[Updated] Alli User Guide - Answer with Q&A Node

Update on 7/17/2021 - Now you can use text input from previous node as a question by checking the 'User input from previous node' option.


Building Q&A or knowledge base answers is often an unstructured task. The Answer with Q&A node simplifies this process as Alli understands and automatically curates responses from the content you provide.

To use this feature, you will have to first upload your Q&A knowledge base on the Q&A page. Please see this user guide for more details: Alli - Setting up Q&A Chat.

In the chat builder, the Q&A node icon can be found here.

1. You can decide how to get the question.

  • Selecting 'User input' allows you to type in a message to show to the customer. The customer can ask a Q&A question after seeing the message.
  • Selecting 'Variable' allows you to assign a variable to use the value of it as a question. When the skill gets to the Q&A node, the node will look for the answer right away since the question is already given.

2. Check if you want to use previous node's input as a question for Q&A search. If there's no text input from previous node, no question will be entered. Having Send a Message node with 'Allow text input' turned on before the Q&A node, is a great way to utilize this option.

3.  When a question is answered, Alli repeats the Q&A node process to answer another question (In most cases. Please see #7 below for more details). If this option is unchecked, the message you entered in 1 will not be repeated. This option doesn't show up if 'Variable' is selected as the question source in #1.

4.  When there are no Q&A matches, Alli will automatically look for answers from uploaded documents under the DOCUMENTS tab. Please see Alli New Feature - Direct Answer from Uploaded Documents to learn more.

5.  With this option you can set a different flow when a question is answered by 4.

6.  Use this option to select hashtags to let this Q&A node only look for Q&As with selected hashtags. You can select variables too, and it works when the variable value is one of the existing hashtag.

7.  When your user selects Q&A entries with the hashtags added here, then you can set a different route for every hashtag.

8.  When this option is checked, Alli will not repeat the Q&A node and will route the chat flow to another node from the 'Other' option under the node. It's a little complicated to visualize how this feature works, so refer to the example below.

In the chat flow above, each case from A to E routes the flow to different nodes.

A: Q&A with '#company' hashtag is selected (or directly answered).
B: An Q&A is selected from the suggestions and it's not an A case.
C: Answers are extracted from uploaded documents.
D: Alli suggested some Q&A but the user selected 'None of the above'
E: Alli could not suggest any Q&A or find answers from the uploaded documents.

If Add Selection "Other" is not checked, the Q&A node will repeat in case of B.

9.  This option allows you to save a user's response in a variable.

Q&A node is one of the most important nodes in Alli. You can check out more user guides related to Q&A nodes using the links below.

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