Yes.
PDF or HTML (hosted online) but I’m fine with converting them to text/markdown and maintaining them as Discourse posts. We can write a script to make it easier.
Product manuals won’t be updated frequently but other content in the knowledge base will. Things like FAQs, frequent/trending issues, etc… would be updated more often. We post as much as possible publicly but some would make sense to keep private - not because it’s sensitive information but because it might look weird and confusing as a public post.
Yes, official product manuals are usually PDFs. For example…
For now, probably nothing. There’s too much risk letting it search the internet and getting results that aren’t true for us.
In the future, I could see value in giving the bot additional context about the customer’s own security system but that might never be possible due to privacy issues.
It seems to me that since it’s all based on RAG the most important thing is giving us fine-grain control over how the bot searches the forum and prompts the AI. From what I’ve read it seems like merefield’s Discourse Chatbot does that better today. I’m hoping to test that theory this week.
For us it’s always providing user/customer support by answering their questions or solving their problems. For example:
- Helping them figure out what to buy to secure their specific home, sometimes taking into consideration home security equipment they already have.
- Helping them install and use their system.
- Helping them troubleshoot when they have problems.
- Answering curiosity questions they have about how things work, what might be available in the future, etc…
The best examples are the real ones that get posted every day and our support team (or sometimes community members) answer.