Documents is where you give your agent anything you already have as a file, or any fact that doesn't live in a file at all. It's the training source for material that doesn't sit on a webpage you could point a crawler at: internal policies, pricing sheets, onboarding PDFs, product spec docs, anything you've already written down somewhere else.
There are two ways to use it. You can upload an actual file with Upload document, or you can skip the file entirely and type a short note straight into the dashboard with Add text document - what eChat calls a quick doc. Either way, once your agent has processed what you gave it, you can open it back up and see exactly what it pulled out and stored.
Uploading files
What it is
A place to upload documents you already have and let your agent read them the same way a person would.
What it's best for
- Internal policies - refund rules, cancellation terms, support SLAs
- Pricing sheets and plan comparison PDFs
- Onboarding guides or setup checklists you send to new customers
- Product spec sheets, spreadsheets of features, or reference material that only exists as a file
How it works
Open the Documents tab under Training and choose Upload document. eChat accepts PDF, Word (.docx), plain text, Markdown, and CSV files. If you have an older Word file saved in the legacy binary .doc format, save it as .docx first - eChat can't read .doc directly.
Once uploaded, eChat processes the file and extracts its content into your agent's training material. Once processing finishes, the document becomes part of what your agent can draw on to answer visitors.
Best practices
- Only upload documents that are current. An outdated pricing PDF will make your agent quote the wrong numbers just as confidently as a correct one.
- Prefer Documents over pasting the same content into a Q&A entry when the source material is long-form - a full onboarding guide belongs here, not copied into a single answer.
- If the same information also lives on a public webpage, use Web Pages instead so it re-crawls automatically when the page changes. A document doesn't update itself - if the source changes, you need to re-upload it.
- Documents count toward your plan's training storage limit along with your other training material, so avoid uploading large files with content the agent doesn't actually need to answer questions. If you're at the limit, the upload shows a storage-limit error until you free up room or upgrade - see training storage.
Quick docs
What it is
A way to teach your agent a fact by typing it directly into the dashboard, with no file involved at all.
What it's best for
- A policy or fact you need the agent to know today, but that doesn't exist as a document anywhere
- A quick correction or addition while you're mid-conversation reviewing chat logs and notice something missing
- Short, one-off pieces of context that aren't worth creating and formatting a whole file for
How it works
From the Documents tab, choose Add text document instead of uploading a file. Type your note - a paragraph or two is normal - and save it. eChat treats it exactly like an uploaded document from that point on: it's processed into training material your agent can draw on when answering. You can open a quick doc later and edit it in place.
Best practices
- Keep each quick doc focused on one fact or policy. Several short, clearly labeled quick docs are easier to find and edit later than one long note covering unrelated topics.
- If you find yourself writing a quick doc that directly answers a specific question visitors ask, consider moving that content into Q&A instead - Q&A pairs are the most authoritative source and take priority over everything else, including documents.
- Use quick docs for facts that are genuinely undocumented elsewhere. If the fact already lives in a real document, upload that instead of retyping it.
Reviewing what your agent learned
What it is
Every processed document - uploaded file or quick doc - can be opened again from the Documents list to see exactly what your agent extracted from it.
How it works
Click into any document in the list once it has finished processing. You'll see the extracted content your agent actually stored and can use to answer questions - not just the original file. This matters because extraction isn't always perfect: a PDF with complex tables or unusual formatting can come through differently than you'd expect.
Best practices
- After uploading anything with tables, columns, or heavy formatting, open it once to confirm the extracted content still makes sense. If it doesn't, simplifying the source file and re-uploading usually fixes it.
- If a visitor gets an odd answer that seems to come from a document, check what was actually extracted before assuming the model made a mistake - the extraction itself may be the problem.