Answer Server
Answer Server is the IDOL component that allows you to use Search and Retrieval and Conversations. It has several ways to provide answers, with different setup requirements:
-
Fact Bank provides answers from a database of factual information. Fact Bank requires a SQL database or Lua script fact store.
-
Answer Bank matches input questions to a stored list of questions and answers, such as an FAQ. Answer Bank requires a special Agentstore component to store the example questions and answers.
-
Passage Extractor provides answers from a store of documents that contain general information that might be useful for answering questions (for example, your normal data IDOL Content component). Passage Extractor requires an Agentstore component, and a data store for the information it can use to find answers.
-
Conversation runs a real time conversation with your end users. This option allows you to set up an interactive virtual assistant to answer common user queries. Conversation server runs with scripts to define the conversations, but can optionally use a conversation Agentstore component.
The following diagram shows some of the additional IDOL components required for each of the different answer and conversation modules.
For more information about these components and how to configure them, refer to the Answer Server Help.
You can use Answer Server with IDOL Data Admin. IDOL Data Admin provides a front-end application for setting up and maintaining your Answer Bank module. It can monitor incoming queries, which allows you to find the common questions that you need to provide answers for. For more information, see IDOL Data Admin, and refer to the IDOL Data Admin User Guide.
Answer Server is available as a component ZIP file. For more information, see Install IDOL, and refer to the Answer Server Help.