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Set Up Your Assistant

Create an AI assistant, give it knowledge via files and web pages, and shape its voice with prompts.

Your AI assistant is the brain that replies to customers on your behalf. You teach it about your business in three ways: a prompt (its personality and rules), files (PDFs, docs), and web imports (your website pages, scraped automatically).

Create the assistant

  1. From the dashboard sidebar, go to Assistants.
  2. Make sure the right organization is selected at the top.
  3. Click Create Assistant.
  4. Fill in:
  • Assistant Name: something descriptive (e.g. "Front-desk concierge").
  • Assistant Instructions: the personality and rules. See below.
  1. Click Create Assistant. You'll see it appear in the list immediately.
Create New Assistant dialog with empty Assistant Name and Assistant Instructions fields, a required-field tooltip, Create Assistant and Cancel buttons, and Show Example Instructions.

Write a good prompt

The prompt is the most important thing you give the assistant. It shapes everything the AI says. A good prompt covers:

  • Role & Core Purpose: who is this AI? (e.g. "You are the digital concierge for Heavenly Hotels, Lagos.")
  • Tone & Style: formal, friendly, playful? Use first names? Emojis allowed?
  • What you can help with: bookings, FAQs, menu questions, returns.
  • What you can't: pricing changes, refunds over $X, medical advice. Tell it when to hand off.
  • Brand rules: never say competitor names, always end with our slogan, etc.
  • Handoff trigger: when to escalate to a human (e.g. "If the customer is angry or asks for a human, immediately reply 'I'll connect you with our team' and stop.").

Need a starting point?

In the Create Assistant dialog, select Show Example Instructions, then copy the example and edit it to fit your business.

Open the assistant's knowledge base

From the Assistants list, click Manage Files on the assistant card.

Assistants list showing an assistant card with its Manage Files button.

You land on the knowledge-base page with four tabs:

  • Upload: add files from your computer.
  • Import from Web: scrape pages from a URL.
  • Files: view, retry, delete what's already there.
  • Stats: quick health view (processing / completed / failed counts).

At the top you'll see a header card with the assistant's name, file count (X / 20), total size, and a preview of the prompt.

Add files to the knowledge base

Open the Upload tab. Drag-and-drop or click to browse.

Assistant knowledge base with file counts, Upload, Import from Web, Files and Stats tabs, and the file upload drop zone.

What you can upload

  • Documents: .pdf, .doc, .docx
  • Slides: .ppt, .pptx
  • Text: .txt, .md, .html, .json
  • Code (if relevant): .py, .ts, .sh, .tex

Limits

  • 20 files per assistant.
  • 512 MB per file.

What happens after upload

  1. File appears with status Pending, then Processing as we extract and index its text.
  2. When indexing finishes, status flips to Completed. The assistant can now answer from it.
  3. If extraction fails (corrupt file, password-protected PDF), status goes to Failed with an error message. Click Retry to try again.

Tip

Processing happens in the background. You can leave the page; the file keeps indexing. Come back and click Refresh to see updated statuses.

Import from the web (scrape & crawl)

The Import from Web tab lets you turn your website (or any public site) into knowledge files. Powered by Firecrawl under the hood.

Choose a mode

  • Crawl extracts content starting at a URL. Set Pages to limit how many pages to fetch, then select the results to save to your assistant.
  • Map discovers URLs on a site. Select the pages you need from the results, then use Scrape & save to import their content.

How to import a page

To import a single page, follow the Crawl steps below with Pages set to 1 and the specific page URL (e.g. https://yourcompany.com/faq).

How to crawl a site

  1. Open Import from Web and pick Crawl.
  2. Paste the starting URL.
  3. Set Pages to the number of pages you need. Check your remaining file slots and Web Crawling Credits before running.
  4. Click Run.
Import from Web with a website URL entered, Crawl selected, Pages set to 1, the Run button, and remaining Web Crawling Credits.

When the crawl completes, select the results you want to keep and click Save 1 to assistant (the number reflects your selection). Then check the Files tab for their processing status.

Completed crawl showing 1 of 1 pages, a selected website result, and the Save 1 to assistant button before saving.

How to map a site

  1. Open Import from Web and pick Map.
  2. Enter the site's URL and optionally fill in Filter.
  3. Click Run to discover URLs.
  4. Select the pages you want to import from the results.
  5. Click Scrape & save, then check the Files tab for their status.
Map results showing 48 discovered URLs, selection checkboxes, an optional Filter field, and Scrape & save disabled with no URLs selected.

Crawl politely

If you crawl a site you don't own, respect their robots.txt. Don't set the limit higher than you need; you also have a monthly Firecrawl quota visible in the panel.

Manage existing files

The Files tab is the master list. For each file you see:

  • Status: whether the file is completed, processing, or failed.
  • Name, size, version, and upload date.
  • A Delete button (trash icon) to remove the file from the assistant's knowledge.
  • For failed files; a Retry button.
Knowledge Base Files table with filenames, sizes, completed status badges, versions, upload dates, trash actions, and Refresh at the top right.

Deleting a file

  1. Click the trash icon next to the file.
  2. Confirm.
  3. The file is permanently removed and the assistant immediately stops referencing it.

Refreshing the view

Click the Refresh button at the top right (it shows a circular arrow) to re-fetch status. The page also auto-checks pending files every minute.

Updating the prompt later

The prompt isn't set in stone; you should iterate on it as you see how the assistant behaves in real conversations.

  1. Go to Assistants in the sidebar.
  2. Find your assistant card, click the ⋮ menu, choose Edit. (You can also click the prompt preview to expand it.)
  3. Update the name or prompt text in the form.
  4. Click Save. The change is live immediately. The next conversation uses the new prompt.
Assistant card with its three-dot menu open, showing Edit and Delete actions.

Iterating on the prompt: a workflow that works

  1. Spot a bad answer in Conversations.
  2. Ask yourself: was it a knowledge gap (add a file) or a behaviour gap (update the prompt)?
  3. For prompt fixes, add a single explicit rule. "If asked about refunds, always say: contact [email protected]."
  4. Save. Re-test the same question from your own number.
  5. Repeat. Small specific rules beat long fluffy ones.

Tip

If your prompt is getting long, break it into sections with headers (### Tone, ### Handoff rules, ### Product info); the AI follows structured prompts more reliably.

Deleting an assistant

From the Assistants list, click the ⋮ menu on the card, choose Delete, confirm. All files, conversations, and chatbot links to this assistant are detached. This cannot be undone; export the prompt first if you might want it back.

What's next

Your First Steps

Sign up, set up your assistant, and connect your first channel.

How Onboarding Works

The path from a fresh Intelli account to your assistant answering real customers.

On this page

Create the assistantWrite a good promptOpen the assistant's knowledge baseAdd files to the knowledge baseWhat you can uploadLimitsWhat happens after uploadImport from the web (scrape & crawl)Choose a modeHow to import a pageHow to crawl a siteHow to map a siteManage existing filesDeleting a fileRefreshing the viewUpdating the prompt laterIterating on the prompt: a workflow that worksDeleting an assistantWhat's next