Visitor Q&A moves the diligence Q&A out of your inbox and into the data room. Reviewers post questions from inside the room, your team answers in one place, and every question and answer is scoped to the group that asked. No more chasing threads across email, no more forwarding the same answer to five different bidders.

This is the room-level Q&A module where outside reviewers ask your deal team questions. It is distinct from AI document Q&A — the AI that reads your files and answers on the spot. This page covers the module where humans ask humans; for the AI chat, see AI Q&A.

What It Is

When Visitor Q&A is on, invited reviewers get a Q&A tab in the data room. From there they open the New question button on the room's Q&A tab, type a question, and submit it. The question lands in your team's Q&A workspace, where an admin drafts and publishes the answer back to the reviewer.

It replaces the fundraising and M&A back-and-forth that most deals still run over email:

Fundraising. An investor reads the deck, asks about churn or the cap table, and gets the answer in the room where the numbers already live.
M&A diligence. Bidders ask about a contract clause or a customer concentration figure; your team answers once, and the record stays attached to the deal.
Board and LP reviews. Reviewers ask in context instead of firing off a separate email chain.

Plan Availability

Visitor Q&A is on Data Room ($52/admin/mo) and above. Enabling it is gated to the Data Room plan and up.
Private, threaded Q&A with assign-an-expert and approve-before-release routing is a Deal Team ($64/admin/mo, minimum 4 admins) feature. On Data Room, Visitor Q&A is basic: questions and vetted answers, without the expert/approver workflow.

How to Turn It On

Open the data room and go to the Settings tab in the sidebar. Find the Visitor Q&A card — "Let visitors ask questions inside the room so review keeps moving without extra email threads" — and turn it on.

Note there are two Settings surfaces in Peony and this is the one that matters here: the per-data-room Settings tab (inside the room, next to Documents, Analytics, Audit trail, Q&A, and Permissions), not your workspace settings in the bottom-left of the home screen. Turning on the card here adds the Q&A tab to that room for reviewers who have access.

Per-Group Privacy

Questions are scoped to the group that asked them. Groups and invitees never see each other's questions. A bidder in one group cannot see what a bidder in another group asked, and neither can see the other's answers. This is the core reason Visitor Q&A beats a shared email alias in a multi-bidder process — every counterparty gets a private channel without you managing separate threads.

Groups are the invite groups you set up under the Permissions tab. Each group's Q&A is walled off from the others. On basic Visitor Q&A, questions within a single group show anonymously to other viewers in that same group; across groups there is no visibility at all.

Answering Questions

Posted questions arrive in your team's Q&A workspace, reachable from the Q&A tab in the data room sidebar. From there an admin drafts the answer and publishes it back to the reviewer who asked. Reviewers see only the published answer.

Admins can delete questions — useful for clearing out test questions before a room goes live. Open the question in the Q&A workspace and use the delete control.

Who can answer: everyone managing the room needs a paid admin seat, but you can bring in free team members to answer or sign off on questions assigned to them. Create those people as a group under Permissions, and a paid admin can assign questions to them. Investors and outside reviewers answering on their own side never need a Peony account.

Advanced Q&A Workflow (Deal Team)

On Deal Team, Visitor Q&A becomes a private, routed workflow built for live M&A and fundraising. Each incoming question can be assigned to an expert to draft the answer and an approver to sign off before anything reaches the reviewer. The answer stays private until the approver publishes it — the "CFO-in-the-loop" flow that keeps a wrong number from ever leaving the building.

One setup note carried over from the AI workflow: the Advanced Q&A workflow must be assigned to the data room root link, not a sub-link. If you see "Selected link assignment must use the data room root link.", reassign it to the root link and the error clears.

The assign-and-route mechanics are shared with AI Q&A — see the Advanced Q&A Workflow section for the full expert/approver setup.

Common Questions

The Q&A button isn't showing in the room even though Q&A is "allowed." How do I enable it?

Open the data room Settings tab and confirm the Visitor Q&A card is on (Data Room plan and above). Once it's on, reviewers get a Q&A tab, and the entry point to post is the New question button on that Q&A tab. Questions they post land in your team's Q&A workspace.

Can reviewers in different groups see each other's questions?

No. Questions are scoped per group, so groups and invitees never see each other's questions or answers. Each counterparty gets a private Q&A channel.

How do I delete our test questions?

Open the Q&A workspace and use the delete control on the question. Admins can remove any question — handy for clearing test entries before you invite real reviewers.

Can I keep answers private until we approve them?

Yes, on Deal Team. Private, threaded Q&A lets you assign a question to an expert to draft the answer and to an approver to sign off; nothing reaches the reviewer until the approver publishes it. On Data Room, Visitor Q&A is basic — questions and vetted answers, without the expert/approver routing.

Do the people answering questions need paid admin seats?

Everyone managing the room needs a paid admin seat. Free general team members can answer or sign off on questions a paid admin assigns to them — create them as a group under Permissions first. Investors and outside reviewers answering on their own side need no account.

Reviewers saw two places to ask a question — which is the real one?

The main flow is the New question button on the room's Q&A tab. Earlier rooms occasionally surfaced a second "email me directly" button; that extra surface has been removed so there is a single, consistent way for reviewers to ask.

Visitor Q&A: Investor Questions Inside the Room