from analytics.

Internal notes

Q&A Managers can leave notes on a question on the Notes tab of the Q&A Thread panel. Notes are visible only to Q&A Managers. Submitters never see them, including in exports.

Q&A Snapshot

The Q&A Snapshot tab shows Q&A Managers how many questions are open and resolved in each category. Here you can add, rename, or delete categories. You can also choose Auto Assign to Q&A Managers, so new questions in a category are assigned automatically.

Set Q&A limits

Only users with Admin or the Manage Users & Settings permission can set limits.

  1. Go to Manage Permission Groups and open the Q&A tab.
  2. Click Edit Q&A.
  3. For each Permission Group, choose an option under Limit By:
    • No Limit: users can ask any number of questions.
    • Max: sets one limit for the whole group, whatever the priority. When the group reaches it, no one in the group can ask new questions.
    • Priority: sets separate limits for low, medium, and high priority questions. When one priority is used up, the group can still ask questions at the other priorities.
  4. Click Save.

To stop a Permission Group from asking new questions, turn off Allow new Q&A questions to be posted to the data room for that group.