Turn a Draft Full of Open Questions into an Owner Table with Gemini in Docs

A policy draft often ends with a short list of open questions. Everyone reads it, nobody owns it, and the draft ships with the questions unresolved. Turning that list into a table with a named owner per row takes ten minutes and changes what happens next.

Reader and decision: You are the person shepherding a policy draft toward review. The artifact is an owner table for the open questions. The decision is which questions block approval and which can be answered outside the document.

Evidence label: Documentation-based and illustrative. Google documents the Gemini in Docs side panel, prompting about a document, and referencing other files. The policy draft, prompt, and table below are fictional. No Gemini session or personal test is claimed.

What you need

• An eligible Google Workspace or Google AI plan. Google states that Gemini in Docs requires one, and that the feature is also available in Google Workspace Experiments for personal accounts.
• A language Google supports for the Gemini side panel.
• The draft, plus the people who can actually answer the questions.
• The questions themselves, pasted into your prompt. Google’s help describes asking Gemini about the open document and referencing other files. It does not describe importing every comment thread automatically, so do not assume the side panel has read your comments.

Create the fictional input

Imagine this section sits at the end of a draft called Vendor onboarding policy v3:

6. Open questions

6.1 Who signs off when a vendor's risk tier changes after approval?
    Action: Risk lead to confirm.

6.2 Do we require a signed data processing agreement for tier 3 vendors?

6.3 Is the 14 day onboarding target still correct for tier 1 vendors?
    Owner: Ops.

6.4 Which team owns the annual re-review calendar?

Four questions. One names an owner in the draft, one names a team, two name nobody. That mix is the reason a table beats a paragraph.

Run the workflow

Open the document, select Ask Gemini at the top right, and paste this into the side panel:

Below is the open questions section of a policy draft. Build an owner table.

Section text:
<<<paste the open questions section here>>>

Columns: question (exact wording), section number, decision needed, owner, due date, blocking (yes, no, unknown).

Rules:
- Copy each question word for word. Do not merge two questions into one row.
- Use only the text I pasted plus what the document says. Do not guess an owner from job titles, team names, or who usually does this work.
- If the draft does not name an owner, write NOT STATED.
- If the draft does not give a due date, write NOT STATED.
- State the decision in one sentence: what someone has to choose or confirm.
- Mark blocking as unknown unless the draft says the question blocks approval.
- Do not answer the questions.

Google’s help notes that conversation history in the side panel is lost when you refresh the browser, close and reopen the document, or go offline, and it recommends inserting generated output into the document to avoid losing it. So insert the table into the draft rather than leaving it in the panel.

The illustrative result is:

| question                                                        | section | decision needed                                    | owner      | due date   | blocking |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|---------|----------------------------------------------------|------------|------------|----------|
| Who signs off when a vendor's risk tier changes after approval?  | 6.1     | Confirm who approves a post approval tier change    | NOT STATED | NOT STATED | unknown  |
| Do we require a signed data processing agreement for tier 3 vendors? | 6.2 | Decide whether a signed DPA is mandatory for tier 3 | NOT STATED | NOT STATED | unknown |
| Is the 14 day onboarding target still correct for tier 1 vendors? | 6.3    | Confirm or replace the tier 1 onboarding target     | Ops        | NOT STATED | unknown  |
| Which team owns the annual re-review calendar?                   | 6.4     | Assign an owning team for the re-review calendar    | NOT STATED | NOT STATED | unknown  |

Read that table the way a reviewer would. The 6.1 row says the owner is not stated even though the draft contains an action line naming the risk lead. That is a disagreement worth resolving before the table is circulated, and it is the kind of gap a paragraph hides.

Acceptance checks

The table passes when:

• all four questions appear, each in its own row, in the original wording;
• section numbers match the draft;
• only Ops is recorded as an owner, because it is the only owner the draft names;
• every unnamed owner reads NOT STATED, not a guessed role;
• no due dates are invented;
• blocking is unknown because the draft does not say; and
• no question has been answered in the table.

Then do the human step: send the table to the named owners, and ask the draft’s author why 6.1 and 6.4 have no recorded owner.

Troubleshooting

The table invents owners such as “Procurement”. The rule against guessing was not applied. Rerun with the instruction that only an explicitly named owner counts, and say that role names are not owners.

The output merges two questions into one row. Ask for one row per numbered item and check the count against the draft. Four questions must produce four rows.

The table disappears after you reopen the document. That is expected if you left it in the side panel. Insert the output into the document, since history is lost on refresh, on reopening, or when you go offline.

The side panel does not appear. Confirm that the account has an eligible Workspace or Google AI plan or access through Workspace Experiments, and that the document is open in a supported language. Admin settings and language availability can block the panel.

Limits and decision

This workflow reorganises what the draft already says. It cannot make a policy decision, and it cannot know that a question is unimportant. A table with four NOT STATED owners is a useful outcome, because it shows the draft is not ready for approval. For a related pattern on converting discussion into assignments, see the meeting notes action plan.

TRY this on a draft that already has a numbered questions section. SKIP it for a document whose real blockers are hidden in comments you have not pasted. USE the owner table as the agenda for the approval conversation.

For more practical AI workflows built around real work tasks, join The Weekly Verdict.

Sources

• Google Workspace Help: Collaborate with Gemini in Google Docs

Evidence label: Documentation-based and illustrative. The policy draft, questions, prompt, and owner table are fictional teaching material. No Gemini execution, policy decision, or Cihan test is claimed.