UX for Citations- Hidden and too many clicks

As we are bringing on more departments in our bot, we are getting an overwhelming amount of feedback of how cumbersome it is to get to citations. Clicking on the link that opens a popup, scroll down, find the citation, then click on the link. This is time consuming and not intuitive for users. The link for the citation when clicked in the chat, should automatically open the file making it easy for users or should have an expandable option below the chat text showing clickable citation links.