Knowledge

What the assistant knows lives in a collection. A business can have more than one collection. Each assistant uses exactly one; you choose it on the assistant, on the Tasks tab, under Use knowledge. Q&A in that collection applies to every assistant that uses it. So does the business profile, as long as Also use the business profile is on. A new assistant also searches all documents; you can limit that on the assistant. Each collection has its own business profile. The first collection is created for you; a website you have read during the start ends up in it.

Knowledge is for editors and admins.

Four building blocks

Open Knowledge in the menu. In the header you choose the collection; Manage collections is there too. Below it are the Questions & answers, Business profile and Sources tabs. While a collection has no source yet, Knowledge opens on Sources.

Under Manage collections you create a collection with New collection, change a name and delete a collection. You cannot delete the last collection, or a collection an assistant still uses. Deleting also removes the Q&A, documents and proposals in that collection.

1. Q&A entries

Q&A entries are the most reliable form of knowledge: one specific question with one specific answer. They apply to every assistant that uses this collection. The list looks like To review. Categories start folded and are listed alphabetically; under Order you can also choose Most items. Open a category to see its subcategories, then open a subcategory to see the rows: the question, a checkbox and ··· menu on the right with Move and Delete, plus short answer, extra context, and a closed Source (page title, link, heading and short quote). An entry without a subcategory is under No subcategory, an entry without a category under No category. While you scroll, the category and subcategory stay at the top of that section.

In the ··· menu of a category or subcategory you change its name, combine it with another using Merge, delete everything inside it with Remove all items, or take away only the grouping with Delete category or Delete subcategory. Taking away only the grouping keeps the questions and answers. Remove all items deletes them and keeps the grouping. A subcategory can also move, with Move to another category. You create a category through Add new, and a subcategory with Add subcategory in an open category. A collection has at most 40 categories, and a category at most 20 subcategories.

To work through many entries at once, tick rows, or the box on a category or subcategory for everything inside it. The toolbar has Select with All and None, Find and Show selection. Under Remove, Selection deletes the ticked rows. There is no Accept or Dismiss here; these entries are already in use. Edit a row to change it; changes save automatically. Source context stays when you accept a proposal.

1. Go to Knowledge → Questions & answers.
2. Choose Add new, then New Q&A item.
3. Under Question, type the question the way a caller would ask it, for example "What is your call-out fee?". It can be up to 500 characters.
4. Type a Short answer the assistant should say first, with exact amounts or times (up to 4,000 characters).
5. Optionally add Additional context and/or explanation for follow-up questions (up to 8,000 characters), and choose a Category and Subcategory.
6. Click Save. The answer applies to new conversations straight away. Edit existing rows in the list below.

2. Documents

On the Sources tab you upload longer texts: a price list, terms and conditions, a maintenance protocol or a product manual.

1. Go to Knowledge → Sources.
2. Under Upload a document, choose a file: a PDF, .txt or .md, up to 50 MB. Uploading and reading start straight away.
3. The document takes the name of the file. So give the file a recognisable name first.
4. A new assistant searches the document as soon as it is Ready. If an assistant is set to Only the documents I choose, open it and tick this document on the Tasks tab, under Use knowledge.

Click the document name or View to read the stored pages and text pieces. If reading fails, you see the reason in the list. Process again reads the document once more.

So you can limit documents per assistant; Q&A entries always apply. They are listed in the assistant's prompt while they fit (20,000 characters of Q&A text). A larger set stays out of the prompt and the assistant searches it instead. You can also take a document out of use as a whole with Disable (a seasonal offer that has ended, say) without deleting it. It then shows Disabled. Enable turns it back on.

3. Website

Let the assistant read your own website.

1. Go to Knowledge → Sources.
2. Enter the URL of your website; your business's website is already there while this collection has none. Open Scan settings for the rest. Leave Whole website selected, or choose Custom paths and fill in Only these paths or Skip these paths (one per line, up to 20 per list, for example /pricing or /blog). Set a Page limit from 1 to 50 pages. Choose Thorough scan (recommended, about 3-10 minutes for an accurate result) or Quick scan (about one minute; may miss some text). A quick scan does not merge duplicate proposals or matching categories and keeps each quote to 120 characters; a thorough scan to 400. Add the proposals to Q&A right away is off: the assistant uses a proposal only after you accept it. If you turn it on, proposals with an answer become Q&A entries straight away. Every scan also writes a proposal on the Business profile tab of this collection; your own text changes only if you adopt it. Then click Read website.
3. We read up to your page limit, and at most 50 pages, on the same domain. Contact, services and pricing pages come first. A line that is the same on another page, such as a menu, footer or banner, is left out. The list under Sources shows a progress bar with the step, the percentage and how many pages have been read. Reading the site runs from 0% to 3%, and splitting pages from 4% to 24%. Preparing search stays at 25%. Creating proposals runs through 90%, and reviewing proposals through 99%. While a step is quiet the bar advances one percent every 5 seconds, and snaps back to the real percentage when that arrives. The status stays Processing until the proposals are stored; then it becomes Ready. The assistant only searches a document once it is Ready, so not during a refreshed scan either.
4. Open the site in Sources and click View to inspect each page and text piece, and to see under Pages read and Pages skipped which URLs were read or skipped. A FAQ item or other distinct block is its own piece.
5. Changed your website? Click Refresh scan. Pages whose text did not change stay as they are. To change the path rules first, open the site with View, change them and click Save rules. A saved answer is marked Possibly outdated when the website text behind it was removed or rewritten. The mark goes away when you edit the answer or click Still correct.

Without a subscription a scan reads at most 25 pages and is always quick, and you can run 3 scans a day and 6 in total. With an active subscription that is 10 scans a day. The website read during the start, Get details from website, Refresh scan and Rewrite from your website count as scans too, and so does text you paste instead of a website. See Subscription & invoices.

A website you have read during the start, or with Get details from website under Settings → Business (only an admin can do that), also shows up under Sources of the first collection. If the site is new there, it stays Disabled until you confirm it. If you ignore it, the site, its text and the open proposals go away again. That way a typo or someone else's site doesn't feed your assistant. A site that is already there stays as it is and is simply read again; ignoring then removes nothing.

WARNING

Some websites block automated visitors, and we do not read text that only appears through JavaScript. If the crawl returns nothing, that is usually the reason. In that case put the key texts in a PDF or text file and upload it, or turn them into Q&A entries.

4. Business profile

On the Business profile tab you describe in free text what an assistant should know besides: brands you work with, payment methods, certifications. Name, website, opening hours and service area are under Settings → Business; the assistant already gets those, and the address too when Share this address with customers is on. It also gets What your business does, as confirmed when your details were read from your website: that is how it knows that complaints belong at a GP's practice and a boiler error code at a plumber. An assistant includes the text of its collection when Also use the business profile is on.

1. Go to Knowledge → Business profile.
2. Type your text, up to 20,000 characters. Your text saves automatically.
3. Click Rewrite from your website when this collection has a website that has been read and is not Disabled. That takes a few minutes. Every website scan also makes such a version.
4. The new text appears as a proposal above your own text. Check it carefully: the AI model can misread details. Choose Adopt or Dismiss. Your own text only changes when you adopt; the proposal then replaces it.

If writing fails, you see that on this tab, with what you can do. Your own text stays as it is.

Live web search

For questions you can't answer in advance (the meaning of a boiler error code, for instance) the assistant can search the web during the conversation. You configure this per assistant on the Tasks tab, under Look up during a call. The assistant only searches for questions about your business or your trade, never for one that clearly falls outside it (see Instructions).

It searches from your business's country and town (from Settings → Business) and prefers sources from that country: a Dutch GP's practice gets answers from Dutch medical sites such as thuisarts.nl. What it finds it gives as a real answer in its own words, without links. When the answer depends on something it does not know yet, it asks first: an error code means something different for each boiler brand, so it asks which brand and model it is before answering. When the customer mentions a real danger, such as a red warning light or a smell of gas, it gives the general safety advice first. It does not bring up dangers the customer did not mention; at most it checks once, briefly and calmly, that nothing is wrong, such as "You don't smell any gas, do you?". When it is advice a customer should not rely on blindly, such as medical, legal or financial advice or a repair the customer does themselves, it says honestly that it looked it up on the internet and that it is general information. In the same reply it offers to put the customer through to a colleague, if you set that up for calls, or to take a contact request. Your own website (from Settings → Business) always comes first: questions about your own products, webshop items, prices or conditions it looks up there first. If you choose Only certain websites under Where to search, it only searches your own website and those sites.

Setting	Meaning	Default
Allow web search during conversations	Turns searching during the conversation on or off.	Off
Where to search	The whole internet: questions about your business (products, prices, conditions) on your own website first, other questions in reliable sources from your business's country: medical advice on official medical sites such as thuisarts.nl in the Netherlands, an error code at the manufacturer, rules or grants at the government. Or Only certain websites: your own website plus the sites you list, such as a manufacturer's. The assistant then consults no other sites.	The whole internet
Allowed domains	Only with Only certain websites: the sites that may be searched, for example a manufacturer's manuals site. Your own website always counts, also when it is not in the list. If you choose that option while the list is empty, we fill in your website from Settings → Business. If you go back to the whole internet, the list is kept for later. If the list stays empty, the assistant searches the whole internet.	—
Condition	In plain language: when the assistant should search. For example: "When the caller asks what an error code means." If you leave this empty, it searches for questions your knowledge does not answer.	—

A web search takes a few seconds to over ten. On a phone call the assistant first says briefly that it is checking, and then now and then that it is still on it, so the caller never hears a long silence.

Search results are only used for the answer in that conversation and are not saved to the collection. If a question keeps coming up, turn it into a Q&A entry.

Self-learning: Proposals

Open Knowledge → Questions & answers and choose To review. This holds proposals to improve this collection. There are two kinds. Through Add new you can also make a New proposal yourself. Unanswered shows the questions without an answer: those from callers, and proposals you made yourself without an answer.

One scan keeps up to 500 proposals. Up to 2,000 proposals can be open at once; past that, New proposal asks you to adopt or dismiss some first. Refresh scan and Process again work up to 100 times a day per account, and not while that document is still being read.

Generated Q&A proposals. After you upload a document or crawl a website, we automatically propose Q&A entries based on the content. The text is read in parts, so later pages count too. Proposals start while the text is still being split, and the document stays on Processing until they are done. While that runs, you see the progress on Sources and on To review. Refresh scan and Process again rebuild the open proposals from that document, even when the page text stayed the same. Entries you accepted yourself stay. Entries added through Add the proposals to Q&A right away are replaced on a new scan with that setting. A thorough scan folds categories that are the same topic, such as Prices and Rates. A different topic stays separate. Source shows the document or website URL a proposal came from, and the exact page. The assistant sees the category name, not the page URL. For each proposal you can:

• edit the short answer and the optional extra context. The question itself is fixed. What you type here is only kept when you accept;
• tick the box on a proposal, then use All or None under Select, Selection under Accept, or Selection under Remove;
• with Find, open the Select entries containing field, type text and click Find and select to tick every proposal whose question, short answer or extra context contains it. Proposals already ticked stay ticked. Show selection is then on, which hides the rest;
• Accept to turn it into a Q&A entry;
• All under Accept in the toolbar, to accept every proposal that already has an answer. A proposal with an empty answer stays;
• Dismiss if the proposal is wrong or irrelevant;
• Similar questions under Merge in the toolbar, to merge open unanswered questions that ask the same thing, even when they are worded differently or in another language. In each group the oldest stays, with every conversation and the count added; the others are dismissed. A question about something else (Saturday instead of Sunday, another product) stays separate. You can do this 20 times a day;
• All under Remove in the toolbar, to clear every open proposal at once (same as dismissing each one). If nothing is open under All proposals, this button takes away all categories of the collection; the questions and answers stay, without a category.

With Unanswered on, All and Selection only apply to those questions. Accept, dismiss and remove ask you to confirm. Find and select does not.

Unanswered questions. When a customer asks something the assistant had no answer for, the question appears here after the conversation, in that assistant's collection. Under the question you see in how many conversations it was asked, and for each conversation what it was about, which question the customer asked first and how the question was worded then, with a link to open that conversation. That explanation holds no names, phone numbers or addresses; you read the whole conversation through the link, for as long as it is kept.

When an open question already asks the same thing, no second one is added: the new conversation is added to that question and the badge Asked 2× counts it. "Which exact permits were missing?" and "What are the precise names of the missing permits?" become one question this way. Each question keeps the first conversation and the nine newest; the count keeps going.

1. Open the unanswered question and, if useful, read back the conversation.
2. Fill in the correct short answer and, if useful, extra context.
3. Click Accept. The question becomes a Q&A entry and the assistant will be able to answer it next time.

Go through this list weekly during the first few weeks; that way the collection grows in step with what your callers actually ask.

Best practices

• One question per Q&A entry. Split "What's your call-out fee and how soon can you come?" into two separate entries.
• Phrase it the way callers talk and include synonyms in the question: "What is the call-out fee / call-out charge / travel cost?".
• Use real text, not scanned images. A PDF made up of photographed pages contains no readable text for us and fails.
• Write out exact values. Not "see price list", but "The call-out fee is £45 including VAT".
• Keep documents current. Upload a new price list as soon as the old one expires, disable or delete the old one, and click Refresh scan after changing your website.
• Remove outdated entries. Two conflicting answers lead to unpredictable behaviour.

Test search

Use the Test search button in the header of Knowledge, or Test search in Try it out on the assistant. This tests whether a caller's question finds the right knowledge in that collection. It searches the Q&A entries and the documents an assistant using this collection searches. Proposals are left out.

1. Leave Same meaning selected (that is how the assistant searches), or choose Exact words.
2. Type a question the way a caller would ask it, for example "Do you cover Reading as well?", and click Search.
3. You'll see up to 5 matching Q&A entries and text pieces from documents and websites. With Same meaning, each shows what percentage similar it is.
4. If the right answer is at the top with a high percentage, the assistant will find it in a conversation too.
5. If nothing or the wrong thing comes up, rephrase the question in the existing entry or add a new entry using the wording you just typed.

If the assistant still gives wrong or missing answers in real conversations, see Troubleshooting: knowledge.

Related articles

• How to write a great prompt
• Assistants
• Troubleshooting: knowledge