SideNote Pro workflows for consultants and analysts

Start with the confidentiality question

Consulting work usually arrives with restrictions attached, so this belongs first rather than as a footnote. Client material may be under an agreement that forbids sending it to third-party services, whatever those services' own policies say.

Set up a local provider profile before you need it. When restricted material is in front of you at 6pm, a one-click switch is a decision you can make correctly; a settings expedition is a decision you will skip.

Also worth doing: turn on conversation history encryption, and set a retention period. Client material sitting in a plain archive on a laptop indefinitely is its own risk. See BYOK and privacy.

Reading and comparing documents

Attach up to five PDFs, Word documents, text or Markdown files. Extraction happens locally and page markers survive, so a point can be traced to a page.

• *Compare these two reports. Where do they disagree on the facts, and where do they merely differ in emphasis?*
• *Extract every quantitative claim in this document and note which are sourced.*
• *What is this report's central argument, and what does it depend on being true?*
• *Summarize this for someone who has ten minutes and has to make a decision.*
• *What does this document conspicuously not address?*

That last one is often the most valuable question you can ask of a document, and it is one people rarely think to ask.

Decision matrices and structured output

Ask for the structure you want and you will get it. Tables render properly in responses and survive PDF export, including repeating headers across pages.

• *Build a decision matrix comparing these three options against cost, time to implement, operational risk and reversibility. Add a row for what each option assumes.*
• *Turn these notes into a table of findings, evidence, and confidence.*
• *List the arguments for and against, then separately list what evidence would change the answer.*

That last construction is worth keeping. *What would change the answer* is more useful to a client than a recommendation, and it is what distinguishes analysis from opinion.

Query a research folder

Index a folder of notes, reports and PDFs for an engagement. Retrieval is local and lexical, sources are recorded, and PDF chunks keep their page provenance.

• *Find every reference to pricing assumptions and summarize the differences.*
• *What have we already documented about their current architecture?*
• *Which of these documents mention regulatory constraints?*
• *Where did the figure of thirty percent come from originally?*

Check the sources on anything you will repeat to a client. A traceable claim is the difference between analysis and hearsay, and the Open action is right there.

Getting output into a deliverable

• Save as PDF turns one response into a formatted A4 document with real selectable text. Tables keep their headers across pages; folder sources are appended.
• Markdown export takes the whole thread, for your own notes rather than for a client.
• Rename the thread before exporting, since the file name is derived from the conversation title.

Where the judgment stays yours

An AI reading of a contract, a regulation or a financial statement is a way of finding what deserves attention. It is not advice, it does not carry professional liability, and it can be confidently wrong in ways that read as authoritative.

Use it to work faster through material and to catch what you would have missed. Verify anything that will end up in a deliverable, and never let a model's summary be the only thing standing between a client and a decision.