Teams Channel Assistant

As your company grows, the number of Teams channels for employees to ask questions increases as well, such as #ask-it, #technical-support, and #sales-questions. These channels can receive hundreds of questions per week, overwhelming the channel managers. Employees might wait hours or days for help while managers answer repetitive questions.

By automatically responding to questions asked in Teams, the Unleash Teams Channel Assistant can significantly reduce channel managers' time on repetitive queries. This allows managers to focus on more important issues while providing instant responses to the rest of the team, thereby unblocking them more efficiently.

Adding a Teams Channel Assistant

The Teams Channel Assistant is a bot designed to enhance communication and information flow within your Teams channels. Once invited to a channel, the bot creates a specific assistant for that channel in Unleash’s Assistants page, which serves as the backend for configuring the bots. Here, bot creators and admins can set data sources and preferences for the bot.

The bot actively monitors conversations in the channel to identify users' questions and attempts to answer these questions using the connected data sources. This dedicated section allows you to effectively manage the bot’s settings and knowledge sources, ensuring it can provide accurate and helpful responses.

Note: Before getting started please install the Unleash App for Teams from the Teams App Marketplace.

Step 1 | Creating a Teams Channel Assistant

To create a channel assistant for a team:

• Open the Assistants page from the Unleash panel.

• Click +New Assistant.

• Click Teams Channel Assistant.

• On the page that opens, click Add.

• You will be redirected to Teams.

• Click the downward arrow on the right of the button below Unleash Labs.

• Click Add to a team.

• Type the team name and select the team.

  • Note: The bot can only be added to Standard Channels.

• Click Set up a bot.

• You will be redirected to the Teams page.

• Open the channel you want to add the bot to.

  • You will need to invite the bot individually to each channel in the team you would like it to monitor.

• Click Start a post.

• Type @Unleash and select the invite option from the list that appears.

• Click post.

• A message from the bot will appear. At the bottom, you can click on:

  • Configure bot: Opens the bot created in Unleash Assistants to start configuring the databases.

  • Open wiki: Open the dedicated wiki created in Unleash for the channel to begin adding and organizing information.

• Click Configure bot to start configuring the assistant’s preferences.

Step 2 | Configuring the Assistant Preferences

Response Length

Configure the response length that the assistant will use to deliver answers. You can set the response length to short, standard, or long, with the default being standard.

To configure the response length:

• Click on the dropdown for Response Length.

• Select:

  • Short: Typically consists of 1-2 sentences, providing quick, straightforward answers.

  • Standard: Slightly longer, usually a paragraph or a few sentences, offering more detailed explanations.

  • Long: In-depth and comprehensive, often spanning multiple paragraphs or containing detailed explanations.

Specify reasons for negative feedback

We encourage feedback on the bot's generated answers to enhance our algorithm. Channel members can give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on the helpfulness and accuracy of the answer generated by the bot. When negative feedback is received, we enable the user to provide a reason for the feedback and, if possible, add the URL for a correct answer, allowing us to understand better what went wrong. You can toggle on/off the option to allow users to specify reasons for negative feedback according to your preferences.

Step 3 | Configuring the Assistants Knowledge Bases

The knowledge bases you can connect for the assistant are:

• Knowledge from Unleash

• Knowledge from Apps

Note: Private wikis and links that are set as a data source will be visible as answers delivered by the bot in channels. Private wikis and links are identifed by this icon:

Knowledge from Unleash

This includes wikis created within Unleash that you can access. The knowledge and data from these wikis will be used to answer relevant questions. If any card contains a file, the assistant will scan and use the files to provide relevant answers. The displayed wiki is the dedicated wiki created when the channel assistant was set up, specifically for knowledge relevant to this channel.

To configure the assistant’s knowledge base from Unleash:

• Click on Select Wiki.

• Search and select the relevant wikis.

• Click out to close the search bar.

Knowledge from Apps

You can specify the apps and resource types that the assistant will search through to provide answers. The apps are those that you or the workspace admin connected to Unleash. Narrowing down the scope of filters and prioritizing links enhances the quality of responses by ensuring relevant information is used to answer the questions.

To configure the assistant’s knowledge base from Unleash:

• Click on the App filter.

• Click on the relevant app.

  • If you have multiple accounts connected, a popup will open; click on the relevant account.

• The Type filter will automatically change to the supported resource type for that app.

  • If more than one type is supported:

    • Click on Type.

    • From the dropdown, select the relevant resource type.

• Click on +More Filters (optional).

  • Refine and filter the knowledge the app will use to provide answers. These filters are dynamic and change according to the app and file type you’ve added. Two constants are:

    • Specific resource:

      • Search and click the checkbox next to the relevant resource to check specific resources as data sources.

      • You can select as many as you want.

      • Once done, click Select.

    • Last edited: Establish specific timeframes for the bot to draw answers from when responding to a question.

      • Choose a time filter or scroll to the bottom and select Custom.

      • Select a time from Before, After, or Between.

      • Select the dates.

      • To save, click out.

• To add another app, click +Add App (optional).

  • You can activate knowledge prioritization when you have more than two app sources configured. The assistant will seek answers within the prioritized resources you set. It will expand its search to other connected resources if no answer is found.

    To activate knowledge prioritization:

    • Click Knowledge Prioritizationon the sources to prioritize (you can prioritize more than one).

• Click Save.

Step 4 | Asking Questions

With the bot invited and the assistant set up, all that’s left is for you and your channel members to ask questions and watch as the bot answers in seconds. The bot will provide answers along with the source of the information, allowing you to click for more details and related articles. Additionally, you will see a "Was this helpful?" prompt. Click on the relevant feedback option.