On this page
When you set up with AI, the Describe screen lets you add files: a price list, a roster of the people or things you offer, or your terms and policies. They make the draft far more exact. A price list becomes your bot's records and the prices it knows; a roster becomes your records; your terms become facts your bot may tell leads.
Files are optional. A description and a website are enough for a draft.
What we can read
| Kind | Notes |
|---|---|
Spreadsheets: Excel (.xlsx), CSV and tab-separated text (.csv, .tsv) | The best choice for a price list or roster |
Word documents (.docx) | Good for terms, policies and a list of services |
PDF (.pdf) | Only when it is made of text (see "A photo of a page", below) |
Plain text (.txt) | Anything you can paste. UTF-8 is best; Excel's "Unicode Text" (UTF-16 with its marker) is read too |
You can add up to 5 files, up to 10 MB each. We tell what a file is by looking inside it,
not by its name, so a file renamed to .pdf is not a PDF to us. A text file with commas or
tabs in most lines is read as a table, whatever its name. Anything else is refused with
"We can read spreadsheets, PDFs, Word documents and text files."
What to put in them
- A price list or a roster works best as a table with a header row: one row for each thing you offer (or each person), and a column for each fact a customer would choose by or compare, such as a name, a price, a size, an area. AI decides which column names the row and which column is which fact. Your rows are then read by our code, not by AI, so a record can only say what its row says, and a price is the cell's own figure.
- Up to 50 records come from one table in your files, the one that lists what you offer or your people. If it has more, the first 50 are used, and you can add the rest on the records page afterwards.
- Terms and policies can be a Word document or a PDF. Write them the way you would tell a customer.
- Short and current is better. Take out last year's prices before you upload. AI works from what is in the file and cannot tell which line is out of date.
What we read, and what we leave out
- Spreadsheets: the first 2,000 rows and 30 columns of a file (across all its sheets). If more was cut, the line under the file says so ("Only the first 2,000 rows … of this file were read").
- Any file: about 200,000 characters of text are read; anything past that is left out, and the line under the file says so. A file with more than 50 pages or sheets is refused, not half read. A file that takes more than about ten seconds to read is stopped.
- Words in a file are only information. A file that says "ignore your instructions" changes nothing: it is read as data and can only become facts that quote it.
- File names: a name is shown as you typed it, without invisible characters (the ones that change which way text runs, or take up no room), which are removed.
- We never open links, other files or macros that a file points to. A file that depends on them is refused with a note saying so, and you can save a plain copy.
A photo of a page
AI reads text. A PDF that is really a photo or a scan of a page has no text in it, and we do not try to read pictures. The file shows We can't read this: a photo of a page. Try the original file instead: the Word document or spreadsheet it was made from, or a PDF saved from that program rather than scanned. If all you have is a photo, type the important lines into the description instead.
Other files that are refused
| The line under the file | What to do |
|---|---|
| That file is over 10 MB | Save a smaller version, or only the part that matters |
| You can add up to 5 files | Remove one first |
| A text file saved as UTF-16 without a marker | Save it as UTF-8 (in Excel, "CSV UTF-8") and add it again |
| We're still reading your last file | Wait a moment for the file before it, then add this one. Files are read one at a time |
An older Word or Excel file, or one with a password (.doc, .xls, or a locked .docx) | Save it as a new .docx or .xlsx without a password and add it again |
| A PDF with a password | Save a copy without a password and add it again |
| Links to other files or templates, or macros | Save a plain copy without them |
| More than 50 pages or sheets | Add the part that matters |
| That file is empty, or We couldn't find any text in that file | Check you chose the right file |
| That file took too long to read | Try a smaller or simpler copy |
| We couldn't read that file | The file may be damaged; save it again |
A file we could not read is still listed, so you can see why. Remove takes it back out. It does not count toward the five files while it is unreadable, though no more than ten files are listed in all.
What we keep, and for how long
- We never store your file. It is read as it arrives, and the file itself is dropped. Nothing is written to a disk.
- We keep the text we read from it, with your description, so the draft can be made and checked. That text is deleted when you apply the draft or decline it, and in any case after 7 days. Remove deletes a file's text straight away.
- The text is never used to train AI. It is used to make your draft, and for nothing else.
- What lasts is what you chose to keep: the records, prices and facts that were applied are part of your setup, and Setup history keeps the draft's before-and-after for 90 days so you can undo it (Setup history).
- The Activity log records that a file was added or removed, never its name or its words.
After the draft
- Prices and policies from a file wait for you. They arrive marked Read from your file — confirm, and your bot tells a lead it will check with the team until you confirm them on the knowledge page (What your bot may tell leads). A figure that is not in the words it came from is dropped, not guessed.
- Check the records. The rows from your file are in your records. The draft's Check each part lists them, and one Undo in Setup history removes them with the rest.