Connecting Sources to Guru

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Access Required

You must be an Admin of a Guru workspace on an All-in-one or Enterprise plan with the Answers feature enabled to connect sources.

Guru's Answers feature combines your team's verified knowledge with the capability of generative AI to deliver trusted answers to questions on demand. Secure natural language processing interprets the meaning of a question and searches across any connected application your company uses to provide one answer. 

To link a source

  1. Navigate to Manage > Sources.
  2. Identify to the source you'd like to connect and follow the prompts to authenticate the application.
    1. When setting up Slack as a source specifically, you will be prompted to select a Slack channel to connect. The Guru Slackbot must be invited to the channel. Type /invite @guru in the Slack channel and press Enter to invite it. 
  3. Define what content you want to sync into Guru.
  4. Specify which Guru Groups should have access to the content once synced.
  5. Guru will send a confirmation email when the initial sync is complete. This will also be indicated in the web app when you see the Sync status change from "Initializing" to "Synced." 

Managing permissions with linked sources

There are two things to consider when it comes to permissions and sources:

  1. The user account used to authenticate when connecting the source to Guru. This user needs to have permission to the content you would like to connect.
  2. The Guru Groups you grant permission to use this content as a source. This setting defines who will be able to use those sources to answer the questions they ask in Guru.  

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Tip

Level of access (ie. Admin access, etc.) required to establish the connection varies by application. If you're unsure what level of access you need, contact us at [email protected]

Viewing the linked source details

  1. Click the caret to the right of the source's name to open its details.
  2. Click the vertical ellipses ("⋮") to the right of the folder's name to open the Options menu. 
  3. Click Show details.
  4. Review the connected source information including Source, Synced attribute, Set up by (the Guru user who created the link, not necessarily the same username as the external source user they authenticated as), Last sync attempt (Date and time), and Attempt status ("Syncing" or "Synced").

Deleting the linked source

  1. Click the caret to the right of the source's name to open its details.
  2. Click the vertical ellipses ("︙") to the right of the folder's name to open the Options menu.
  3. Click Delete source.
  4. Confirm the permanent deletion of the source by clicking Delete. Click Cancel to return to the previous view.

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Best Practice: Why Connect Different Sources

File & File Storage Repositories

Guru customers are connecting their file storage tools as sources to Guru to find information found in the assets included in the repository. Customers can also connect individual files.

Think: I want to know about X topic.

Example questions to ask:

  • What is our policy?
  • How does X functionality work?
  • How do I complete X process?

CRMs

Guru customers are connecting their CRMs as sources to Guru to find customer and account data like renewal date, plan, revenue, point of contact, contact information, account history, etc.

Think: I need to know a quick fact about a record and don’t want to dig around in Salesforce for it.

Example questions to ask:

  • What is the stage of the X customer opportunity?
  • Who is the account owner for X customer?
  • Which plan/edition is X customer on?
  • What is X customer revenue type?

This video walks through a sample of Enterprise AI Search in a CRM tool

Support or Internal IT Ticketing Tools

Guru customers are connecting their customer support and ITSM ticketing tools as sources to Guru to find information that may be in the content of a ticket like troubleshooting processes, reported issues, language used, etc.

Think: I want to know about the handling of a specific situation.

Example questions to ask:

  • What’s the error on the feature?
  • How do I process a task i.e. cancellation?
  • How have we handled situation/topic?
  • Is there a reported issue with topic?

This video walks through a sample of Enterprise AI Search in a ticketing tool.

Project Management or Software Development Tools

Guru customers are connecting their project management and software development task tools as sources to Guru to find factual information about a project like timelines, due dates, and tasks.  

Think: I need to know the status of work or project details.

  • Example questions to ask:
    • What is the status of XYZ in project?
    • When is the due date of XYZ in project?
    • Is task list name complete?
    • What is X project about?

This video walks through a sample of Enterprise AI Search in a project management tool.

Slack

Guru customers are connecting Slack as sources to Guru to find information that may be in the content of a thread from the past 90 days.

Think: I want to know what was discussed related to topic.

Example questions to ask:

  • How does X functionality work?
  • Where are we on X project?
  • What are the troubleshooting steps for X situation?
  • When/what/where is our announcement topic?

Frequently Asked Questions about connecting sources for Guru Answers

What other apps can I let Guru source content from?
Guru connects several different kinds of applications: document repositories, knowledge bases, wiki's, project management, support tools, CRMs, marketing and developer tools. Guru continues to build out this area of our product and wants to hear from customers what sources we should connect next. Contact Guru's team at [email protected]** to tell us exactly what apps you'd like to connect Guru to and we'll take it from there.

How frequently does Guru connect with sources used for search?
The Guru user who links a new source will receive an email notification the first time Guru has completed indexing the source.Guru links with all of your workspace's connected sources looking for edits and new content periodically throughout the day. This process can take anywhere from 3 to 6 hours depending on the source and the amount of data you're asking Guru to index. Depending on when you reference the "Sources" page, you will notice the linked source in a "Synced" or "Sync in progress" state.

How does Guru prioritize which sources to use when multiple sources are connected?
Guru doesn't prioritize any content source over others; it searches for relevant content and, of that subset of relevant content, generates an answer.

What happens when the admin who connected the source leaves the organization?
To avoid any disruption in suggested answers, we recommend having a different admin, with the same permissions at the source, delete the current linked source and re-connect the source to Guru again. Learn more about what happens when a user is removed in Guru.

Can Guru users belonging to other workspaces in our organization see source files?
It depends. If the user is a member of the source connected to at least one of the workspaces in their Guru organization, the user's permission in the connected source will determine what files they see as a source in a suggested answer in their workspace.