What Is Smart Import?
Smart Import is the first feature of BFF’s Intake Engine — a system for automatically ingesting unstructured procedural content and transforming it into structured, dual-format Work Instructions.
Instead of manually writing a Work Instruction from scratch, you can paste raw text from any source and let the AI Brain do the heavy lifting.
Supported Input Sources
Smart Import works with content from anywhere:
- Scribe exports — paste the entire Scribe procedure
- Google Docs — paste document content or a public URL
- Notion pages — paste page content or a URL
- Emails — paste forwarded procedure instructions
- PDFs & documents — any raw procedural text
- Internal wikis — paste from Confluence, SharePoint, etc.
How to Use Smart Import
Step 1: Open Smart Import
- Navigate to Work Instructions in the sidebar
- Click the “Smart Import” button (next to ”+ New Instruction”)
Step 2: Provide Your Content
Choose one of two input modes:
- Paste Text — paste raw procedural content directly into the text area
- Paste URL — provide a public URL (Scribe link, Google Doc, etc.) and the AI Brain will fetch and parse the content
Step 3: Parse with AI Brain
Click “Parse with AI Brain” and wait 5–10 seconds. You’ll see a premium animated progress display showing each stage:
- Extracting content
- Analyzing procedure structure
- Generating dual-format output
- Detecting metadata & duplicates
Step 4: Review the Results
The AI Brain produces four things simultaneously:
Prose Version (Human-Readable)
A clean, well-formatted markdown guide with proper headers, numbered steps, notes, and callouts. Ready for a human to follow without any editing.
Structured Steps (AI-Executable)
A structured step array where each step includes:
- Action — clear imperative instruction
- Tool — software or tool used in that step
- Input/Output — what data goes in and comes out
- Decision Points — any conditional logic (e.g., “IF source = Inbound, set priority High”)
- Estimated Duration — time estimate for the step
AI-Detected Metadata
The AI Brain automatically extracts intelligence about the procedure:
- Tools Detected — software mentioned in the procedure (e.g., Salesforce, Google Sheets, Slack)
- Decision Points — number of conditional/branching steps
- Estimated Duration — total time estimate based on step complexity
- Suggested Tags — auto-generated categories for organization
Duplicate Detection
Smart Import automatically cross-references your existing Work Instructions and warns you if it detects similar content, with an overlap percentage and recommendation (merge, update existing, or create new).
Step 5: Edit & Save
Both the prose and structured versions are fully editable before saving. You can:
- Edit the title — the AI Brain suggests one, but you can change it
- Modify prose content — adjust wording, add sections
- Review structured steps — verify the action, tool, and logic for each step
- Click “Save as Work Instruction” when satisfied
The Work Instruction is created through the standard flow, so the Impact Cascade Engine fires normally if the WI is linked to any tasks.
What Makes Smart Import Intelligent
Smart Import doesn’t just format text — it understands your procedures:
| Capability | What It Does |
|---|---|
| Dual-Format Generation | Produces both prose AND structured steps from a single input |
| Tool Extraction | Identifies all software and tools mentioned in the procedure |
| Decision Point Detection | Finds conditional logic and branching rules |
| Duration Estimation | Estimates how long the procedure takes based on step complexity |
| Tag Suggestion | Recommends tags based on content analysis |
| Duplicate Detection | Flags existing WIs with similar content to prevent redundancy |
Use Cases
Migrating from Another Tool
Paste your existing Scribe, Notion, or Google Docs procedures into Smart Import to instantly convert them into BFF Work Instructions — no manual reformatting.
Onboarding a New Process
Got a procedure described in an email or chat message? Paste it into Smart Import and the AI Brain will structure it into a proper Work Instruction.
Creating AI-Ready Instructions
When a process needs to be executed by both humans and AI agents, Smart Import automatically generates both formats — saving you from writing the structured version manually.
The Bottom Line: What used to take 15–30 minutes of manual formatting now takes under 60 seconds. Paste your procedure, click Parse, review, and save. Zero formatting work required.