Why Abroadocs asks questions — and which it never asks

Each service needs a few facts before a search makes sense. An apostille search needs the country that issued the document; a translation search needs both languages. When one of those is missing, Abroadocs asks for it, and the search card waits for your answer.

• At most three questions in one message. The ones the search can't run without come first (at most two). Then, once, at the start, a few that help providers give you a price without writing back to ask: whether you hold an original, a certified copy or a scan; your deadline; how many documents and pages; and whether you need paper or a digital file, and to which city.
• Those are optional, and the search card comes with them. When the search can already run, the card and its Find providers button are under the same reply that asks them. Answer for sharper quotes, say "not sure", or press Find providers without answering — Abroadocs doesn't ask them again, and searches without them; they only make your quote request more complete.
• "Search now" means search now. Asking Abroadocs to search now also skips any questions it had not asked yet: it never answers "search now" with a new question unless the search truly cannot run without the answer.
• An answer is remembered. Once you have answered — even with "I don't know" — Abroadocs doesn't ask again.

Two questions Vlad never asks: which language the receiving authority legally requires, and whether your document has already been apostilled. Those are often exactly what you are trying to find out, so asking them back to you would not help.

Vlad doesn't ask whether one provider should do every step — it looks for one. When your request has several steps, each search is told about the others and looks for businesses whose own site shows several of them; a business that does comes first among providers that are otherwise equal, is offered to each other step's search, which checks it in full if that search is still running, and gets one quote request covering every step it is listed for. When nobody does several, you get separate providers for each step.

Your own word for the service is taken as the service. When your first message asks for a service in your own words — "an apostille", "translation, please", "it needs an apostille" — Vlad doesn't ask what you meant: it puts that service on the search card and says once in its reply that it took your word, and one sentence (or the ×) removes it. "A certificate with an apostille" is read as asking for the apostille, never as one already done. Only a word that could mean the step is already done — "all apostilled" — is asked about instead: "You wrote 'apostilled': is an apostille what you would like me to find providers for, or something else?" Vlad asks that once: if your next message doesn't say, it takes your word as the answer in the same way.

Dates and statuses are read from your own words. "Within 5 business days", "10 jours" or "next week" are worked out by Vlad from the date of your message (working days are Monday to Friday; public holidays are not counted), so you are not asked for a date you already gave. A time attached to a quote — "a quote within 24 hours" — is never read as your deadline. Vlad records that a document is already apostilled or legalised only when you said so in those words; "it needs apostilling" is never read as "already apostilled". If a document is already in the language you asked to translate it into, Vlad asks once whether you still want a translation, and into which language, rather than searching for one.

The full list is in What Abroadocs needs to know for each service.