# What are knowledge base items?

A knowledge base item is a single question and its answer. The knowledge base is
made up of these items, and each one carries everything ResponseHub knows about
that question: its status, whether it applies to your organisation, the answer
itself, the policy text behind the answer, and the discussion your team has had
about it.

Open an item by selecting it in the **Knowledge Base** table. Its details open in
a panel beside the list.

## Statuses

Every item has one of three statuses:

| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| **Needs Input** | The item needs a person to complete it. |
| **Auto Answered** | ResponseHub answered it from your sources. It still needs human approval. |
| **Approved** | A person has approved the answer. Only approved items are used to answer questionnaires and RFPs. |

Approving an item is what puts it to work — an item sitting in **Needs Input** or
**Auto Answered** is not yet used for answering questionnaires and RFPs.

To change a status, select the status badge at the top of the item panel, or
select **Approve** to approve it outright.

## The question

The question is shown at the top of the item and can be edited in place.

**Explain this** breaks the question down: what it is actually asking, why it
matters, and how it is typically evidenced. Useful when a questionnaire uses
language your team doesn't.

## Applicability

ResponseHub assesses whether a question applies to an organisation like yours,
based on your account profile. The item shows one of **Applicable**, **Not
Applicable**, or **Not Checked**.

Select **View rationale** to see the reasoning behind the decision. You can
override the assessment by selecting the applicability badge.

## The answer

The answer is the response that will be used when this question comes up. See [writing and updating](/knowledge-base/writing-and-updating/) for how to
edit, generate, and approve it.

## References and confidence

The **References** card shows the passages from your sources that were used, each
one badged:

- **Used in answer** — the passage informed the answer
- **Used as answer** — the passage was reused word for word, which is
  [verbatim](/how-questions-are-answered/verbatim/)

Each reference carries a **Relevance** rating showing how well that passage
matches the question. Passages that were retrieved but not drawn on are listed
separately under **Unused references**. See
[references](/how-questions-are-answered/references/) for more.

### When there isn't enough to answer from

Before answering from your sources, ResponseHub checks whether it found enough
relevant policy text to work with. The card is badged **Sufficient Context** or
**Insufficient Context**.

When the context is insufficient — nothing in your sources covers the question
closely enough — the item shows a short explanation of what was missing instead
of an answer. That usually means one of two things: the topic isn't in your
sources yet and wants
[a source importing](/sources/importing-sources/), or it is a question your
policies will never answer and wants a written answer of its own.

When there is enough context, the item shows a **Confidence** rating of
Excellent, Very good, Good, Ok, or Low. Expand it to see why ResponseHub rated it
that way. See [confidence](/how-questions-are-answered/confidence/) for how it is
worked out.

## Discussion

**Discussion** is where your team works out an answer together. Leave a comment,
reply to a colleague, and resolve a comment once it is settled. Resolved comments
stay available behind **Show resolved**.

## Potential duplicates

The **Potential Duplicates** card lists other items that ask much the same thing.
It stays empty until you run a duplicate check — see
[finding duplicates](/knowledge-base/duplicates/).

## Audit history

Every change to an item is recorded. Expand **Audit History** on the item to see
what changed, when, and who changed it.

## Deleting items

Delete a single item with the delete icon at the top of its panel. To delete
several, select their checkboxes in the **Knowledge Base** table and select
**Delete** in the bar that appears at the bottom of the screen.

**Deleting is always reversible:** Every delete in ResponseHub is a soft delete — nothing is destroyed straight
away. A notification appears immediately after you delete something, with an
**Undo** link that restores it. Once that notification goes, the record can still
be recovered: contact support and they can restore it for you.

## Next steps

- [Writing and updating](/knowledge-base/writing-and-updating/)
- [Finding duplicates](/knowledge-base/duplicates/)