ChatAI Support – Knowledge Base
Welcome to the official documentation for the ChatAI Support plugin. This guide will walk you through every feature, from initial setup to advanced configuration, helping you unlock the full potential of your AI chatbots.
Table of Contents
Installation & First Steps
Core Concepts Explained
How-To Guides
Configuring API Settings
Creating & Editing an Assistant
Deploying an Assistant on Your Site
Reviewing Conversation Logs (The Inbox)
Analyzing Performance with the Dashboard
Shortcode Reference
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- Installation & First Steps
Getting started with ChatAI Support is a simple, two-step process.
Install the Plugin: Install the plugin through the WordPress admin dashboard (Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin) or by uploading the plugin files to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
Activate the Plugin: Once installed, click “Activate”. This will automatically create the necessary database tables.
Enter Your API Key (CRITICAL STEP): The plugin cannot function without an API key.
Navigate to ChatAI Support -> Settings in your WordPress admin menu.
Enter your OpenAI API Key.
Select your preferred Primary AI Model (GPT-4 is recommended for best results).
Click Save Settings.
Your plugin is now installed and ready for use.
- Core Concepts Explained
Assistants: An “Assistant” is a single, configurable chatbot. Each assistant has its own unique personality (base prompt), appearance, welcome message, and knowledge base. You can create as many assistants as you need (e.g., one for sales, one for technical support).
Conversation Logs: This is your central inbox for all conversations across all of your assistants. You can view message history, see which bot handled the conversation, and manage the conversation’s status (e.g., close it or escalate it to a human agent).
Dashboard: Your analytics hub. The dashboard provides at-a-glance statistics and charts to help you understand how users are interacting with your chatbots.
Training: This refers to providing an assistant with specific information (via a URL or file upload). The assistant will use this information as context to provide more accurate and relevant answers. This is not the same as fine-tuning a model; it is providing real-time context for each query.
- How-To Guides
Configuring API Settings
This is the most important step.
Navigate to ChatAI Support -> Settings.
OpenAI API Key (Required): Paste your secret key from the OpenAI API Keys page.
Google Gemini API Key (Optional): This is for future use.
Primary AI Model: Select the default model you want your assistants to use.
Click Save Settings.
Creating & Editing an Assistant
This is where you build your chatbots.
Navigate to ChatAI Support -> Assistants.
The form on the right side allows you to create a new assistant. To edit an existing one, simply click its name in the list on the left.
Fill out the form, which is organized into three tabs:
Configuration Tab:
Bot Name: An internal name for you to recognize the bot (e.g., “Main Support Bot”).
Base Prompt (Persona): This is the most important field for defining your bot’s behavior. Be specific. Tell it its name, its role, its goal, its personality, and any rules it must follow.
Example: You are a helpful and cheerful customer support assistant named ‘SupportBot’ for a company called Apex Widgets. Your goal is to answer customer questions about our products. Do not answer questions about pricing; instead, tell the user you will connect them with a human sales agent.
Appearance Tab:
Welcome Message: The first message the user sees. Keep it short and engaging.
Primary Color: The main color for the widget’s header and user message bubbles.
Widget Position: Choose to anchor the chat bubble to the bottom-right or bottom-left of the screen.
Training Tab:
Ingest from URL: Paste a URL (e.g., your company’s FAQ page). The plugin will fetch the text content from that page to use as a knowledge base.
Upload a File: Upload a .txt or .md file containing knowledge base information. Note: Uploading a new file or saving a new URL will overwrite any previous training data for that assistant.
Click Save Assistant or Update Assistant.
Deploying an Assistant on Your Site
Once an assistant is created, you need to add it to a page.
Navigate to ChatAI Support -> Assistants.
Find the assistant you wish to deploy in the list.
In the “Shortcode” column, you will find the exact shortcode for that bot (e.g., ).
Copy this entire shortcode.
Paste the shortcode into the content editor of any WordPress page, post, or into a Text widget.
Save the page/post. The chat widget will now appear for visitors on that specific page.
Reviewing Conversation Logs (The Inbox)
Navigate to ChatAI Support -> Conversation Logs.
The main list shows all recent conversations. You can use the filters at the top to narrow the list by status (open, closed, escalated) or by the user it is assigned to.
To view a full conversation, click the “View” link under any conversation starter.
The message thread will appear in the panel on the right.
In the right panel, you can also:
Change the conversation’s Status.
Assign the conversation to a specific WordPress user for follow-up.
Click Update to save your changes.
Analyzing Performance with the Dashboard
Navigate to ChatAI Support -> Dashboard.
The dashboard provides four key metrics at a glance:
Total Conversations: The lifetime number of chat sessions started.
Total Messages: The lifetime number of messages sent by both users and bots.
Escalated to Human: The number of conversations flagged for human review.
Conversations Closed: The number of conversations an admin has manually marked as “closed”.
The charts provide visual insights into conversation volume over the last 30 days and which bots are being used the most.
- Shortcode Reference
To display a chatbot, use the following shortcode:
id (required): The unique ID of the assistant you want to display. This can be found in the “Shortcode” column on the Assistants page.
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Why isn’t my chatbot showing up on the page?
Check that the bot’s status is set to “Active” on the Assistants page.
Ensure you have copied the entire shortcode correctly, including the ID number.
If you use a caching plugin, clear your website’s cache.
How does the “escalate to human” feature work?
The system automatically scans both user and bot messages for keywords like “human”, “agent”, or “escalate”. If a keyword is detected, the conversation’s status is automatically changed to “Escalated”. You can then filter for these conversations in the Conversation Logs to follow up.
Will the Training URL update automatically if I change the page?
No. The content is ingested only when you click “Save Assistant” or “Update Assistant”. If you update the content on the source URL, you must re-save the assistant in WordPress to ingest the new information.
Can I display a chatbot on every page of my site?
Yes. While the primary method is the shortcode, an advanced approach is to add the shortcode directly to your theme’s footer template file (e.g., footer.php) using the do_shortcode() WordPress function. This requires theme file editing.