Approving Answers in Your Knowledge Base

What are approved answers?

An approved answer is one that your bot is allowed to use in response to incoming messages from students. Answers in the knowledge base must be approved before your bot’s ai will use them in conversation.

Why do I need to approve answers before my bot “learns” them?

Your bot’s personality and its ability to deliver timely and accurate information to students are an important part of the relationship it builds with them, and both come through in the answers your bot delivers. Answer approvals ensure that any answers in your bot’s knowledge base were reviewed before your bot “learned” them. 

How do I approve answers for my bot?

Approving answers is easy. Once an answer has been drafted in an understanding, simply select “Approve” from the dropdown above the save button. If an answer already exists but is not yet “Approved” click on the understanding to open the edit panel, and then select “Approve.” In some cases, you may need to copy the answer suggested by Mainstay into your knowledge base before you can approve it. 

What are Mainstay Suggested Answers?

Mainstay will occasionally provide pre-programmed suggestions for answers in your bot’s knowledge base. Your team has the ability to use these messages, if desired, by clicking “Copy to my Account.” Once the answer has been copied, it’s yours! You can edit as desired, and any changes Mainstay makes to the suggestion won’t affect your copy. As with other understandings in your knowledge base, your bot will only deliver a Suggested Answer once it has been approved. 

What are Answer Variants?

Your bot has the ability to learn multiple answers to the same question. If an understanding has multiple answer variants, your bot will select one at random to use as its response. This is most useful for answers your bot is likely to deliver multiple times in the same conversation, like “you’re welcome.” Having some variety in its responses makes your bot seem, well, a little less robotic! 

You can also personalize your responses if the answers to your questions vary depending on the scenario. To learn more about personalizing answers, please see Personalized Responses.