Basic Knowledge Bot Set Up
Setting up your Knowledgebot doesn’t have to be complicated. Once you've created a bot, either through the Bot Creator or your Dashboard, you'll be directed to its Settings page. This is where you’ll configure the basics that shape how your bot interacts with users.
This guide covers all the essential steps to get your bot up and running quickly
1. Name the bot
Begin by giving your bot a unique and memorable name. This is how users will identify your bot. You can also upload an Avatar so your bot may also be identified visually.
2. Provide Instructions
Create the initial instructions of your bot. This should define your bot's core mission, writing style, and any context it should be aware of. Think of it like a brief job description that the bot will always consider in its responses. Use the default template or write your own instructions to customize the bot to fit your use case.
Your task is to provide precise and relevant information. Your communication should be professional yet easy to understand. Your responses must be thorough and detailed, using professional formatting. Clarify Ambiguous or General Inquiries: Ask specific questions to gather additional context. If a query can have multiple interpretations or answers, ask the user for clarification. Inform Users About the Scope of Answers: Let users know that answers may not always be exhaustive, indicating that further research and verification might be necessary. Encourage users to consult the original documents in the reference if they wish to look up more information themselves, or they can ask follow-up questions for further assistance. Methodical Approach: Guide users through the answer to their question methodically. Clearly state the steps to be taken and, where possible, refer to specific sections, figures, and tables in the guidelines and forms. Your ultimate goal is to enhance the expertise and efficiency of users, enabling them to perform their tasks more effectively through quicker access to relevant information.
Customize Your Instructions (Optional)
In order to make the Knowledge Bot behave in a more specific way or limit the scope of its tasks, you can enhance the prompt by tailoring it using these 4 key elements:
Role / Context: Define the bot’s use case or audience
e.g., “You are assisting the tech staff with internal IT support.”
Task: Describe the bot's main functionality in a concise way.
e.g. "Provide factual responses and step-by-step guides using the provided knowledge base."
Tonality: Tailor the writing style to your use case and user group.
e.g. "You write in a professional, yet easy to understand tone. Your answers are very precise and brief. You use professional formatting, like headlines, sub-headlines, bold, italic, underline, or numbering."
Guidelines: Set boundaries to reduce hallucinations or misinformation.
e.g. "Do not make up an answer when you cannot offer a factual answer based on your knowledge base. Tell the user what information you are missing to respond."
4. Add a Description to your Bot
A clear and concise bot description helps users understand your bot’s purpose, capabilities, and intended use.
This appears in the bot's profile (not in the chat) and helps other team members decide if it fits their needs.
Your description should:
Summarize the bot’s primary role
Mention its area of expertise
Clarify the types of tasks it handles
Sample Description
Supports employees with HR questions, form submissions, and company policy clarifications
4. Create Conversation Starters & Follow-Up Questions
Conversation starters and follow-up questions help guide users through meaningful interactions with your bot.
Navigate to Bot Settings > Conversation Design to configure these elements.
Conversation Starters
Pre-defined prompts shown when a user first opens the bot. They showcase your bot’s core capabilities and eliminate the guesswork of “What should I ask?”
Example Starters:
“Summarize the uploaded report”
“What are the key deadlines?”
“Explain this in simpler terms”
Follow-Up Questions
These dynamic suggestions appear after the bot replies, encouraging users to dive deeper or explore related topics.
Use follow-ups to:
Suggest next steps
Clarify complex answers
Encourage more engagement
5. Configure your Bot’s Capabilities & Skills
Your bot can be enhanced with features that match how your team wants to interact—via voice, visuals, citations, or smarter search.
Audio Settings
Text-to-Speech: Let the bot speak its replies aloud using OpenAI’s voice options. Useful for accessibility or presentation use.
Speech-to-Text: Enable voice input so users can talk to the bot. Makes interactions more intuitive and mobile-friendly.
General Settings
Image Search & Retrieval
Allows your bot to process and reference images embedded in PDFs or uploaded as standalone files in a connected database source.
Ideal for bots that need to read diagrams, scanned documents, or charts.
Note: This does not apply to files uploaded directly in the chat.
References & Inline Citations
Toggle this ON to display a list of sources used in your bot’s responses to build transparency and is useful for research-heavy bots.
When “References” is enabled, you can also check Enable Inline Citations to embed the source link directly within the answer.
Intent Agent
Enables the bot to use intent-based logic to automatically match queries to the most relevant database sources or subfolders
Use only if you've configured custom intent routing across multiple Data Rooms.
Search Methods
Choose how your bot searches your knowledge base. Each method has its strengths:
Index Search: Best for precise keyword or phrase matching. Fast and accurate when content is highly structured.
AI Search: Uses semantic understanding to interpret meaning. Great for complex or loosely phrased queries.
Hybrid Search: Combines both methods for the best of both worlds. Ideal for general-purpose or varied data sets.
6. Select your Bot’s default AI Model
LLM Selection (Large Language Model)
LLMs, or Large Language Models, are the AI engines that power your Knowledgebot. They process user queries, understand context, and generate responses. Choosing the right model is essential for optimizing accuracy, speed, cost-efficiency, and overall user experience.
How to pick an LLM?
Blockbrain gives you access to top-performing models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Vertex AI, and Azure. Th
ese models vary in:
Context Window Size
How much information the model can “remember” per prompt.
Short context window (e.g., 16K tokens): Best for shorter prompts, quick responses, and direct answers.
Large context window (e.g., 1M tokens): Ideal for reading long documents, summarizing reports, deep analysis, or having extended conversations without losing context.
Response Quality
Determines how accurate, helpful, and nuanced the model’s outputs are.
Refer to Blockbrain’s ratings to find what works best for you.
Speed
Lighter models respond faster which is great for quick chats or bots requiring low latency
Cost Efficiency
Some models use fewer tokens or compute, helping you optimize usage for budget-sensitive deployments.
Hosting Location
You can choose between US-hosted, EU-hosted and CN-hosted models.
Note: Choose EU-hosted models if your data privacy policy or security requirements prioritize regional compliance.
Specialized Strengths
Each LLM perform better in specific areas which you can discover in the LLM page of Blockbrain
Considering these factors is helpful for optimizing your bot for your specific needs. Some use cases are as follows:
Reading and summarizing long documents → Use a model with a large context window (e.g., Claude 3 Opus, GPT-4o)
Fast performance for quick answers → Use a lightweight, fast model (e.g., Gemini Flash)
Creative, conversational tone → Use expressive models (e.g., GPT-4o, Claude 3 Sonnet)
Set your Default LLM
Choose your preferred model (e.g., GPT-4o, Claude 3 Opus, Gemini 1.5 Pro, etc.). Review the specializations of each LLM in the settings. Your chosen LLM will be the default applied to every new Data Room opened by the bot.
8. Save & Share your Bot
After configuring your bot, it’s important to save your settings to make sure all customizations are preserved. Simply click the Save button this will securely store your setup, including instructions, capabilities, and preferences.
Only bots created from the Bot Creator can be shared.
Sharing Your Bot
For a bot created in Bot Creator, the sharing preferences can be adjusted:
Private: only visible to you
Public: available for anyone in your workspace
Restricted: shared only with selected teammates
If you make your bot public or restricted, your coworkers will be able to use it in their own dashboards.
Bots created in Bot Creator won’t appear on your personal dashboard by default. To access them, click + Add a Bot in your dashboard and search for the bot you created.
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