Assistant Building

Searching in a flow

When the assistant reaches a search node in a flow, it presents the user with a text box prompting them to describe their request.

If the user enters text, the assistant searches for matching information across the entire flow.

This allows the user to enter text to freely search for the most relevant part of the flow without having to go through intermediate steps. As such, it's often useful to include a search node as the first node in a flow, connected directly to the start node.

Search scope

To be included in search results, a node must be set as searchable. You can toggle whether an individual node is searchable by editing it and checking or clearing the "Include in Assistant search" checkbox.

Nodes that are searchable are visually indicated with a small magnifying glass jump target, indicating that they can be reached directly from the search node.

Note also that symptoms will be displayed in search results using their "Symptom description" field, not their "Question to user" field. The symptom in the above image will display in search results as "Dishes too wet after washing".

Only symptoms, solutions, choice lists, questions, and messages can be set as searchable. Symptoms are searchable by default and all other nodes are not.

Search shortcuts

Up to five search shortcuts are displayed before the user enters any text, allowing commonly-used information to be surfaced more quickly. If there are particular product issues or support requests that come up frequently, this can save time by presenting that information without requiring the user to navigate the flow or even perform a search.

The shortcuts to display can be chosen and reordered by editing the search node.