Manage Sources

Sources are logical groupings of content with a single connection to a system of record and a single view in to that content's index. All content that comes in to Answer Engine enters as a Source. Sources are how all users get access to content and how content appears via the Source Filter and Source links presented throughout the system. Sources are very powerful as they control many attributes about the content and are very configurable as well. This article shares more detail about how Sources are created, organized, and assigned for access.

Creating Sources

Admins can create Sources for any connector that has credentials configured by navigating to Settings -> Sources -> Connect a new source, entering a name, and selecting a connector. Connecting a Source does not grant it to any users. Source access is granted via Roles or Attributes (see below).

Screenshot demonstrating Connect a new source in Admin UI.

If your Source connector is not shown in this UI, you can add credentials lower on the same page via Source credentials configuration. You can also update existing credentials using this control.

Screenshot demonstrating Source credentials configuration

User Level Source Access

Admins and SuperAdmins can control what sources are available to what users on by assigning them to a Role or Attribute Value. Roles are assigned to users and users have may have Attributes to describe their team or geography. 

  • Users may have many Roles. 
  • Users may have only one of each Attribute type. 
  • All users get the system role default which is the “everyone” access level for that instance.
  • Users get access as the sum of all of their Roles and Attributes.
  • When a user asks a question they only receive results from their available Sources.
  • Articles (CMS) get enabled for search on a Section basis in addition to the source.
  • For example, you can control (1) whether a user gets CMS in their search and (2) which sections' articles are available to them.
  • There are three access levels for sources:
    • OFF
    • ON but Opt-In
    • ONZ

More information about Roles and Attribute Values: https://lucy.capacity.com/article/793045

How To Enable a Source for a Role

  1. Switch to the company you want to operate on.
  2. Click the gear icon.
  3. Select User Roles.
  4. Find your desired Role or Attribute Value.
  5. Select Assign sources for that Role or Attribute Value.
  6. Find the source you wish to assign.
  7. Set the desired access value.
    1. OFF, ON but Opt-In, ON

Company Source Management

Also known as Manage Sources or Source Map

Admins and SuperAdmins may manage the representation of their Sources to change the behavior of the Source Filter and the Source links which appear throughout the UI. This is done via a component referred to internally as the Source map.

This setting may be reached by navigating to Settings → Sources → Manage Sources.

The following items can be controlled via this setting:

  • Hierarchy order
  • Hierarchy position
  • Display name
  • Regular Expression override for Source link clicks
  • Merge with another source in the hierarchy.
  • Generative AI Opt-Out

Generative AI Opt-Out reduces the functionality of that source to meet contractual obligations. Sources with this setting are not available for Synopsis and may rank lower in search results. This is not recommended in any circumstance and should only be used if we are contractually required, and even then we should push to change the contract to allow our system to behave normally.

Source hierarchy

The Source Filter is organized into a hierarchy up to three levels deep (i.e. grandparent → parent → child). Sources which have children should not have content in order to avoid unexpected filter behavior (i.e. selecting a parent also selects children so there is no way to select a parent and only a parent for filtering). 

When organizing the hierarchy, it is strongly recommended to use Parent Sources, which are empty logical hierarchy elements, and then organize all sources into those.

Merge sources

Merged sources act as one in the user experience with the source being merged with representing name, hierarchy, and icon across the system. Source links still navigate to the original system. There are numerous cases where this is useful, such as external reasons to have different Sources merged (i.e. we are connecting to different systems or with different access levels) or internal reasons (i.e. we have Excel files separated and lower indexing priority).

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