Data sources (connectors)

By clicking on the user profile button in the upper right corner, you will display a dropdown menu from which you can select the "Admin Panel" option.

You will be taken to the admin panel, where the first view you will see are the data sources that "feed" your artificial intelligence. These sources are called "Connectors".

Data sources can be various, for example:

  • knowledge bases like CogniVis Docs
  • text files, PDF files, etc.
  • instant messengers such as Slack or Microsoft Teams
  • mailboxes like Gmail
  • online drives such as Google Drive or Microsoft Sharepoint
  • and many others...

So, as you can see, you can have many of these sources, but above all, your knowledge base should be connected there, which is CogniVis Docs (if you don't see it there, write to us at support@cognivis.ai).

This table shows us the indexing status of data sources. Since data in sources is constantly changing, the AI system must continuously save and catalog it to always have access to its current version. This process is called indexing.

Here we see columns such as "Status" (determines the stage at which indexing is currently), date of the last indexing, or the number of documents in a given source that have been indexed.

In CogniVis, indexing happens automatically. The process usually runs once every few/dozen minutes. It can also be forced manually if necessary.

If you make any changes to the sources, for example update the content in the CogniVis Docs knowledge base, the system needs several minutes to index them. So don't be surprised if a moment after updating the data in the knowledge base, AI does not have access to them - it simply has to wait a while for re-indexing.

Adding a new data source

In the navigation on the left side, click "Add Connector".

You will be taken to a page with a list of possible connectors to add. As you can see, there are many and new ones are added frequently.

Let's add a test data source. Choose, for example, the "File" connector.

Now let's add a file. I will add a pdf file with a test agreement. Also remember to add a name for this connector in the field at the top.

After clicking "Upload", a success message should appear. Now when you go back to the "Existing connectors" page, you should see your file added to the list of data sources. Initially, it may have the status "Scheduled", but after a while, it should change to "In progress", and then "Succeeded". When that happens, you can start talking to that file.

When your new connector is ready, in the top navigation click the "AI Chat" link. Next to the message sending field, click the "Filter" button, then select "Source", and further "File".

Ask a question related to the added file. Now with the help of AI, you can talk to this file as if it were a person!

Note that if you do not select filtering, the system will use all connected connectors by default - including the file we just added. Filtering is therefore an additional, optional step that provides us with greater precision, but is not necessary.



Michal Szymanski
About author
Michal Szymanski

Co Founder at MDBootstrap , CogniVis AI and AIFor.Biz / Listed in Forbes „30 under 30" / EOer / Open-source and AI enthusiast / Dancer, nerd & bookworm.

Author of hundreds of articles on AI, programming, UI/UX design, business, marketing and productivity. In the past, an educator working with troubled youth in orphanages and correctional facilities.