Features
A structured view of the Simple Chat experience, from core workspace flows to optional feature packs and the Azure services behind them.
Simple Chat starts with a grounded chat experience, then expands through optional modules for governance, media processing, feedback loops, advanced citations, and operational scale.
What ships with the day-one product surface
These are the capabilities most teams use immediately after deployment.
Chat with AI
Interact with Azure OpenAI deployments through a workspace-aware chat surface built for grounded answers, prompt reuse, and iterative conversations.
RAG with hybrid search
Combine vector and keyword retrieval over uploaded files so chat responses can pull directly from the indexed document set.
Personal and group document management
Upload, version, organize, and reuse files in personal workspaces or share them through group workspaces with role-aware access control.
Ephemeral chat uploads
Attach single-conversation documents when you need temporary grounding without committing those files to persistent search indexes.
Authentication and RBAC
Secure the app with Entra ID, managed identities, and app roles such as Admin, User, CreateGroup, SafetyAdmin, and FeedbackAdmin.
Modules you can enable as the rollout matures
These features are designed to layer onto the base experience through admin settings and supporting Azure services.
Content safety and policy controls
Review user prompts before they reach AI models, search, or image generation and give designated reviewers a place to inspect flagged activity.
Image generation and live web results
Add DALL-E powered image creation and Bing-powered web search when your users need current results or generated visuals inside the same app.
Video and audio extraction
Transcribe media, capture timestamps, and turn recordings into searchable assets with citations that can point back to the right moment.
Classification, metadata, and enhanced citations
Add labels, AI-generated summaries, author/date inference, and source-linked previews so users can understand where an answer came from.
User feedback and conversation archiving
Collect structured sentiment on responses and, when needed, retain conversations in a dedicated archive for audit and compliance workflows.
Redis cache, SQL agents, and processing logs
Scale session handling, inspect ingestion activity, and connect agent workflows to SQL data sources through configurable plugins.
Azure building blocks behind the product
Simple Chat is opinionated about which Azure services handle which part of the workload.
Primary service roles
- Azure Cosmos DB stores conversations, metadata, settings, user and group records, and optional archive or feedback data.
- Azure AI Search powers hybrid retrieval across indexed personal and group content.
- Azure AI Document Intelligence extracts text and layout from uploaded files during ingestion.
- Azure OpenAI handles chat completions, embeddings, optional image generation, and AI-driven metadata extraction.
- Azure Storage supports enhanced citation content and related document assets.
- Azure Cache for Redis is optional and becomes important when you need horizontal scale with shared sessions.
File types the platform is built to understand
Exact behavior depends on which optional extraction features you enable, but these are the main content categories the app is designed around.
Structured and plain text
`txt`, `md`, `html`, `json`, `xml`, `yaml`, `yml`, and `log` files fit the basic ingestion pipeline well.
Office and tabular documents
`pdf`, `doc`, `docm`, `docx`, `pptx`, `xlsx`, `xlsm`, `xls`, and `csv` cover the common enterprise file set.
Image ingestion with OCR support
`jpg`, `jpeg`, `png`, `bmp`, `tiff`, `tif`, and `heif` can be processed through document analysis and OCR-aware workflows.
Audio and video formats
`mp4`, `mov`, `avi`, `wmv`, `mkv`, `webm`, `mp3`, `wav`, `ogg`, `aac`, `flac`, and `m4a` become searchable when the related media services are enabled.
Architecture and admin surface
The deployment architecture and admin settings page are usually the fastest way to explain how the feature set is organized.
Architecture overview
Use this diagram when you need to explain how App Service, Azure OpenAI, AI Search, Cosmos DB, and storage fit together.
Admin configuration surface
Most optional features are exposed through the admin settings experience, which keeps rollout decisions in one operational surface.