CtrlScout · AI for your M-Files vault, cloud or on-premise

Q: What does it need, and is there a trial?

It works with every M-Files edition, in M-Files Cloud or on your own servers. On the M-Files side it is one vault application, and on the AI side a connection to the service you choose. Every CtrlDocs product comes with a 30-day trial. Tell us what your people would ask it, and you will hear from us the same working day.

Work you can now hand over

Building a search to answer a question

You know what you want to ask: which supplier agreements expire this quarter? Type it the way you would say it. Long lists open in the M‑Files listing, so you carry on working from there.

Exporting to Excel to count things

Ask how many, per what, over which period. CtrlScout counts the records and draws the charts, several in one answer if the question calls for it. Copy a chart straight into your report.

Reading a whole contract to find one clause

A summary of a long contract, or a comparison of two versions, is on the document's own menu in M‑Files. Long documents are read from start to finish, and a comparison shows what changed in the wording itself.

What comes back when you ask

Every answer sits beside the vault, one click from the records it came from.

A CtrlScout answer to the question What is this procedure related to. It says eleven objects reference the SOP, that four were opened, and that one could not be opened with the user's permissions. A Sources list names two documents with an approval record, a customer and an employee nested under them. — The answer names what it read, and says that one related object was out of reach for this user.

Answers that show their sources

Every answer lists the documents and records it used, and you can open each one. Related records are followed as well, and the answer says which of them it read.

See the search it ran and the steps it took.
Ask about history too, such as who changed a document and when.
Rate an answer, and your administrator sees the feedback.

A CtrlScout answer to the question How are our documents spread across classes and class groups. The reply holds a pie chart of documents by class with a legend of counts and percentages, a sentence of commentary, and a bar chart of documents by class group.

Ask for numbers, get charts

The counting is done in the vault, and the charts sit between the sentences that explain them. Under the answer is a note of what was counted, for the day someone asks where a number came from.

Bar, stacked bar, line and pie charts, and cards for single figures.
Copy a chart as an image, or the whole answer.
Open the records behind the numbers in M‑Files.

A CtrlScout email draft, asked for in Danish and written in Danish, with To and Subject fields, a body listing three points about a delivery-acceptance procedure, buttons labelled Download .eml draft and Copy, and the source document listed below. — Asked for in Danish, drafted in Danish, with the source document listed underneath.

A status email, drafted from the vault

After a search or a summary, ask CtrlScout to draft a status email, in the language you asked in. Download the draft and it opens in Outlook, ready to edit and send. CtrlScout never makes up an address: it fills in the ones it has seen and leaves the rest to you.

See a question answered and charted in M‑Files

Book a CtrlScout demo

Cloud or on-premise, with European AI by default

CtrlScout runs inside your vault, on every M‑Files edition, in M‑Files Cloud or on your own servers. The model that reads your vault is a separate choice, and the default is European: Scaleway's Generative APIs, hosted in the EU. Point CtrlScout at OpenAI instead, or at a model on your own servers.

Your content goes where you decide — Content goes to the AI service your administrator set up for your vault.
Conversations stay in the vault — Each conversation is kept in the vault, visible only to the person who had it.

Scaleway Generative APIs

The default. OpenAI-compatible, hosted in the EU.

OpenAI

Configured instead of the default, if that is your policy.

A model of your own

Any OpenAI-compatible service, including one on your own servers.

It starts from where you already are

It knows what you have selected

Ask with a document selected and the question is about that document. Ask from a view and it is about the view. Ask something wider and it looks across the vault.

Point at records by name

Type @ to bring a customer, a project or a document into the question.

Include a file from your own computer

Drop in a Word file, a PDF or an email and ask about it alongside what is already in M‑Files.

Ask in your own language

Ask in Danish and the answer comes back in Danish, and so does the email it drafts for you.

Quick answers or deeper ones

Pick a faster or a more thorough model, or leave it on Auto and let CtrlScout choose for each question. Stop an answer part-way and keep what has already come.

Pick up where you left off

Open an earlier conversation and carry on from where you stopped.

Details filled in, for you to accept

Add a document and CtrlScout reads it and suggests its details: the description, keywords, dates and the kind of record. Each suggestion shows where its value came from, and you accept the ones that are right.

A suggestion fits its field — A date goes on a date field, and a choice on a list.
Every suggestion shows its reason — It carries its confidence and the sentence it rests on.
For documents already in the vault too — Ask for the same on any document, and accept what fits.

The metadata card of a newly added document in Draft, with the AI's suggested process area and description in lilac boxes under the empty fields, a suggested Keywords property as a button, and a popover open on the description asking whether to add the value, with the source of the value and a note that it was AI-generated.

Every change waits for a yes

Describe a change to many records in plain words. CtrlScout finds the records and shows each one with its old and new value, along with any it has to skip and why. Nothing is written until you approve it, and then it is written in your name.

It works as the person asking — CtrlScout searches, reads and changes as the person asking, so the permissions you already have in M‑Files decide what it can use.
Only what you saw is changed — The records in the preview are the ones that change.
Changes can be undone — Undo rolls the changed records back as new versions, so their history is kept.
A new record from one sentence — Describe the customer or the project and CtrlScout fills in the fields. Approve it as it stands, or look it over first in M‑Files' own New Object window.

A CtrlScout approval request to move delivery-acceptance documents to Effective. The card says six objects will change and one is skipped, lists each document with its workflow state changing from In review or Draft to Effective, shows a red notice that one of seven matched objects will be skipped, and ends in Apply changes and Cancel buttons.

What to decide before you switch it on

Who gets the panel and what it may do

The panel can go to everyone or to chosen user groups. You decide separately whether it may change records, create new ones, analyse documents and suggest metadata.

Files from someone's own computer

People can attach a file from their own computer, and it goes straight to the AI service. You decide whether to allow it.

Instructions hidden in a document

A document could contain text written to steer the AI. CtrlScout hands document text to the model as material to read, its own rules stay in force, and every change still waits for a person's approval.

Your own house rules

Give CtrlScout instructions of your own, such as your house terms and the tone to write in. They are added to its rules and never replace them.

What it needs to run

Any M‑Files edition, in M‑Files Cloud or on-premise, with M‑Files 25.1 or later on the server and in the clients.
One vault application, which installs and upgrades its own panel.
A connection to an AI service: Scaleway Generative APIs, OpenAI or another OpenAI-compatible service, including a model on your own servers, with a model that supports function calling.
For metadata suggestions, the optional Intelligence Service and the vault's IML Core licence.

Find out what your vault could answer

Bring the questions your people ask each other because searching takes too long. In a demo we show CtrlScout answering questions like those, and a change held back until someone approves it.

Book a demo Ask for a 30-day trial

Questions about CtrlScout

Can it see documents a user is not allowed to open?

No. Every search and every document it reads runs as the person asking, so M‑Files permissions are the filter. Two people asking the same question can get different answers, because their accounts open different documents. When an object exists that the user cannot open, the answer says its coverage is partial.

Can it change anything in the vault?

Yes, where you allow it. Each change shows a preview for the user to approve, and then runs record by record as that user. Only the records in the preview are changed, and a change can be undone, with each record keeping its history.

Are the numbers in a chart counted or estimated?

Counted. The counting runs as a query in the vault, as the person asking, and the language model only writes the sentences around the result. Each chart answer says what was counted and how.

Where is our content sent?

To the AI service configured for the vault. The default is Scaleway Generative APIs, hosted in the EU; you can choose OpenAI or another OpenAI-compatible service instead, including a model on your own servers. With search by meaning, the records you choose are indexed in a store you run or in OpenAI's, and every passage is read again as the person asking before it reaches the model. Conversation history stays in the vault, visible only to the person whose conversation it is.

Who in the vault gets the panel?

Whoever you decide: everyone, or the user groups you choose. The panel suggests questions to start from, matched to what is selected, and you can give CtrlScout instructions of your own, such as your house terms and tone.

What stops a document from telling the model what to do?

CtrlScout passes document text to the model as material to read, and the model is told that nothing in a document overrides its rules. Everything the model proposes is checked against the vault before anything happens, and every change waits for a person's approval.

Does it answer in our own language?

Yes. CtrlScout answers in the language the question is asked in, and writes an email draft in it too.

How do the metadata suggestions work?

When a document is uploaded, or when you ask for one already in the vault to be analysed, CtrlScout reads it and proposes a value for each field your administrator has mapped: text, dates, numbers, yes or no, a choice from a list, and the kind of record. Every suggestion carries a confidence, a reason and the quote it rests on, and nothing goes on the card until you accept it. The suggestions are an optional part of CtrlScout.

What does it need, and is there a trial?

It works with every M‑Files edition, in M‑Files Cloud or on your own servers. On the M‑Files side it is one vault application, and on the AI side a connection to the service you choose. Every CtrlDocs product comes with a 30-day trial. Tell us what your people would ask it, and you will hear from us the same working day.

More CtrlDocs add-ons for M‑Files

CtrlPortals

Dashboards and UI that make M‑Files yours

Record pages, forms, boards and dashboards inside M‑Files, set up around your own records for any process. Open a project, a customer or a document and see everything that belongs to it.

See CtrlPortals

CtrlShare

Co-author in Office on any M‑Files, cloud or on-premise

Open an M‑Files document for colleagues and outside parties to edit together, in desktop Office or the browser. It comes back to M‑Files as a new version.

See CtrlShare

CtrlProcesses

Show your people how the work is done, inside M‑Files

Your Elements.cloud process maps inside M‑Files. Every step leads to its procedure, the record it produces and the standards that apply.

See CtrlProcesses

CtrlTeams

Microsoft Teams, governed from M‑Files

Start a project in M‑Files and its team in Microsoft Teams is ready, with the right people in it and your folders and templates in place. What they write there is kept in M‑Files.

See CtrlTeams

CtrlSync

Teams and SharePoint, filed with metadata and rights

People work in Teams or SharePoint, and the documents you want kept are copied to M‑Files with metadata, filed under their project with the access rights preserved.

See CtrlSync

CtrlConnect

M‑Files details, right inside Teams and Outlook

An M‑Files link pasted into Teams or Outlook shows the record's title and description, and in Teams it comes with buttons that open the record. You can also search M‑Files from the Teams chat, on a phone too.

See CtrlConnect