Smartlanes Configuration Guide

SmartLanes is CORAS's AI-powered relationship visualization engine. It maps how data items connect across multiple levels — programs to funding lines, technologies to organizations, projects to mission areas — giving you an interactive diagram that reveals the full structure of your portfolio. Powered by a 240-million-term word graph tuned for DoW context, SmartLanes delivers more comprehensive and relevant results than generic search tools.

Why This Matters

• Portfolio analysis used to mean building pivot tables and hoping you caught the connections that mattered. SmartLanes shows you the relationships your data already contains — visualized in seconds, not days.

• Similarity analysis surfaces redundancies and consolidation opportunities across your portfolio that manual review would never catch at scale.

• The AI search is tuned for DoW terminology. It understands how your programs, mission areas, and funding lines relate to each other — not just keyword matches.

When to Use This

• Portfolio redundancy review — You suspect overlap across programs or funding lines but can't see it in a list. SmartLanes surfaces it visually.

• S&T or R&D portfolio management — You're managing hundreds of projects across mission areas and the relationships between them don't fit in a list. The Navy faced exactly that problem. Their Strategic Portfolio Rendering Tool (SPoRT) needed to manage roughly 10,000 projects across a ~$35 billion S&T portfolio — and see how every one of them connected across funding lines, technology areas, and mission threads. SmartLanes made that visible. If it can handle that portfolio, it can handle yours.

• Briefing a leadership chain — You need to show how individual programs connect to strategic priorities without building a custom diagram in PowerPoint.

• AI-assisted similarity search — You want to find related programs, technologies, or funding lines using natural language rather than manual filtering.

Key Capabilities

Multi-level visualization — Configure grouping lanes and entity lanes to see hierarchical relationships at a glance across your entire portfolio.

AI-powered search — Use natural language to find items across your data with results contextualized to DoW terminology.

Similarity analysis — Identify connections and redundancies across portfolios, surfacing consolidation opportunities and redirecting funding where it matters.

Interactive drill-down — Click any item to highlight its connections across lanes, tracing relationships from high-level categories to individual records.

Color formatting — Apply visual rules to lanes and entities for quick status identification.

What Is a SmartLane?

A SmartLane is a diagram and hierarchy visualization. It displays data in a multi-level structure that highlights how items are connected across different fields or categories — particularly useful when understanding relationships is as important as reviewing individual records.

Each SmartLane is composed of lanes that define how data is grouped and displayed.

Non-Entity Lanes appear at the top and represent grouping or categorization fields. These lanes define how entities are organized and connected.

The Entity Lane appears at the bottom and represents the individual records being displayed. It is required for proper configuration and acts as the foundation of the SmartLane.

Create a SmartLane Configuration

Step 1: Open the Configuration Menu

1. Navigate to the SmartLanes interface

2. Select the three-dot menu at the top of the screen

3. Click Create Configuration

Step 2: Select a Configuration Type

Choose the configuration type based on your use case. Configuration types determine how the SmartLane behaves and how data is refreshed.

Step 3: Connect to a List

Select the list that contains the data you want to visualize. This list must already exist in CORAS.

Step 4: Configure Non-Entity Lanes

1. Select one or more fields to use as non-entity lanes

2. Assign a display name for each lane

3. Map each lane to its corresponding field

Non-entity lanes determine how entities are grouped and connected.

Step 5: Configure the Entity Lane

1. Select the Defined Entity Lane option

2. Choose the field that represents individual entities

3. Enable Show All Entities to ensure all records appear when loaded

Step 6: Set Entity Display Mapping

1. Locate the Entity Display Mapping Key section

2. Select the same field used for the entity lane

3. Confirm that the display settings match the entity mapping

This step is required to ensure entities display correctly.

Step 7: Name and Load the Configuration

1. Enter a configuration name

2. Click Load to generate the SmartLane

Color Configuration

Once a SmartLane is loaded, apply colors to improve readability and make relationships immediately visible.

1. Navigate to the Color Configuration tab

2. Assign colors to lane nodes or connections as needed

3. Adjust lane group or node override colors for clarity

AI Configuration

SmartLanes include AI capabilities that support search, similarity detection, and grouping — allowing you to identify related items and uncover patterns at a scale manual review can't match.

1. Navigate to the Advanced Options tab

2. Select AI Info

3. Choose which fields should support Search, Similarity, and Grouping

4. Click Build and refresh the page to activate AI features

An AI search box will appear once configuration is complete.

Important: Click Update after adjusting AI settings before navigating away. Changes will not be saved without it — and the AI search box will not appear until the configuration is saved and the page is refreshed.

Drill Down Into Your Data

Click any item in a loaded SmartLane to highlight its connections across all lanes. This traces how items are connected from high-level categories down to individual records — useful for analysis workflows where understanding the full relationship chain matters.

Once your SmartLane is configured, Gary can analyze what it surfaces. Open Gary from your SmartList to ask questions about the relationships your SmartLane reveals — identifying patterns, flagging redundancies, and helping your team decide what to do next.

Troubleshooting

My AI search box isn't appearing. The AI configuration requires clicking Build, then Update, then refreshing the page. If the search box still doesn't appear, confirm that at least one field is assigned to Search in the AI Info panel.

My entities aren't displaying correctly. Confirm that the Entity Display Mapping Key is set to the same field as the Entity Lane. This step is required and is the most common source of display issues.

My SmartLane loaded but some items are missing. Confirm that Show All Entities is enabled in the Entity Lane configuration. Without it, only items with active connections may appear.

Get Help

Contact your Customer Success Manager or visit the Customer Resource Center for additional support with SmartLanes configuration.