Uploading files during a conversation

When you upload one or more documents directly into Orchestrate Chat thread, the agent retrieves information or answers questions based on the uploaded content. By grounding the agent's responses in actual file content, the system improves factual accuracy.

Before you begin

Uploading documents in the Orchestrate Chat for AWS, IBM Cloud, and On-premises deployments is not enabled by default. For more details, refer to Enabling the user to interact with documents.

Know about the file size restrictions and supported file types before you upload the documents:

File size restrictions

  • Each file must have a unique and descriptive name.
  • Maximum file size: 8 MB for .docx, .pdf, .pptx and .xlsx
  • Maximum file size: 5 MB for .csv, .html, and .txt
  • Maximum number of files per batch: 20
  • Maximum size of a batch of files: 8 MB

Supported file types

You can upload only the files with the formats: .txt, .pdf, .csv, .docx, .xlsx, .pptx, and .html.

Uploading the files

You can upload a single file or multiple files in a batch.

  1. Click File Upload icon File Upload icon from the Orchestrate Chat.
  2. Drag and drop files into the chat or use Search and upload to browse and select files from your system. Selected files will appear in the chat prompt bar.
  3. Click Send Send icon to upload your files to the server.

See the successfully uploaded file name in the chat prompt. Hover over the file chip to see the complete file name.

Validating the files before sending

Each file is automatically validated in the chat prompt bar before being sent to the server. You can see the error messages in the chat prompt bar when the requirements from Before you begin are not met.

For a single file:

  1. If the file fails validation, an error message will appear.
  2. You can either fix the issue or remove the affected file for smooth uploading.
  3. Once resolved, click Send Send icon to upload your validated files to the server.

For multiple files:

  1. The chat prompt bar queues the successfully validated files.
  2. For the files that fail validation:
    • You can see a default error message in the chat prompt bar stating the overall problem.
    • Click the error icon in the file chip to know the specific reason.
    • Fix the errors or remove the affected files for smooth uploading.
  3. Click Send Send icon to upload your validated files to the server.

Validating the files after sending

On successful uploading of the documents, the agent gives responses to your queries based on the uploaded documents.

You can see error messages in the chat stream when the system:

  • Failed to load the document.
  • Failed to process the document.

Removing the files

Click File remove icon File remove icon to remove the uploaded file before sending.

You can’t remove the uploaded file after it is sent to the server.

Providing security for uploaded documents

Your uploaded document is available only in the specific chat or thread. The document is not visible to any other thread within the agent. Hence, the agent doesn't get responses from those documents from other chat threads.

Data retention policy

  • You can retain the chat history in the tenant for a minimum of 30 days and a maximum of 365 days.
  • Your uploaded documents are deleted four hours after the last upload in a thread.