Most of your real answers are already written down somewhere that is not a help article: a licensing FAQ, an install guide, a product page, a spreadsheet of questions, your blog. Add them here and they join your articles in one search index.
That index does three jobs at once. It answers visitors on your help centre. It suggests articles while somebody types a ticket. It grounds every AI reply. You add it once and it works in all three places.
Where to find it:
Open Knowledge Base on the desk's menu bar. Teach The Desk What You Know is at the top, with five tabs.
Upload files:
- Drop your files on the box, or click Drop your files here, or click to choose them. As many as you like in one go, up to 20 MB each.
- Press Add To Knowledge.
- Each file is read on the spot, and the table below says how many searchable pieces it added.
What can I upload? lists the kinds: Word documents (.docx), text and Markdown (.txt, .md), saved web pages (.html), spreadsheets saved as .csv, and one JSON file for many products. Have a PDF? Save it as Word or plain text first. Uploading a file with the same name again replaces the old one, so an updated document never competes with its old wording.
A web address:
Type The address of your help page or documentation, for example yoursite.com/faq/, and press Read This Address. Leave Read it again every day ticked and the desk always knows the latest version. If the address stops answering, the last good version stays in use and the row says why. Some sites refuse automated readers; save that page and upload it instead.
Your blog:
Type The address of your blog and press Read My Blog. The desk finds the feed your blog already publishes, reads every post back as far as the blog serves them, and reads again every day, so a post written in the morning can answer customers by the afternoon. Each post keeps its own web address, so an answer sends people straight to it.
Paste text:
Fill in What is this about?, paste into Paste it here and press Add To Knowledge. The answers you type to customers again and again are the best thing to put here.
Pages on this site:
Tick the kinds of content to read, for example Pages, and press Save And Read Them Now. The desk reads what you have already written where it is, and catches up within a couple of minutes when you edit a page. Password-protected pages and the desk's own form and ticket pages are never read. Up to 800 of the most recently edited are read.
How each kind of file is read:
- Word documents: headings become the sections the desk searches.
- Markdown is split at its headings, because a heading already marks where one answer stops and the next begins.
- Plain text is split into pieces of about 400 words.
- HTML keeps the readable text and drops scripts, styles, menus and footers.
- CSV becomes one piece per row, written as "Column: value".
- JSON becomes one piece per record, and finds the list inside whatever wrapper the file uses. See Many Products? Teach The Desk Everything With One JSON File.
What the desk knows right now:
The table lists every source with its type, how many items and pieces it holds, when it was updated and whether it is LIVE. Each row has:
- Pause: takes a source out of the search without deleting it. The quick way to see whether one file is pulling answers off course.
- Members Only, or Open To Everyone: see The Members Helper As A Coach, And Members Only Knowledge.
- Read Again, for a web address or your pages.
- Remove: deletes the source and everything it added.
A line under the table says how many pieces are searchable right now.
The search that answers:
On your help centre a visitor types a question in their own words. The desk finds the passages that best match, and the AI writes the answer from those passages only, listing the sources underneath. Under that sits a way through to a person, carrying the question with it. If your documentation does not cover the question, it says so and shows the closest articles instead of inventing an answer.
It works with no AI key:
With no AI key saved, the search box still searches your whole index and lists what matches. The AI only adds the written answer.
Keeping the bill sane:
The help centre is public, so every answer spends your own AI credit. Under Public Answers you can untick Let visitors get AI answers on my knowledge base page; the page then still searches and lists articles. Answers per visitor, per hour (10 by default) and Answers per day, whole site (300 by default) hold it down; 0 removes a limit. Your monthly limit on Settings, AI applies on top. A visitor who reaches a cap still gets the matching articles, and no AI call is made when nothing in your documentation is a decent match.
Which way to choose:
- You have files: Upload files.
- Your FAQ or docs are online: A web address, so it stays current.
- You write a blog with how-to posts: Your blog.
- The answer lives in your head or your sent mail: Paste text.
- Your product pages already explain things: Pages on this site.
You can use all of them together; they share one index.
Step by step, a web address:
- Open A web address.
- Type the address, for example https://yoursite.com/help/system-requirements/.
- Leave Read it again every day ticked.
- Press Read This Address.
- Find the new row in What the desk knows right now and check how many pieces it made.
What visitors see in an answer:
The written answer, the sources it used as links underneath, and a way through to a person that carries the question with it.
A real example:
Yoursite Studio's table shows the 15 help articles, planner-pro-faq.md split into 6 pieces, common-questions.csv with 6 rows, the system requirements page read every day from the web, a pasted "Answers I type every week", the members training library marked Members only, and Pages on this site with 6 pages read.
How a source is kept fresh:
- Uploaded files change only when you upload the same name again.
- Web addresses and your blog are read again every day, a few at a time each hour.
- Pages on this site catch up within a couple of minutes of an edit.
- Read Again on a row reads it now.
If a daily read fails, the last good version stays in use and the row shows why.
Tips:
- Put the real question in each heading, in the words a customer would use.
- Keep one topic per heading. Long catch-all pages match everything weakly.
- Read the sources listed under an answer. If the wrong one keeps being used, that is the one to fix.
- Everything here can be shown to visitors. Leave out customer names and internal notes.