Lens Sources: What Lens Learns From

Lens can only answer questions about your product if it can read what you've already written about it, like your website, your help center, or your product guides. Each place you let Lens read from is called a knowledge source.

This article explains the kinds of knowledge sources you can add, how to add them, and how to group them so each channel only answers from the right content.

Use Case Information

If your product information is spread across a website, a help center, training courses, and a pile of PDFs, adding each one as a knowledge source lets Lens see the whole picture instead of just one piece.

If you're trying Lens for the first time, start with your website and add more later. You don't need to connect everything at once.

If you have different audiences, like customers, partners, and your own sales team, you can group your knowledge sources so each audience only gets the answers meant for them.

The Kinds of Knowledge Sources

When you add a knowledge source, Lens reads the words in it and adds what it learns to your knowledge layer, which is the one place Lens keeps everything it knows. When you first sign up, Lens adds your website as your first knowledge source for you.

Here are the kinds of knowledge sources you can add and what each one reads.

• Web crawl: Reads the pages of a public website, like your docs or help center, by following the links from one page to the next. It reads all the words on each page, including image descriptions, but it can't watch videos or listen to audio.
• File upload: Reads PDF and text files you upload, like product guides, release notes, or sales sheets. Files you upload together are kept as one knowledge source.
• Zendesk: Reads the articles in your Zendesk help center. You'll need your Zendesk subdomain, which is the first part of your Zendesk web address, and an API token, which works like a password.
• Thought Industries: For companies that use Thought Industries Academy. It reads the courses and other content in your academy using an API key from your academy. It can't read videos or SCORM courses (a common format for packaged online courses) yet.
• Amazon S3: Reads documents stored in Amazon S3, a service many companies use to store files online. You'll need to know where your files are stored, which is called your S3 bucket.

How to Add a Knowledge Source

Every kind of knowledge source starts in the same place.

To add a knowledge source:

1. Click Source in the menu on the left.
2. Click Add source.
3. Choose the kind of knowledge source you want to add.
4. Fill in the details for that kind (see below), then save it.

Web crawl settings

A web crawl has a few settings that control how much of a website Lens reads.

• URL: The web address where Lens starts reading, usually the home page of your docs or help center.
• Max Pages: The most pages Lens reads from the site. 50 is a good place to start.
• Max Depth: How far down into your site Lens goes from the starting address. For example, yoursite.com/docs is one level down, and yoursite.com/docs/setup is two levels down. 3 is a good place to start.
• Use browser rendering: Turn this on if the words on your pages show up a moment after the page loads, which is common on newer websites.

Lens usually takes 5–15 minutes to read a site, and bigger sites take longer.

File upload settings

Give the knowledge source a name, then upload one or more PDF or text files.

Zendesk settings

1. Enter your Zendesk subdomain and API token.
2. Click Test connection to make sure Lens can reach your help center.
3. Click Connect to Zendesk.

Thought Industries settings

Enter your academy's API key and connect. Lens then shows you the kinds of content it can read from your academy.

Use this knowledge source for your academy instead of a web crawl. Courses and lessons usually sit many levels deep in an academy, so a web crawl can miss them.

Amazon S3 settings

Enter the location of the S3 bucket where your files are stored, and Lens reads the documents it finds there.

New knowledge sources take a little time to show up in answers. Lens reads them one at a time, so a large knowledge source, or several added at once, can take longer.

How to Add a Source Group

A source group is a set of knowledge sources you group together and give a name, like "Customer help" or "Sales only." When you set up a channel, like a widget, you choose which source groups it can answer from. That way, each channel only uses the content meant for its audience. Until you choose a source group, a new widget uses all of your content.

For example, you could put your help center and product guides in a "Customer help" group and connect it to the widget on your website. Your sales team's widget could use a "Sales" group that also includes your sales materials. Customers would only get answers from customer content, and never from content meant just for your team.

To create a source group:

1. Click Source in the menu on the left, then open the source groups tab.
2. Click Add.
3. Give the group a name and choose the knowledge sources to include.
4. Click Save.

Next, open the channel that should use the group, click Configure, and choose the source group.

Managing Knowledge Sources

The Source page lists all of your knowledge sources. For each one, you'll see its Name, Type, Status, Indexed (how many documents Lens read), and Last synced (the last time Lens read it).

The Status tells you what Lens is doing. Crawling or Syncing means Lens is reading, Processing means it's organizing what it read, and Active means it's ready to use in answers.

• Sync: When you change your content, click Sync (the circular arrows icon) so Lens reads that knowledge source again and picks up your changes. To sync several at once, select them and click Sync selected.
• Delete: Removes a knowledge source, and Lens stops using what it learned from it.

FAQs