Organizations often have valuable internal knowledge outside of their LMS system. This essential information benefits employees in both enablement and upskilling, but can be challenging to locate across multiple systems. External Knowledge for the Aura Learner Agent allows Administrators to sync knowledge sources from their organization to Aura, making that information accessible to Learners in one place. External Knowledge can be used either with Course Extraction, or on its own, but at least one of these sources must be configured for Aura.
External Knowledge sources must be enabled and configured by an Administrator before Aura can sync content from that source. Admins control which sources are enabled, what content is synced, and who can view that content.
In this article, we will go over how to enable an External Knowledge source for Aura, supported platforms and file types, and how to disable a knowledge source.
Configure External Knowledge for Aura
Administrators can configure External Knowledge sources for Aura within the Absorb LMS. External Knowledge sources must be connected for their content to be searchable within Aura. Administrators can only sync folders that they have access to within the External Knowledge source. Permissions may differ across Administrators, and we recommend confirming with your organization's IT department which folders can be synced with Aura prior to connecting an External Knowledge source.
To configure an External Knowledge source for Aura, access the Admin Experience and follow these steps:
- Click on the Account menu in the upper right corner of your screen.
- Click Client Settings.
- Click the External Knowledge tile.
- Click Create connection next to the knowledge source you want to connect.
- Follow the steps in the new modal to complete the authentication. You will only be able to sync folders that you have access to based on your own permissions. Once complete, the status bubble will show as Connected. For the Confluence connection, you must enter the URL of the Confluence space, not a specific page. Only supported files will be synced to Aura; any unsupported files will be skipped.
- Click View details > Add new under the connection to set up availability rules. These define which Learners or Groups can view certain files from this connection. External Knowledge relies on these rules along with existing permissions to govern which Learners have access to specific content from an External Knowledge source.
- Click Add resources to select which files to apply this rule to. If a "file cannot be selected" message appears when hovering over the checkbox, try clicking on the folder name.
- After selecting a file, you can either Add more items or Confirm your selection.
- Click Continue.
- Enter a Name for the rule. This field is required.
- Select the Learner access level: either All Learners or Specific Learners. The Specific Learners option opens a new field to select which Groups can access the content. You can also click Manage groups to navigate to the Groups Report and create or edit Groups.
- Click Submit. You will return to the Connections page, where the new rule appears under the list of Availability rules for that External Resource.
Once the connection and availability rules are configured, wait for the initial sync to complete. Aura adheres to availability rules at the time of inquiry, so Learners will only receive answers from files they are permitted to access. Files from a new connection are only searchable in Aura when the initial sync is complete. Future syncs will process any new or updated documentation. Note that each connection has a sync limit of 5 GB.
Note that adding a new file does not make it immediately available in Aura. There is a short delay between adding a file and it becoming searchable in Aura.
Supported Platforms and File Formats
The Aura Learner Agent supports multiple knowledge platforms and file formats for external knowledge. Lists of both supported platforms and formats can be found below.
The Aura Learner Agent supports the following platforms for external knowledge:
- Sharepoint
- Google Drive
- Confluence
- Dropbox
- Box
- OneDrive
Other platforms are not supported.
Once a supported external knowledge platform has been configured, you can select individual folders to sync with Aura. Individual files cannot be selected. The Aura Learner Agent supports the following file formats:
- Word (.docx)
- Excel (.xlsx)
- PowerPoint (.pptx)
- Native Google docs (including sheets and slides)
Legacy Office formats, such as .doc, .xls, and .ppt, are not supported. Scanned documents (including image-only PDFs) are also not supported.
Disable An External Knowledge Connection
Admins can disable an external knowledge source in Client Settings. To do so, access the External Knowledge page in your Portal's Client Settings and follow these steps:
- Click View details next to the connection you want to disable.
- Click Delete connection.
- Click Delete connection in the new modal.
Note that deleting an External Knowledge connection will remove all availability rules for that connection. If you re-enable the connection, you will need to add your availability rules again.
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