Sources and the Library
Add institutional documents, follow their processing status, and verify that they are ready for evidence-grounded questions.
Sources are the evidence MARCUS can search. A source may be a protocol, policy, pathway, guideline, presentation, or another document that belongs in the active project. The project source list is where you add and manage those documents. The Library is where you search and inspect the sources you are allowed to see across the workspace.
MARCUS cannot make a missing, outdated, or inappropriate source reliable. The quality and scope of the source set place a practical limit on every answer and knowledge artifact that follows.
Availability and audience
This page is for clinicians, educators, project leads, and other workspace members who review or manage institutional source material.
- You must be signed in and have access to the relevant organization and project.
- Upload, cancellation, retry, and deletion controls appear only when your access permits those actions.
- The Library shows only material available within your current access context.
- Source briefings, collections, concept views, and other enrichment surfaces are conditional. They may depend on your organization's configuration, your access, and whether enrichment finished successfully.
Current workspace boundary: MARCUS is an institutional non-PHI workspace. Do not type, paste, upload, connect, or share PHI, patient identifiers, patient-specific clinical facts, credentials, secrets, or other prohibited data.
Source lifecycle
Source lifecycle
How a source becomes ready for questions
A source is stored, prepared for search, and checked before MARCUS treats it as ready.
Add a source
A clinician uploads a file or connects an approved source.
Store the original
MARCUS records the source and preserves its original file information.
Prepare passages
Text and source details are divided into usable passages.
Make searchable
The passages are prepared for evidence search within the project.
Check completeness
MARCUS compares the passages it expected with those successfully prepared.
Ready
The source can now support answers in the selected project.
Ready
A file is not ready for questions as soon as its name appears on screen. It moves through a processing lifecycle:
- Selection and validation. MARCUS checks that the file is not empty, that its type is supported, and that it fits the workspace's configured size and storage limits.
- Upload. The browser sends the file to document storage using a short-lived upload link.
- Confirmation. MARCUS confirms that the stored file exists, checks its size, and compares its content fingerprint with existing uploads to identify duplicates.
- Text extraction. MARCUS reads the usable text and document structure.
- Passage preparation. The text is divided into smaller, traceable passages that can be searched and cited.
- Search preparation. MARCUS creates the searchable representations used by project questions.
- Index verification. MARCUS checks that the number of passages prepared agrees with the number successfully indexed. A source should not be marked ready until this core check passes.
- Optional enrichment. Depending on configuration, later work may create a briefing, key points, tags, concepts, themes, or other knowledge artifacts. Core indexing can succeed even when one of these optional steps is unavailable or fails.
The exact status wording can vary by page. Use the following groups when interpreting it:
| Status you may see | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Pending or queued | MARCUS accepted the source but has not finished processing it | Wait; do not expect it to support answers yet |
| Uploading | The file is still moving into storage | Keep the page open unless the interface says the upload can continue in the background |
| Processing | Text extraction, passage preparation, indexing, or related work is underway | Wait for a terminal status before testing it |
| Indexed, ready, or processed | Core searchable passages are available | Verify the source with a focused question and citation review |
| Completed with errors | Core work may have completed, but one or more parts need review | Open the source details and verify what is usable |
| Failed or error | Processing did not complete | Review the problem, retry if offered, or upload a cleaner file |
| Cancelled or aborted | Processing was stopped | Confirm that the source is no longer expected to appear in answers |
Supported files
The current file validator accepts:
- Word documents (
.docand.docx) - PowerPoint presentations (
.pptx) - plain text and Markdown (
.txtand.md) - CSV
- HTML (
.htmland.htm)
The size limit is set by workspace configuration. Rely on the limit shown in the upload interface rather than assuming one universal maximum.
Text-based files usually produce more dependable passages than image-only scans. A successful upload does not prove that the extracted text is complete or correctly ordered, so review matters even when the status is green.
Add a source
- Open the project that should own the document.
- Choose Add sources or the upload action shown in the project.
- Select one or more files.
- Review any immediate validation or duplicate warning.
- Allow the upload to finish.
- Follow the processing status in the upload tray or source list.
- Wait for an indexed, ready, or equivalent successful status.
- Open the source and inspect its title, metadata, and briefing if one is available.
- Ask one narrow question that the document should answer, then open the resulting citation.
Multiple files may upload at the same time. One file can fail while others succeed, so always review the result for each file rather than treating the batch as one outcome.
Use the project source list and Library
The two surfaces answer different questions:
| Surface | Use it to answer | Typical actions |
|---|---|---|
| Project source list | "What evidence belongs to this project, and is it ready?" | Upload, follow processing, open briefings, retry, cancel, or remove when permitted |
| Library | "What sources can I find and inspect within my current workspace access?" | Search, filter, compare metadata, and open a source |
Depending on organization configuration, the Library may offer additional views, filters, collections, or visual groupings. Treat those as navigation aids. A cluster, tag, concept, or generated briefing does not establish that two sources have equal authority or that either source is current.
Collections, when available, let permitted users group sources and use that group as a narrower question scope. Organization-visible and restricted collections may behave differently. If a collection or filter is not shown in your interface, continue with the project source set rather than assuming it is active.
Review a source before relying on it
Check the following:
- Identity: Is this the document you intended to add?
- Version: Is it the current approved version rather than a draft or duplicate?
- Scope: Does it belong in this project?
- Readability: Did a scan, table, or unusual layout make the extracted content unreliable?
- Authority: Is this the right kind of source for the decision being considered?
- Applicability: Is it local policy, general guidance, educational material, or another category that should be interpreted differently?
If several versions compete, remove or separate obsolete drafts when your access and local governance permit it. Leaving duplicate versions in one project can make search and source comparison harder to interpret.
Expected result and verification
After a successful source addition, you should be able to verify all of the following:
- The source appears in the intended project.
- Its status reaches indexed, ready, processed, or another clearly successful terminal state.
- The displayed title and basic metadata refer to the expected document.
- A narrow question that is directly answered in the document can find it.
- The answer's citation opens the expected passage or source record.
The citation check is the strongest practical confirmation. A source that merely appears in the list has been registered; a source that supports a traceable answer has completed the core clinician-facing workflow.
Optional briefings, tags, concepts, themes, and knowledge pages may arrive later or may not be enabled. Their absence does not by itself mean that core indexing failed.
Common problems
| Problem | Likely explanation | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| File is rejected immediately | It is empty, unsupported, too large, or exceeds a workspace limit | Check the message, choose a supported export, or contact the workspace administrator |
| Duplicate warning appears | The same file content may already exist | Open the existing source and confirm its project and version before adding another copy |
| Some files succeed and others fail | Batch uploads report results per file | Review each failed file instead of repeating the whole batch |
| Source remains queued or processing | Work is still running, waiting for capacity, or stalled | Refresh once, review the latest status, then use retry or support channels if it does not progress |
| Source is visible but never cited | It may not be indexed, may be in another project, or may not match the question | Confirm status and scope, then ask a narrow question clearly answered by that source |
| Processing fails | Text extraction or indexing could not complete | Retry if offered; otherwise use a cleaner export or replace the file |
| Briefing is missing | Optional enrichment may still be running, disabled, or unsuccessful | Verify core indexing with a question and citation; do not use briefing absence alone as the test |
| Briefing or passage looks wrong | The source may be a poor scan or have a complex layout | Inspect the original file and replace it with a cleaner text-based version when possible |
| Cancellation does not immediately clear every display | Cleanup and page refresh may finish at different times | Refresh and confirm the final source status before assuming it is gone |
Safety
- Do not enter or upload PHI or patient-specific clinical facts. The current MARCUS workspace is non-PHI.
- Add only material your organization permits you to place in the workspace.
- Prefer current, approved source versions and make drafts unmistakable.
- Do not treat a successful index status as approval, validation, or endorsement of the document.
- Do not treat generated briefings, tags, concepts, themes, or groupings as replacements for the original source.
- Confirm local authority and applicability before using any source-supported answer in practice.
- If a source was added in error or must be removed, use the approved removal workflow and confirm the final state with the responsible workspace administrator.
Continue through the handbook
- Previous: Workspace and access
- Next: Questions, answers, and citations
- Related: Safe use and limitations
- Related: Troubleshooting