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Building a Question
Answering Solution

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Creating a Knowledge Base

Agenda Publishing and Using a Knowledge Base

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Creating a Knowledge Base

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Introduction to Question Answering

• Knowledge base of question and

answer pairs with natural language
understanding Q
---
A
---

• Published as a REST endpoint for --- ---

--- ---
applications to consume

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Question Answering vs Language Understanding

Question Answering Language Understanding

• User submits a question, expecting an • User submits an utterance, expecting an
answer appropriate response or action
• Service uses natural language • Service uses natural language
understanding to match the question to understanding to interpret the utterance,
an answer in the knowledge base match it to an intent, and identify entities
• Response is a static answer to a known • Response indicates the most likely intent
question and referenced entities
• Client application presents the answer to • Client application is responsible for
the user performing appropriate action based on
the detected intent

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Creating a Knowledge Base

Use the Language Studio portal

1. Create a Language service Azure resource in your Azure subscription
2. In Language Studio, connect to your resource and create a new knowledge base
3. Name the knowledge base
4. Populate the knowledge base:
• Import from existing FAQ web page
• Upload document files
• Add pre-defined "chit-chat" pairs
5. Create the knowledge base and edit question and answer pairs

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Multi-Turn Conversation

How can I cancel a

reservation?

Add follow-up prompts to define multi-

turn exchanges Cancellation policies
depend on the type of
• Can reference existing question and answer reservation
pairs
Hotel cancellations
• Can be restricted to follow-up responses only
Flight cancellations

To cancel a flight, call

555-123 4567

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Publishing and Using a Knowledge Base

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Testing and Publishing a Knowledge Base

Test interactively in Language Studio

• Inspect results to see confidence scores
• Add alternative phrases to improve scores as necessary
Publish the trained knowledge base
• Creates an HTTP REST-based endpoint for client apps to consume

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Creating Client Apps

{ Best question match
"answers":[
REST Interface {"questions":[
"How do I book a hotel?" Answer text
Submit questions to the generateAnswer endpoint ],
"answer":"Call 555-123-4567 to book",
"score":76.55,
Confidence score
"id":2,
{ "source":"https://...source.docx",
"question": "I want to book a hotel." "isDocumentText":false,
} "metadata":[], Source
document
"context":{ (if any)
"isContextOnly":false,
"prompts":[]
} Follow-up
prompts
} (if any)
]
}

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Improving Question Answering Performance

{
"answers":[
Enable Active Learning to suggest alternatives {"questions":["How do I book a hotel?"],
"answer":"Call 555-123-4567 to book.",
when multiple questions have similar scores for "score":76.55,

user input
"id":2,
...
{
}
• Implicit: The service identifies potential alternative ]
"records": [
{
phrases for questions; and presents suggestions in the }
"userId": "user1",
Language Studio. Periodically review and accept / reject "userQuestion": "I want to book a hotel.",
the suggestions. "qnaId": 2
}
• Explicit: The service returns multiple possible question ]
}
matches to the user, and the user identifies the correct
one. The client app then uses the REST API to submit
feedback items, identifying the correct answer.
{
"synonyms": [
{

Create Synonyms for terms with the same

"alterations": [
"reservation",
meaning ]
"booking"

• Add synonyms to the knowledge base through the REST ]

}

interface. }

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Creating a Question Answering Bot

Bots are a common form of

conversational app
The Azure Bot Service provides a cloud Q A
platform for delivering bot solutions --- ---
--- ---
Question Answering knowledge bases --- ---
can be easily integrated into a new bot

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Lab – Create a Question Answering Solution

Create knowledge base Create a Question Answering bot

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Module Review
You want to create a knowledge base from an existing FAQ document.
What should you do?
❑ Create an empty knowledge base and manually enter the FAQ questions and answers.
❑ Create a new knowledge base, importing the existing FAQ document.
❑ Create a new knowledge base, selecting only the Professional chit-chat source.

How can you add a multi-turn context for a question in an existing knowledge base?
❑ Add synonyms to the knowledge base.

❑ Add alternative phrasing to the question.

❑ Add a follow-up prompt to the question.

How can you enable users to use your knowledge base though email?
❑ Add Friendly Chit-chat to the knowledge base.

❑ Enable Active Learning for the knowledge base and include the user's email address as the userId parameter in responses.

❑ Create a bot based on your knowledge base and configure an email channel.

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© Copyright Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.