Staff Are Interrupting Managers With Routine Questions—Maisy Provides Self-Service Answers in Teams

Managers should spend their time supervising employees, improving programs and making decisions. Instead, many nonprofit managers spend a large part of each day answering routine questions.

Employees ask which form to use, where a procedure is stored, who approves a purchase or how to complete a recurring task. The questions are usually reasonable. The problem is that the answers are difficult to find without asking someone who already knows.

When managers become the organization’s primary search engine, work slows down for everyone.

Why Employees Keep Asking Managers

Employees often interrupt managers because asking a person is faster than searching through the organization’s systems.

The answer may be scattered across:

• SharePoint folders
• Teams conversations
• Email attachments
• Employee handbooks
• Training presentations
• Personal notes
• Old checklists
• Undocumented practices

Even when a procedure exists, employees may not know its title, location or owner. They may also find several versions and need a manager to confirm which one is current.

Over time, managers repeat the same explanations. Those conversations solve individual questions but do little to retain institutional knowledge for the rest of the organization.

Turn Repeated Answers Into Approved Knowledge

The nonprofit should begin by identifying the questions managers answer repeatedly.

Examples may include:

• How do I request time off?
• Which expense form should I use?
• Who approves this purchase?
• Where do I report an incident?
• What is the procedure for closing a program site?
• Who should I contact when a system is unavailable?
• Which document contains the current rule?
• What should I do when the standard procedure does not apply?

The answer to each question should be reviewed by the responsible content owner before it becomes part of the Knowledge Hub.

SharePoint can then serve as the organized knowledge source for approved procedures, blank forms, responsibility charts, contact information and escalation instructions.

Microsoft recommends planning onboarding and ongoing training around the information employees need to perform regular tasks and maintain necessary skills. Its employee onboarding and training guidance also describes using Microsoft 365 and Teams to make those resources accessible.

Give Employees a Self-Service Option

Once approved content is organized, Copilot Studio can provide a conversational layer through Maisy.

An employee could open Maisy in Teams and ask:

• Where is the current mileage form?
• Who approves program expenses?
• What should I do when a volunteer misses a shift?
• Which checklist applies to this event?
• Who owns this procedure?
• When should I escalate this issue to my manager?

Microsoft documents that a Copilot Studio agent using SharePoint as a knowledge source can authenticate employees through their Microsoft credentials. The agent can then use SharePoint content the signed-in employee is permitted to access. (Microsoft Learn)

This allows employees to retrieve approved answers without learning folder structures or waiting for a manager to become available.

Self-Service Does Not Eliminate Management

Not every employee question should be answered by an AI Knowledge Hub.

Managers should remain involved when a situation requires:

• An exception to policy
• Approval or authorization
• Performance coaching
• A safety decision
• Participant-specific judgment
• Interpretation of unclear guidance
• A response to a complaint or allegation
• Legal, financial or HR expertise

Maisy should help employees recognize those boundaries. A useful answer may explain the standard procedure and then identify the manager or specialist who must handle the exception.

Operational systems also retain their authority. Accounting software remains authoritative for transactions. The case-management platform remains authoritative for participant records. The CRM remains authoritative for donor information. HR and payroll systems remain authoritative for employee records.

SharePoint should contain approved guidance about using those systems rather than uncontrolled copies of their sensitive data.

How Maisy Helps

Pixeldust begins by interviewing managers and reviewing the questions they receive repeatedly. Discovery identifies missing procedures, hard-to-find forms, conflicting answers, unclear responsibilities and knowledge held only by experienced employees.

Pixeldust then works with content owners to approve the answers, organize them in SharePoint and map access permissions. Maisy is configured through Copilot Studio and made available through Teams, where employees already work.

Realistic questions are tested across different roles to confirm that employees receive useful guidance and understand when they must contact a manager.

This helps the nonprofit retain institutional knowledge while reducing routine interruptions and allowing managers to focus on work that requires their authority, experience and judgment.