Evo Researcher is an AI-powered research and collaboration tool built into the Evo platform. Its a project-based AI chat with file uploads, connectors, templates and team collaboration, all aware of the wider Access Evo ecosystem.

It's built for work that involves reading, analysing or producing documents, where the context matters as much as the question. You give it your files and instructions upfront, and it works within that context across every conversation in the project.

This guide focuses on self-service use of Evo Researcher for finance teams, including what it is, the key components you'll come across, and how to get started.

Your navigator screen lives inside the Access Evo mobile app, as well as in your desktop web browser. It is free to download and works on both IOS and Android devices.

When your first open the app, you will be asked whether to allow push notifications.

These are used to alert you when a finance task needs your attention. You can change this preference at any time in your device Settings.

Everything in Researcher lives inside a project. Once you're in a project, the workspace breaks down into three areas:

(Researcher template)

A new role-based template for Evo Researcher, designed to help education finance users get started quickly.

It's designed for CFOs, Finance Directors, Business Managers, School Business Leaders, Finance Managers and Finance Officers.

The template introduces you to Researcher through practical finance, reporting, compliance and operational tasks, with step-by-step guidance throughout. "Show me" examples use live data from the Access Education Finance companies you have permission to access.

(Researcher template)

A template for Evo Researcher, designed to help you investigate and understand the financial health of an individual school using Access Education Budgets data.

It's designed for School Business Managers, Finance Managers, Finance Officers, Headteachers and Trust Finance Leads who need to review a school's budget in detail.

The template helps you report on income, expenditure, surplus or deficit and brought-forward balances. You can break budgets down by I&E section, cost centre and ledger group, and analyse teaching and support staffing costs. It defaults to the latest open budget year and the Published scenario, and states the school, year and scenario with every result. It flags deficits, unusual movements and high-risk areas as it goes.

(Researcher template)

A template for Evo Researcher, designed to help you review published school budgets across a trust using Access Education Central Budgets data.

It's designed for CFOs, Finance Directors, Trust Finance Leads and Central Finance Teams who need a trust-wide view of school budgets.

The template supports surplus and deficit screening, income and expenditure drilldown, GAG funding analysis, staffing cost analysis and year-on-year comparisons. It is read-only, so it never changes your budget data. It only reports on schools with published budgets, and each answer states the budget year, schools included and excluded, and the report used.

There are two ways to access the templates:

Before the AI can give you HR- specific answers, it needs your context. There are three ways to give context:

Upload documents to your project and the AI can reference them across every chat, without you needing to re-explain the context each time. Files are indexed so even long documents can be searched without filling up the conversation.

For a one-off file relevant to a single question, attach it directly in the chat using the paperclip icon. It's used for that message only and isn't added to the projects permanent uploads.

Instead of uploading a static file, connect to a live data source from Evo products or other tools, so the AI works from current information rather than a snapshot that can go out of date.

On top of the general Uploads and Connectors described above, you can access a Finance specific connector. Once the Evo administrator has given the User access, you will be able to setup researcher project.

On Add a connect you need to select Evo Product Data, then serach for the Access Education Finance connector.

Connect your budget data straight to Evo Researcher for reporting. There is no need to export files from the core product and upload them by hand, because the connector reads your budget figures directly. With the Budgets connectors, you can: find your school by name or code, then choose the budget year and scenario; see total income, total spending and the balance brought forward, to check for a surplus or deficit; view the income and expenditure report; review staffing headcount or compare published budgets across several closed years.

Chat consent is a pop-up that asks for your permission before Researcher changes something through a connector, such as creating, updating or deleting a record. Researcher only asks before a change, not when it reads information.

When the pop-up appears, you can choose:

Permissions are set per action, not per connector. Approving one action, such as updating a record, does not cover a different action on the same connector, so each new action asks once. Workflows that use many different actions will prompt a few times at first, then settle as the common ones are approved. Permissions also apply per project and per person, so each teammate approves separately.

To review or remove anything you have allowed, go to User settings, then Chat consent.

Assistants are focused helpers for particular finance tasks. Each one handles one type of request, such as preparing a requisition or checking a budget. They read finance information and report back. Where they prepare something, such as a requisition, you review it and submit it yourself.

Everything in Researcher lives inside a project. A project keeps a set of instructions, uploads, connectors and chats together, so the AI has consistent context for a particular piece of work.

A conversational interface where you ask questions and get answers, automatically informed by everything already in the project; no need to remind the AI what it's working on each time.

A standing brief you set once per project to control how the AI responds; for example, always opening with a status summary, or always using the same section order. Without instructions, the shape of the answer can vary each time you ask a similar question.

Reusable instruction sets that an admin publishes once, which any user can attach to a project in one click; useful when your team follows the same playbook across many pieces of work.

When the AI produces something, you want to send, share or keep, a report, an email, a summary, it can generate it as an Artifact. Artifacts are kept separate from your uploaded documents, and can be previewed, downloaded, or copied as rich text so formatting doesn't break when pasted elsewhere.

A pre-configured project setup, instructions, uploads and connectors already in place that lets you or your team spin up a new project for a repeatable piece of work in one click, rather than setting it up from scratch each time.

Add colleagues to a project so they see the same chats, uploads, instructions and artifacts; useful when a piece of HR or safeguarding work is owned jointly.

Evo administrators will need to enable individual user access to Researcher, by:

Once complete the User should then be able to see the product in their Evo product list.