Creating and Editing a Knowledge Base Question

Modified on Wed, 25 Sep at 2:46 PM

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As you are customizing your bot, you will need to create new or edit existing questions.


The first step when determining if you need to create a new custom question or edit an existing response is to first test the question in the chatbot. 


Review the Test Your Bot article to determine which types of questions you need to update the response or create a new custom question.


This section of the user guide is focused on creating new and editing. To help you navigate the article we have broken it down into the following sections:


Best Practices

Before creating a custom question, review the Editing the Knowledge Base Best Practices article. 


Who has access to create/edit a knowledge base question?

Creating or editing a question response is available to individuals with the following permissions: 


For more information on user permissions, review the User Roles & Permissions article.



Accessing the Create Question or Customize Question page


Create Question Page


There are two ways to access the Create Question page:

  1. While testing a question in the Test my Bot tool, if a response does not exist in the knowledge base (IDK), select the Add a Response button and you will be navigated to the Create Question page.


If Automatic Content Generation provided the IDK, the Add A Response button will not be available and a new question will need to be created to add it to the knowledge base.
For more information about Automatic Content Generation review the Chatbot: Automatic Content Generation article. 


2. Select the plus icon at the top of the page, and select Create Question.





Customize Question Page

There are two ways to access the Customize Question page:

  1. While testing a question, if the response exists, select the Edit Response button and you will be navigated to the Customize Question page.
  2. Any question in the knowledge base can be edited. There are three pages within the knowledge base where you may choose to edit a question:


    • General Library: the general library page lists all questions within your knowledge base that have not been customized.
    • Custom Questions: the custom questions page lists all questions that have already been customized. 
    • Question Templates: question templates are the top questions that Ocelot recommends you customize in order for your chatbot to be as effective as possible.

      To edit a question, on either the Chatbot>General Library, Custom Questions, or Question Templates page, select the question and select Edit

If Automatic Content Generation created the response, the Edit Response button will not be available and a new question will need to be created to add it to the knowledge base.
For more information about how to create a new knowledge base question, review the Creating and Editing a Knowledge Base Question article.


Creating or editing a question 


On the Create Question or Customize Question page, there are two tabs

  1. General Details: This is where you will create or edit a question by completing the form. 
  2. Custom Responses: This is where clarifying questions are added to a knowledge base/custom question to provide custom responses based on their responses. 

For information on how to update the Custom Responses tab, review the Adding Clarifying Questions to a Knowledge Base Question article.


Completing the General Details tab


There are eight steps to the General Details tab:

  1. In the Question field, enter the top-level question that you will see in the custom questions tab once the question has been processed.

    If you are editing an existing question, you can only update the Question field cannot be edited. 


  2. In the Response field, enter the response the chatbot user will receive when they ask the primary question.

    For more information on using the content generator, URLs, and variables within a response, review the Creating a Knowledge Base Response article.

  3. Content Locking or Sharing toggles (Optional)

    Content Locking


    Chatbot - Administrator users can lock/unlock chatbot knowledge base content so that other users are unable to edit that content further. A content locking toggle is available to users with the Chatbot - Administrator role on the content edit screen. Turning on the Content Locking toggle prevents all fields from being edited, except by Chatbot -  Administrators. 


    For more information, review the Content Locking article.

    Content Sharing


    Content sharing provides the ability for administrator-level users to manage knowledge base content for multiple bots in one centralized location, delivering a consistent message from each chatbot without having to create and edit content in each individual chatbot. The content sharing toggle is available to Chatbot - Administrator users on the content edit screen.


    For more information, review the Content Sharing article.


  4. Library and Category fields

    The library and category fields help categorize and determine what users have access to view/edit the question.  

    Library and Category are both required fields.


    The Category field is used for organizational purposes only.

    The Library field is used to associate knowledge base/custom questions with an office. When offices are set up within the chatbot, Ocelot assigns libraries to the office.

    Note:  Whenever a new office is set up, Ocelot automatically assigns the appropriate libraries to that office.

    In the same way, when chatbot users are set up, they are also assigned to an office. And based on the office they are assigned to, they are automatically granted access to the corresponding library content.

    A question may have more than one library associated with the question. Chatbot users can only add or remove a library they have permission to. 

    Use caution when deleting libraries from content so as not to remove access from other users in different departments/offices who may need access to the question. If a user deletes a library, users with access to that library will no longer be able to view/edit the content. 

    Example: if a general library question is assigned to the Financial Aid and Registrar’s Libraries, that question is viewable/editable by any user with access to the Financial Aid and/or Registrar's library. If a user overrides that general library question and changes the library field to only Financial Aid, then once that override is published, only chatbot users with the Financial Aid library can now view/edit.

    A user can select the Other library if no library matches the content. When Other is selected the question will then be moved to the moderation queue and reviewed by Ocelot staff. 

    If Other is listed in the library field, then the question is not restricted by library permissions, and all users can view/edit the question based on their permissions.


    Note: Clients may add up to 30 Out-Of-Library questions to their knowledge base. Out-of-Library content is defined as content that is outside of the purchased libraries as determined by Ocelot.

  5. Review Date (Optional): If you would like to set a specific date to review the question it will appear on the In Review and Draft page 30 days prior to the review date and depending on permissions, will receive an email notification.

  6. Expiration Date (Optional)

    • If the question was a general library (GL) question, when the expiration date arrives (at 12:00 PM in your timezone), the question will become unpublished and the original general library question/response will be re-instated in the bot.
    • If the question was a new custom question, created from scratch, when the expiration date arrives (at 12:00 PM in your timezone), the question will become unpublished and the bot will no longer respond to that question.

  7. Description (Optional)
    • The text entered in the description field will be visible on the Revision tab. This field can be used to provide context for the revision.

  8. Select Save as Draft or Save and Publish.

    • Save as Draft - creates a draft that can be reviewed later and published. These questions will also appear on the In Review and Drafts page, on the Drafts tab. 
    • Save and Publish - will publish the question and it will be made live within your knowledge base.

      Once your question has been published it will be moved into the Moderation Queue, where they will go through a review cycle with internal Ocelot team members before they are approved.



Note: Please do not delete any office contact variables (i.e., !{office}-office) from a response you are editing. Office contact variables use slots that ask the user for their desired office. 

Therefore, removing one of these variables may affect the other departments/offices using the bot.

For more information, review the Variables section of the Creating a Knowledge Base Response article.




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