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Grounding Service Assistant with Knowledge (Optional)

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Grounding Service Assistant with Knowledge (Optional)

Use Agentforce Data Libraries to ground Service Assistant in your knowledge.

Required Editions

View supported editions.
Note
Note This section contains reference guidance for knowledge grounding. Setup and testing guidance is provided in Set Up Knowledge Grounding (Optional). Additional testing and troubleshooting guidance is provided in Troubleshoot Knowledge.

Agentforce Data Libraries index your knowledge base into chunks and use a data retriever to find the most relevant information in your articles to include as steps in the plan. This section details how the feature works in Service Assistant and provides our recommended best practices. For more general information on Agentforce Data Libraries and the exact details on how they work, see What Are Data Libraries?.

How Data Libraries Enhance Service Plans

In Service Assistant, data libraries save you time and effort in setting up subagents and instructions by automatically augmenting them with your knowledge content. This improves the accuracy and effectiveness of a service plan.

For example, when a "Returns" subagent is assigned to a "Return Request" case, Agentforce Data Libraries can add to the subagent's instructions by automatically sorting through your knowledge base and identifying relevant information that can help resolve the case. Service Assistant then filters these sources to determine what's most relevant for the case and adds that content as steps in the plan.

Specifically, Service Assistant retrieves the 10 most relevant chunks of information related to the case from your knowledge base. It uses the chunks with the highest similarity scores as steps in the plan.

Keep in mind that the exact wording of your articles isn't included in the plan. Instead, Service Assistant summarizes the information to provide clear and succinct resolution guidance. This means that not all information in your articles is always added to a plan, including procedural steps. Procedural steps can be summarized and combined in a single step.

When you have Show Sources enabled in your data library, all service plan steps that are created from your knowledge articles are cited at the end of the step and in a Sources section. Where the Sources section appears depends on the plan type. See Example Service Plan with Knowledge Content.

Grounding Service Assistant in your knowledge base with Agentforce Data Libraries requires specific permissions for the Service Assistant admin, the ServicePlanner User (the agent user), and service reps. These permissions are listed in Permissions and Licensing for Service Assistant and Best Practices for Grounding Service Assistant in Knowledge.

Note
Note Grounding Service Assistant in your knowledge base using Unified Knowledge or Enterprise Knowledge isn't supported. Only Salesforce Knowledge is supported.

Knowledge Plan Processing

Data libraries and subagents work together in Service Assistant. Subagents help categorize cases, while instructions serve as the foundation for the service plan. By adding knowledge articles to this foundation, Service Assistant expands on your instructions to provide plans that are accurate and aligned with your company's policies. This lets you keep your subagents concise, rather than writing highly detailed instructions as shown in Grounding with Subagents.

To see how subagents and data libraries work together in Service Assistant, consider a "Return Request" case. In this scenario, the case has a "Return" subagent assigned. Here's how the process works.

  1. Service Assistant reviews the case details and your Service AI grounding configuration to determine the relevant subagents, instructions, and knowledge information for the case.
  2. A subagent is selected to categorize the case, and instructions are assigned to form the initial steps of a service plan.

    In the example, notice how the instruction states what to do but lacks information about the return time frame. This is where your knowledge articles fill in the gap.

  3. With your data library, Service Assistant retrieves and filters knowledge articles to find the most relevant ones that match the case details, assigned subagent, and instructions.
  4. Service Assistant determines what information in the source articles is best suited to include in the service plan.
(1) Case Details (2) SUBAGENT AND INSTRUCTION (3) REFERENCED KNOWLEDGE INFORMATION (4) Example Plan Steps
The customer states they want to return a pair of shoes and provides the order number.

Subagent: Return Management

Instruction: Confirm the product adheres to the return time frame based on item type.

Source: Handling Return Requests

Return time frame is based on the product type.

  • Accessories have a 10-day return period from the date of purchase.
  • Shoes have a 14-day return period from the date of purchase.
  • Sale items have a 2-day return period from the date of purchase.

Review and validate the purchase record.

  • If the customer provides the full Return Number, then you search the return in the Returns Management System (RMS) using the return number and return date.
  • If the customer provides the order number, then you search the return in the Order Management System (OMS) using the order number and date.
  • If the customer provides only the customer name, then you search the return in Salesforce using the customer name and return date.
  • Greet the customer and confirm the order or return number for the shoes. If the return number is not available, request alternative identifiers such as the order ID or email.
  • Confirm that the return request falls within the 14-day return period for shoes. Communicate the eligibility status to the user.
  • Ensure the shoes are unworn, undamaged, and returned with original packaging and tags. Items failing inspection should be rejected.

Example Service Plan with Knowledge Content

Here's a sample plan that shows how subagent instructions and knowledge articles work together. The subagent instructions give the general steps to follow and don't have to be detailed. Service Assistant uses knowledge articles to fill in the gaps with specifics, such as exact policies and procedures.

This example uses a guidance plan because it shows how instructions and knowledge work together to form the steps. A dynamic plan combines instructions and knowledge the same way, but shows one step at a time as the case or messaging session progresses.

Steps created from knowledge articles contain citations at the end of the step in the form of [1]. This applies to both guidance and dynamic plans. Steps that aren't cited are created from subagent instructions. In a guidance plan, the component lists all articles used to create the plan steps in a single Sources section at the bottom of the component. In this example, all cited steps are from the Handling Returns knowledge article.

A guidance plan with a single Sources section at the bottom of the component.

In a dynamic plan, each step has its own Sources section, so the same article can appear under a different citation number from one step to the next.

A dynamic plan with a separate Sources section under each step.

Knowledge Citations Reference

From the example service plan, here are details about service plan steps created from knowledge articles.

General Considerations

  • Service Assistant supports only the Knowledge data type. We don't provide guidelines or recommendations for other data types available in Agentforce Data Libraries.
  • To show citations, enable Show Sources in your data library. See Set Up Knowledge Grounding. The Sources section shows in a service plan based on whether Show Sources is enabled when the service plan is generated, not when you view it. If Show Sources isn't enabled during plan generation, the Sources section doesn't appear even if you later enable Show Sources. If you have existing service plans before Show Sources is enabled, the Sources sections won't show.
  • When using knowledge grounding, you create only a few instructions that serve as a general framework that describes the overall workflow. See Subagent Strategy for Service Assistant.
  • Not all steps and information found in the article are always included in the service plan. The detail and amount of information included in the plan depend on the amount and relevance of the case data.
  • Service Assistant summarizes the information in your knowledge articles, including ordered procedures. Procedural information can be summarized and combined in a single step.

Knowledge and Citations Permissions

  • The ServicePlanner User (the agent user) and service reps require custom permissions to view service plan steps created from knowledge articles and the citations listed in the Sources section of the component. The specific permission settings are outlined in Best Practices for Grounding Service Assistant in Knowledge.
  • The ServicePlanner User requires the Agent Knowledge Access custom permission set to access your knowledge articles and include the information in a service plan.
  • Service reps require the Service Rep Knowledge Access custom permission set to view knowledge content in service plan steps and in the Sources section. We recommend that you set Read, View All Records, and View All Fields permissions in the custom permission set, but you can adjust this configuration to match your organization's security standards.
  • Service plan generation relies on the ServicePlanner User's permissions. See Service Assistant Grounding Data Access. Because the ServicePlanner User has access to all knowledge content through the Agent Knowledge Access custom permission set, the plan can include knowledge articles that aren't accessible to service reps. This happens when reps lack the recommended Read, View All Records, and View All Fields permissions in the Service Rep Knowledge Access custom permission set. When the ServicePlanner User has access to an article that the service rep doesn't:
    • The plan steps are still grounded in the knowledge article content.
    • The step-level citations and Sources section citations aren't included in the drafted plan to respect access rules for the service rep.

Citation Display and Navigation

  • Each step created from a knowledge article is cited with a number at the end of the step in the form of [1]. The citation contains a hyperlink to the corresponding entry in the Sources section that lists the name of the knowledge article. For guidance plans, all citations are listed in a single Sources section at the bottom of the component. For dynamic plans, each step has its own Sources section. For more details, see Best Practices for Grounding Service Assistant in Knowledge.
  • The list of sources displays the name of the knowledge article used to create the plan steps.
  • Each entry in the Sources section contains a link to the article used to create the step. In the example, the listed source links to the article that created the steps: Handling Returns.
  • When a knowledge article is used to create multiple steps in a guidance plan, the article is cited in all steps with the same citation number. In dynamic plans, each step has its own Sources section, so the same article can appear under a different citation number from one step to the next.
  • A step can be created from both a subagent and a knowledge article, as shown in the first step under Resolve the Case. The first part of the sentence comes from the subagent; the last part comes from the Handling Returns knowledge article.
  • A step can be created from multiple knowledge articles. This is indicated when you see two or more citations at the end of a step, like [1][2].

Knowledge and Citations Considerations

  • For guidance plans, if a knowledge article cited in a service plan is deleted after the plan is drafted, the citation number is removed from the plan step, and the article is removed from the Sources section. The knowledge content included in the steps remains in the plan. However, if a service rep redrafts the plan, the steps originally created from the deleted article are removed.
  • For guidance plans, if a knowledge article cited in a service plan is archived after the plan is drafted, the citation remains in the plan step and the article remains listed in the Sources section. However, if a service rep redrafts the plan, the citation is removed from the step and the Sources list. The steps originally created from the archived article are also removed.
  • Deleted and archived articles behave differently in dynamic plans, because service reps can't restart a dynamic plan. For the full breakdown by plan type, see Best Practices for Grounding Service Assistant in Knowledge.

Knowledge Optimization for Agentforce Ingenstiosn Citations Considerations

Achieving detailed service plans using knowledge grounding depends on how the content of your knowledge base is curated and how your data library is configured. For best practices on structuring knowledge articles and data libraries, see Best Practices for Grounding Service Assistant in Knowledge.

 
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