Create and test a knowledge base

Learn how to create and test an Unstructured search knowledge base.

A knowledge base makes the documents in a configured source searchable so that agents can answer questions from the document content. Before you create the knowledge base, validate how well Unstructured search retrieves information from your documents. Use a sample document in the Test playground pane to ask representative questions and review the answers and retrieved chunks. When the answers are correct and relevant, create the knowledge base to apply the retrieval settings that you tested to the selected source..

The following roles can create and test a knowledge base:

Tenant Administrator (autonomous agents). For more information, see Roles and permissions for Unstructured augmentation.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, confirm the following requirements:

You must have access to an Unstructured augmentation tenant and Unstructured search .
You must have a configured Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, or Google Drive source.
You must have a sample document from the document set that you want to index.

To create and test a knowledge base

In Unstructured augmentation, select Unstructured search.
Select Create knowledge base. You must first upload and configure the sample file and then create the knowledge base search index.
In Upload & configure for a sample file, upload a sample document.
Optionally, to change the recommended retrieval settings, select Customize.
1. From the Search method dropdown, select Hybrid (Semantic + Keyword) or Semantic only.
2. From the Number of results (top_k) dropdown, select the number of document chunks to retrieve for each question.
3. Select Apply. The Create knowledge base page is displayed.
Select Test in playground. The Test playground pane is displayed.
1. In the Test playground pane, enter a question that the sample document should answer. Unstructured search generates an answer from the sample document and displays it..
2. Review the generated answer to confirm that it is correct and relevant.
3. Select Show retrieved chunks to review the document content used to generate the answer.
  
  The number shown in the Show retrieved chunks button indicates how many document chunks were retrieved for the question.
4. Optionally, ask additional questions or adjust the retrieval configuration until the answers are correct and relevant.
When the answers are correct and relevant, select Create knowledge base.
1. In Data source, select the configured source containing the documents that you want to index.
2. In Knowledge base name, enter a name that identifies the knowledge base.
3. In Description, enter a short description of the knowledge base and its content.
4. From Schedule, select the indexing schedule, which can be Manual, Daily, or Weekly.
Select Create knowledge base index.

Result

Unstructured search creates the knowledge base and begins indexing the documents from the selected source. After indexing completes, you can add the knowledge base to custom agents. The custom agent can then retrieve indexed content when answering questions.. For more information, see Add Unstructured search knowledge bases to a custom agent

Verification steps

To confirm that the knowledge base was created successfully, perform the following steps:

Return to the Unstructured search landing page.
Confirm that the knowledge base appears in the table.
After indexing completes, open the knowledge base and confirm that its documents have a successful indexing status.

Unify and manage your data

Create and test a knowledge base

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