Shelf Answer Assist Introductory Guide


Document Version History

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1.0

Shelf

Initial release of the document.

14 July 2022

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Document Purpose

This document has been developed for end users of Answer Assist, a Shelf Answer Automation product, who are customer support agents and admins, in order to answer the following questions: 

  • What is Answer Assist?

  • What purposes does this product serve?

  • How does the product look?

  • What elements and structure does it have?

  • How is it used in practice?


If you require further assistance, feel free to contact us at support@shelf.io, via the live chat on the Shelf website or from the in-app chat support within the Shelf platform.




What is Answer Assist and Its Purpose? 

Answer Assist is one of Shelf’s Answer Automation products designed and developed to help various contact centers and other organizations and units quickly and reliably address their customers’ issues. 
Answer Assist works as a 24/7/365 online reference book where agents can quickly access the information (or the content) needed to help customers resolve their issues and get answers to their questions.

The product provides its users with a seamless and fast access to the entire library of their organization where they can easily find suitable answers to questions arriving from the organization’s customers. 

It can be integrated with any contact center’s web-enabled solution, including websites, portals, on-site chats, and chatbots. 

Featuring built-in AI and context suggestions, Shelf’s Answer Assist:
  • Increases agents’ efficiency and productivity
    AI actively listens to customer intent and automatically surfaces answers directly in the interface of a system where it is integrated
  • Optimizes admin effort and service quality
    Thanks to a simple yet inclusive Answer Assist configuration procedure, Shelf makes it easier for your administrative team to help you help your organization’s customers in a faster and more efficient manner
  • Ensures long-term customer satisfaction
    Shelf’s extensibility enables a holistic understanding of agent performance and knowledge effectiveness, facilitating continuous improvement. 

In brief, leaving the technicalities aside, Answer Assist by Shelf makes it unnecessary to specifically look for suitable answers or help articles in your organization’s databases. It produces suggestions by actively listening to customer messages, identifying their intent, and bringing suitable answers to surface for your disposal directly in your work tool.
It can equally well process email letters, chat messages, social media and voice communications, thus making it possible for you to handle a significantly higher number of such requests in a faster and more accurate manner. 
Moreover, Answer Assist can even operate without human intervention as it can ensure customer answer automation in such self-service tools as FAQs, webforms, and chatbots.


Prerequisites 

Shelf’s Answer Assist is a web app in essence and therefore it needs to be properly installed and configured on your organization’s solution in order to perform its intended operations. Your organization’s admins and Shelf’s technical support people shall install and configure it before you can start its use. Some information about the Answer Assist configuration is laid down in the respective Answer Assist Configurator section below.

For its efficient and flawless operation Answer Assist requires the appropriate software environment - a web browser. Note that the Microsoft Internet Explorer is not supported.
Shelf guarantees that Answer Assist can demonstrate its best features and capabilities if one of the following web browsers is used:

  • Google Chrome
  • Mozilla Firefox
  • Apple Safari 
  • Microsoft Edge

The mentioned browsers need to be of one of their latest four stable versions.

Other browsers may be supported but Shelf does not guarantee the best user experience during Answer Assist utilization.


Answer Assist Interface

Once installed, configured, and started, Shelf’s Answer Assist seamlessly builds into your main working tool and works as a widget. 

To start using Answer Assist, you need to start its widget and log in to your Shelf account using the appropriate credentials - user name and password. These credentials should be provided to you by your organization’s administrators.


Figure 1. Login screen in Answer Assist widget

You can also log in via the Single Sign-On feature if it has been enabled and configured for your Shelf account. 
Once the credentials are correct and no issues are encountered with the Internet connection, you are successfully logged and get to the Answer Assist main interface. 

Figure 2. Viewing the Answer Assist widget and its interface

Once you are logged in to the Answer Assist widget, you can expect to get to the Search tab, as shown in the figure above, where you look for the needed content (Gems). If there has recently been a search performed, you will see the list of search results you have viewed. If no such search has been carried out, the tab window is empty. 

The basic elements of the Answer Assist user interface are tabs: 
  1. Suggestions
  2. Favorites
  3. Search
  4. Gem
  5. Announcements
  6. Links
  7. Personal Settings
The specific order of how these tabs are represented in the Answer Assist widget depends on the configuration set in the Answer Assist Configurator on the Shelf side. The default display order is as follows: Suggestions (provided the Suggestions tab is enabled in JSON in the Advanced tab of the Answer Assist Configurator) > Favorites (if the Show Favorites tab toggle is switched on in the Answer Assist Configurator) > Search > Gem > Announcements (if the Show Announcements tab toggle is switched on in the Answer Assist Configurator) > Links (provided the Gem Linkage feature is enabled in JSON in the Advanced tab of the Answer Assist Configurator) > Personal Settings. 
Refer to the below sections to learn more about each of these tabs and its purpose.


Suggestions Tab

The Suggestions tab is a location where the Shelf Answer Automation capabilities work in full force and provide you with AI-matched and context-mapped suggestions. Answer Assist, in an online mode, listens to your customers’ messages, identifies their focal point (intent), performs a background search in the connected databases (libraries), and displays suitable suggestions specifically in this tab. 

Figure 3. Viewing the Suggestions tab in Answer Assist

You can view suggestions in this tab as cards that show the Gem name and short snippet. 


Figure 4. Viewing, filtering, removing, and evaluating the suggestions


There is also a possibility to filter the offered suggestions by language of the respective Gems. For this purpose, you need to click the hamburger menu icon in the upper part of the screen and select the needed language from the dropdown list as shown in the figure below. The suggestions will be respectively filtered in the Suggestions tab.

Figure 5. Filtering the suggestions by language


Filtering suggestions by language works if the multilanguage support is enabled on the Shelf side and if there are Gems in the respective language(s) in the library. 
If the context mapping has been enabled for your account and the appropriate context-mapped suggestions have been enabled and configured in the Answer Assist Configurator on the Shelf end, you are able to see which input has been used for the context-mapped suggestions. It is possible thanks to the custom context dropdown fields that are displayed in the upper part of the Suggestions tab by default. These dropdowns are fully customizable and can be configured per individual client’s requirements. In this exemplary case, the first dropdown field refers to the Customer Type and allows you to select the needed type from the preconfigured list of options. The second one refers to the Contact Reason and also contains the preconfigured list of options.

Figure 6. Context-mapped suggestions dropdowns

If no context has been identified, the dropdowns are to display not the specific customer type and contact reason (e.g. Users and Account/Delivery/etc.) but just the generic titles - Customer Type / Customer Reason.
In the Suggestions tab, you can also check whether or not the suggestion is new. If it’s new, the respective label is displayed at the bottom of the suggestion card.

Figure 7. Viewing the new suggestion label

If you no longer want to see the current set of suggestions offered by Answer Assist, you can delete them by clicking the CLEAR SUGGESTIONS HISTORY link button. The window will be cleared.

You can view the Gems suggested individually in the Gem tab. For this purpose, click on the Gem’s name in the suggestion card, and it will open in the Gem tab in full. More information about this tab and its interface can be found in the respective section below.

Finally, you can leave your feedback after viewing the suggested Gem. If you find it useful, select the thumbup icon in the respective suggestion card. If you think it is improper, select the thumbdown icon. Once you have given the negative feedback on the suggestion, it will be moved to the end of the suggestion list as irrelevant. However, if you change your mind, you can get it back to the top by clicking the UNDO button that is displayed for 5 seconds after you click the thumbdown icon. 

Figure 8. Recovering the suggestion from the bottom of the suggestion list

Search Tab

If the suggestions offered by Shelf’s Answer Automation feature does not work for you, you can always look for the needed information in the library using the Answer Assist Search tab. 

Figure 9. Viewing the Search tab in Answer Assist

You can use either a free search by entering your request in the search bar in the upper part of the tab window, or use the advanced search options that appear once you click the hamburger menu button in the uttermost right part of the search bar.


Figure 10. Using advanced search options in Answer Assist

Here are the details of the advanced search settings:

(1) Library
You can limit the search by a certain library only. For this purpose, click the field and select the needed library from the dropdown list.

Figure 11 Selecting the needed library(s) to search in


(2) Content Type
You can select which type of content you want to look for. For this purpose, click the field and select the needed option(s) from the dropdown list.


Figure 12. Selecting the type of the searched content
(3) File Type
You can also select what type the content you look for needs to be. To do so, click the field and select the checkbox(es) next to the needed file type option(s).


(4) Language
If, like in the case of the similar filter in the Suggestions tab, multilanguage support is enabled for Answer Assist on the Shelf end, you may look for content in some certain language only. For this purpose, click the field and select the needed option from the dropdown list that appears.

Figure 13. Selecting the language of the search content

(5) Source
You can indicate the source of the content you are looking for. It can be either Shelf or some third-party or external platform, or any. Click the field and select the needed option from the dropdown list.

Figure 14. Selecting the content source


(6) Added by
If you know who has added the content you are looking for, you can indicate this user in your search to narrow it. For this purpose, click the menu icon in this field. In the field that appears next, look for the needed user(s) in the search bar. The search-as-you-type feature is supported and yields the suggested user names under the search bar. Once the needed user(s) has/have been found, select them and click the SEARCH button to trigger the content search or the Back icon to go back to the advanced search settings. 
Figure 15. Selecting users who added the content to refine the search
You can select as many as 20 users to your search, using comma as a separator. 
You can also see how many content items have been added by each of the users. The count is shown next to the user’s name. Use the up and down arrows to sort the users in alphabetic order from A to Z or from Z to A, or sort them by the number of gems they have added, in ascending or descending order.

(7) Rating
You may refine your search by indicating the rating you want the content to be. For this purpose, click the field and select the needed option from the dropdown list.

Figure 16. Selecting rating of the search content
(8) Category
It is also possible to look for content of a certain category only. The category in this case is one of the categories assigned to Gems on the Shelf side. To select the needed category(ies), click the menu icon and, in the window that appears next, search for the needed one(s). The search-as-you-type feature is supported, and the results are displayed below the search bar. All the available categories are also displayed under the search bar. Select the needed category(ies) and click the SEARCH button to trigger the content search or the Back icon to go back to the advanced search settings.

Figure 17. Searching for content from the specified categories
(9) Tag 
Finally, you can look for content that has only some specific tag(s). The tag in this case is one of the tags assigned to Gems on the Shelf side. To select the needed tag(s), click the menu icon and, in the window that appears next, search for the needed one(s). The search-as-you-type feature is supported, and the results are displayed below the search bar. All the available tags are also displayed under the search bar. Select the needed tag(s) and click the SEARCH button to trigger the content search or the Back icon to go back to the advanced search settings.

Figure 18. Searching for content with the specified tags only

You can also sort the tags by name from A to Z or by the number of gems having them, in ascending or descending order, using the up and down arrow icons.


Once you have configured your search settings, click the SEARCH button. The search results will be shown in the window. 


Figure 19. Viewing the content search results


You can see the total number of the content items and how many of them are displayed on this page. 
You also can refresh the search results by clicking the Refresh icon (1). 
You can also clear the search results by clicking the CLEAR ALL link button (4). 
You can view any of the found content items by clicking it (3) and opening it in the Gem tab. 
Finally, you can open these search results directly in Shelf by clicking the respective icon (2). 

Figure 20. Viewing the AA search results in Shelf

Gem Tab

This tab is where the content is displayed. It can be the content from the Suggestions tab or from the Search tab. Once you click a suggested content card in the first case or a found content in the second case, it is opened in the Gem tab.

Figure 21. Viewing the Gem in the Answer Assist Gem tab

In addition to the content itself, that is the Gem and its text or graphics, you can also view the content metadata here. This metadata is:
  • Language of the Gem
  • Rating of the Gem (from 1 to 5 stars)
  • Who and when made the last change to the Gem
  • Who and when created the Gem
  • Where the Gem is synced from (Shelf or another source)
  • Gem category
  • Gem tag

You can also differentiate content by their labels. Answer Assist fetches Shelf labels used to identify Gem types: Wiki, FAQ, etc.
On top of the window you can see breadcrumbs that show where exactly - in which library and folder - the Gem is stored on Shelf. 
There are also two buttons on top of the window. The first one lets you add the article (Gem) to favorites, while the second button opens the Gem directly on Gem in Shelf.

Figure 22. Elements of the Gem tab in Answer Assist
If the Gem Linkage option is enabled for your Answer Assist account in the Advanced tab of Answer Assist Configurator on the Shelf side, an additional button appears on top of the Gem tab - Link/Unlink. This button helps you link the Gem you used to answer your customer’s question to the interaction you have with such a customer. It might be needed if the compliance or any other regulation or policy of your organization demands agents to specify what exactly is used to respond to customer requests. 

Figure 23. Linking/unlinking a Gem to/from an interaction in the Gem tab
At the bottom of the window, you can see the content (Gem) metadata mentioned above, and the emoji icons that allow you to leave your feedback for the content for the Shelf. The feedback feature is operational once it has been enabled separately on the Shelf side. This implementation has been selected in order to have seamless integration with Shelf’s Feedback Manager feature.

Figure 24. Leaving feedback on the content

If you select any text or image in the article in the Gem tab, you will be able to use one of the following two options: copy the selection for further use (by clicking the Copy button), or send the selection directly to your chat with the customer (by clicking the Send button). 

Figure 25. Copying and sending the selected text/graphic in Answer Assist

In addition to the Gem linking functionality described above in the Gem Tab section which is very useful and time-saving when you already are holding an interaction with your customer, it is also possible to link Gems to interactions that you, for example, have had in the past. It can help your organization to improve the customer support content and documentation and increase the customer satisfaction in general. 
The Links tab in the Answer Assist widget is where you can do it - connect (or link) Gems to interactions you have had with your customers or view whether such interactions already have such linked content. To be operational, the Gem Linkage feature must be enabled via JSON in the Advanced tab of the Answer Assist Configurator. 
When in the tab, you need to enter the needed Interaction ID and Answer Assist will show Gems linked to this interaction.

Figure 26. Viewing the Links tab in Answer Assist

If there are no Gems linked to the interaction once you have indicated its identifier, the tab remains empty.


Figure 27. Viewing the tab with no Gem links

If the interaction has any such Gem, you will see them in this tab.


Figure 28. Viewing the tab with a Gem linked to the interaction
You can click the Gem and view it in full in the Gem tab where you are redirected to.
Once in the Links tab, you can also link any needed Gem to the interaction of your choice. 
To do so, follow the steps below.
  1. Enter the needed Interaction ID in the respective field. The ADD button becomes enabled. 
  2. Enter an ID or URL address of the needed Gem in the respective field that appears on the screen and click the LINK button. You can find both the Gem URL and ID in the address bar once you are viewing the needed Gem on Shelf. See the figure below for details.

    Figure 29. Finding Gem URL and/or ID on Shelf

  3. Once you have found and entered either the Gem URL or ID, click the LINK button. 
    Figure 30. Linking a Gem to an interaction in Answer Assist

Once you are done, the Gem is linked to the needed interaction and will be displayed in the Links tab when you enter the respective Interaction ID next time.
Note that the maximum number of Gems you can add to one interaction is 100. 
You can also remove a previously linked Gem from the list. To do so, follow the steps below.
  1. Find the needed Gem in the list of Gems linked to the respective interaction.
  2. Hover over this Gem to reveal the Unlink icon next to it.
  3. Click the Unlink icon to remove the Gem from the list of Gems linked to the interaction. When the Gem becomes unlinked, you will see the respective notification.
  4. You can also revert the Gem unlinking by clicking the UNDO button in the above notification. Note that you can revert the Gem unlinking only during 5 seconds after you have unlinked the gem. This is how long the Gem is unlinked notification remains on the screen before disappearing. 

Figure 31. Unlinking a Gem from an Interaction in Answer Assist


Favorites Tab 

In this tab, you can see all the content you have marked as favorite. You cannot delete the content from this list. What you can do is to open any content item shown here in the Gem tab for the detailed review.


            

Announcements Tab 

Announcements are a means for content managers to notify agents of any important content changes or updates. They are configured on the Shelf side by your organization’s admins or content managers.
Announcements are used to track how you and other agents comply with the established content publishing and use procedures - content managers of your organization can see who exactly has received the notification about some content changes or updates and understand whether this agent has acknowledged its receipt.
At the same time you or any other agent within your organization can view such announcements and confirm reading and understanding some important information they contain, directly in the Shelf Answer Assist widget.
When you select the Announcements tab, you will see the announcements sent to you by your content manager(s). 

Figure 32. Viewing announcements in Answer Assist

Some announcements may require you to confirm that you have read them by selecting the checkbox next to the respective text. 


Figure 33. Viewing the announcement that requires your confirmation
These announcements will have the dedicated Confirmation needed label as shown in the figure above. If an announcement is new and unseen yet, it will have the New label. 
Some may be just informative and require no confirmation. The other announcements may have attachments - Gems - that contain some additional important information for you. You can open such Gems by simply clicking them. 

Figure 34. Viewing the announcement in details in Answer Assist
When you open an announcement to see its details, you can see who and when has created and sent it to you. In the window, there is also the announcement title and text. 
If the announcement has any attachments, you will see them as well and can select any of them to open it in the Gem tab of the Answer Assist widget.


              

Personal Settings Tab 

In this tab, you can currently only log out of the Shelf Answer Assist widget. To do so, click the respective SIGN OUT button.

Figure 35. Viewing the Personal Settings tab and signing out of Answer Assist



Configuring Answer Assist on Shelf

If you have the admin user role provided to you by your organization for the purpose of configuring the Shelf Answer Assist product, you can do it in the Shelf Admin Panel in the Answer Assist Configurator.

To access it, log into your Shelf account under your admin user role and go to the Admin Panel. In the Admin Panel, find and select the Answer Assist Configurator option in the sidebar in the left part of the window.

Figure 36. Accessing the Answer Assist Configurator on Shelf
Once you do that, you get to the Answer Assist Configurator window where you can see all the configurations available for your instance of the Shelf Answer Assist.

Figure 37. Viewing the available Answer Assist configurations


You can open a configuration by clicking directly on its name in this window or by clicking the gear icon next to it. 



                 

Adding and Saving a New Answer Assist Configuration

If you have no configurations for your Answer Assist instance yet, click the ADD CONFIGURATION link button. That directs you to the new window where you can start setting your Answer Assist configuration.

Figure 38. Starting the Answer Assist configuration

By default, the window appears with the General tab active tha shows the form where you can enter the name for your configuration, and its short description. You can also see and copy the identifier for the configuration you are creating, and save it for further use.
Once all the needed information has been entered, you can click the SAVE button to save the configuration and proceed to its further setting. The DISCARD button at the bottom of the form can be used to clear the description or the name of the configuration, depending on what you have already entered in this form. The DELETE button lets you delete either the existing configuration you have opened for viewing or the configuration you are creating now. If you want to remove the configuration, click this button and then confirm your choice in the popup window.

Figure 39. Confirming the Answer Assist configuration deletion

Once the SAVE button is clicked, the configuration is saved and you can continue its further setting. 


                  

Enabling and Disabling Suggestion Sources for Answer Assist

The next step is to indicate where the suggestions need to come from. This setting is performed in the Suggestion Sources tab of the Answer Assist Configurator. 

Figure 40. Enabling/disabling sources for the Answer Assist suggestions

To enable the needed source for your Answer Assist suggestions, switch the respective toggle next to the source. Once done, you can select the libraries for each of the enabled suggestion sources. 


Figure 41. Selecting library(-ies) for the suggestion sources
You can select one library or many, from the dropdown list that appears when you click in the Libraries field. In case you select one library, the field will display its name. When you select several libraries, the field will display its count, for example: 4 selected.
Once you have added all the needed suggestion sources and libraries, click the SAVE button to continue.


                    

Enabling Features and Tabs in Answer Assist 

The next step you can do in the Answer Assist Configurator is to enable or disable the agent’s feedback for the suggestions offered in Answer Assist, and also to enable the display of some tabs in the Answer Assist widget. You can do it in the Settings tab window, by switching the respective toggle(s) on. 

Figure 42. Enabling the agent feedback and the Favorites and Announcements tabs in Answer Assist


                     

Configuring the Advanced Settings for Answer Assist 

You can also make some advanced settings for the Answer Assist and its suggestions. These advanced settings can be configured in the Advanced tab of the Answer Assist Configurator via the JSON capability. 

Figure 43. Configuring the advanced settings for Answer Assist

The specifics of these advanced settings depend on your specific integration of Answer Assist. In general, the JSON typed in or imported can help you configure precise context-mapped suggestions for your organization agents. The detailed description of the JSON and its certain values can be found in the dedicated Answer Assist Installation and Configuration Guide for your organization’s integration.


                         

Previewing the Answer Assist Widget on Shelf

Shelf sports a great feature that enables you to see the results of the settings you configure for the Answer Assist widget. It resides in the Preview tab of the Answer Assist Configurator. 

Figure 44. Previewing your Answer Assist configuration results on Shelf

Using the Preview feature, you can make changes to the Answer Assist configuration in the Shelf Admin Panel, including the advanced settings via JSON, and immediately see how these impact the Answer Assist widget. The feature shows all the enabled Answer Assist widget tabs, suggestions, favorites, announcements, and allows for filtering and evaluating the suggestions, searching for the content, adding or removing it to or from the favorites, responding to announcements and so on.