Internal Knowledge Search · 6–8 weeks · ¥42,000 JPY
Your organisation already
holds the answers.
This makes them findable.
For firms with a decade or more of accumulated documents, procedures and archives, the difficulty is rarely a lack of information — it is finding what already exists without recreating it from scratch. This service addresses that directly.
What this delivers
Search that works across what you have, respecting who can see what.
After this engagement, staff can search your company's own documents, procedures and archives using plain questions — and receive results drawn from material they are entitled to access. The permission structure follows your existing entitlements, not a new one we impose. The system is evaluated against questions staff genuinely ask, and its limits are documented as clearly as its capabilities.
Permissions respected
Access follows what staff are already entitled to see. The search system does not expand or flatten those boundaries.
Evaluated with staff input
The evaluation set is built with your team using questions they actually ask day to day, not synthetic test prompts.
Limits noted in writing
The categories of question the system answers poorly are documented at handover, so staff know where not to rely on it.
The situation
A decade of accumulated knowledge that nobody can locate in under ten minutes.
Organisations that have operated for ten or more years accumulate a significant body of internal material: past project documentation, procedure guides that have been revised several times, archived correspondence, internal memos on decisions that shaped current practice. This material has real value — but only when it can be found.
The common pattern is that staff who know where things are can find them, and staff who do not either ask a colleague who does, or reconstruct the work from scratch. The cost of the second outcome compounds quietly: a procedure guide rewritten because the previous version could not be located; a project decision revisited because the reasoning behind the original choice had no clear home.
What staff currently do when they cannot find something
Ask a colleague who might know where it is — depends on individual knowledge, interrupts both parties
Search shared drives manually — often inconclusive, filenames are inconsistent
Recreate the work rather than locate it — the most expensive outcome
■ Common outcomes without search infrastructure
The approach
Source inventory first, then permissions, then indexing.
The engagement begins with an inventory of your document sources — shared drives, archived email, document management systems, internal wikis — to understand what exists, in what format, and how it is currently organised. From that inventory, we establish what should be included in the search index and, more importantly, who should be able to see what within it.
Permission structures are reviewed carefully before any indexing begins. The search system inherits your existing access controls rather than creating new ones. A staff member searching for something they are not entitled to see will not receive it as a result — the same entitlements that govern their current access apply through the search interface.
Evaluation is done with staff input: we build a test set from questions your team actually asks, run the system against those questions, and document where it performs well and where it does not. Those limits are written into the handover documentation.
Build sequence
■ Handled by us ■ Completed at handover
What working together looks like
Six to eight weeks, with your team involved at the points that matter.
Weeks 1–2
Source inventory and permission review
We map your document sources, agree what is included in scope, and review the permission structure with your IT or operations team. Anything excluded from the index — for compliance, sensitivity or practical reasons — is documented before indexing begins.
Weeks 3–4
Indexing and initial testing
Documents within scope are indexed. We run initial testing with a small set of questions to confirm the system is returning relevant results and that permission controls are functioning correctly before moving to staff-led evaluation.
Weeks 5–6
Staff-led evaluation
We work with a small group of staff to build an evaluation set from questions they genuinely ask in their work. The system is tested against those questions, and results are reviewed together. Categories where the system underperforms are identified and noted.
Weeks 7–8
Handover, documentation and training
We complete with written documentation covering the system's sources, permission structure, and known limits. Staff training covers both how to use the search effectively and what kinds of question it is not suited to. Your team operates it independently from this point.
Investment
One fee for a complete engagement.
Internal Knowledge Search
¥42,000
One-time fee for the full 6–8 week engagement. No ongoing licence or retainer follows unless you choose to engage us for further work.
Discuss This ServiceWhat is included
Source inventory covering your document repositories, with decisions about scope documented before indexing
Permission structure review and implementation so access through the search interface follows existing entitlements
Staff-led evaluation set built from questions your team actually asks, with results reviewed together
Written note on categories of question the system answers poorly, included in handover documentation
Staff training covering both effective use and the system's known limits
Suited to firms holding a decade or more of accumulated internal documentation across identifiable sources.
How we measure
Evaluated against questions staff genuinely ask, not synthetic prompts.
Staff-built evaluation
The evaluation set is built with staff from your organisation using questions they have actually needed answers to in their work. This tests the system against real use, not idealised queries.
Limits documented
The categories of question the system answers poorly — highly specific procedural queries, questions about very recent undocumented decisions, queries that rely on institutional memory rather than written records — are noted and handed over in writing.
Timeline: 6–8 weeks
The engagement runs for six to eight weeks depending on the volume and complexity of your document sources. Larger or more distributed archives take closer to eight weeks. The timeline is confirmed at the source inventory stage.
Archive depth
This service is suited to firms holding a decade or more of accumulated internal documentation. Organisations with a smaller archive may find that a well-maintained folder structure serves their needs more simply. We will tell you this at the first conversation if it applies to your situation.
Our commitment
Permissions reviewed before deployment. Limits documented at handover.
Access controls checked before indexing
The permission structure is reviewed and confirmed before any documents are indexed. We do not index material and then apply access controls afterward — the sequence is intentional. A staff member cannot receive results from documents they are not entitled to access.
What it does not answer is written down
The handover documentation includes a written note on the categories of question the system answers poorly. This is not a qualification added at the end — it is part of what the engagement produces, so staff know from day one where the system should and should not be relied upon.
No commitment before the initial conversation
The first meeting to discuss your document sources, archive depth and what you are hoping the search system will do costs nothing. If the archive is too small, the sources too fragmented, or the use case too narrow for this engagement to be worth the investment, we will say so before any agreement is made.
Getting started
A clear sequence from first conversation to search that works.
Send us a message
Use the contact form on this site or write to info@dawnpathland.com. Describe roughly what your internal document archive consists of — where it is stored, how old the oldest material is, and what you are hoping staff will be able to find. We will follow up within two business days.
Initial scoping call
We discuss your document sources, access structure, and the kinds of question staff currently cannot answer easily. We also discuss data handling — where documents are stored and how access for indexing would work. No obligation at this stage.
Source inventory and permission review
If we agree to proceed, the first two weeks cover your document sources and permission structure. This phase produces a documented scope that both sides agree to before any indexing begins.
Build, evaluate and hand over
Indexing, staff-led evaluation, and handover with documentation follow over the remaining weeks. At the end, your team has a working search system, written documentation of its sources and limits, and training to operate it independently.
Internal Knowledge Search
If the archive is there, making it searchable is a straightforward problem.
We are willing to look at what your organisation holds and give you an honest view of whether this service would make a practical difference before any engagement is agreed.
Send a messageOther services
Explore other areas we work in.
8–10 weeks · ¥45,000 JPY
Document Processing Setup
Automated handling for recurring paperwork — invoices, delivery notes, application forms — currently re-typed from scanned images into your internal systems. Accuracy figures reported honestly, human review retained by design.
View service4 weeks · ¥32,000 JPY
Customer Enquiry Assistance Review
An assessment of whether automated assistance suits your customer contact, based on your actual enquiry distribution rather than assumption. Includes a recommendation that may well be to leave the process as it is.
View service