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:

1. Click on the Account menu in the upper right corner of your screen.
   
    
2. Click Client Settings.
   
    
3. Click the External Knowledge tile.
   
    
4. Click Create connection next to the knowledge source you want to connect. 
   
    
5. 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.
   
    
6. Click View details > Add new under the connection to set up availability rules. These define which Learners, Groups, or Departments 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.
    
7. 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. 
   
    
8. After selecting a file, you can either Add more items or Confirm your selection.
   
    
9. Click Continue.
10. Enter a Name for the rule. This field is required.
    
     
11. Select the Learner access level: either All Learners or Specific Learners. The Specific Learners option opens additional fields to select which Groups or Departments can access the content. You can also click Manage groups to navigate to the Groups Report and create or edit Groups. More information about Department Selection can be found in the Department-Level Availability section of this article. 
    
     
12. 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. 

Department-Level Availability

One of the options for Specific Learners is to enable External Knowledge sources for certain Departments within your organization. Each Department's Sub-Departments can be optionally included in the availability scope as well. 

To enable External Knowledge sources for specific Departments, open the External Knowledge page in your Portal's Client Settings and follow these steps:

1. Click View Details next to the connection you want to configure Department-level availability for.
   
    
2. Under Availability rules, click Add new to create a new Availability rule, or click the Pencil Icon next to an existing rule to edit it.
   
    
3. Select, add, or remove resources to apply the rule to. 
4. Click Continue.
5. On the Rules page, toggle on Specific Learners under Learners that can access the selected files.
6. Click Add under Departments.
   
    
7. Select which Departments and Sub-Departments can access the resources. If a Department has multiple Sub-Departments, you can either select Include all sub-departments from the drop-down in Your Selection, or use the arrow button next to the Department name to select individual Sub-Departments. Note that if you select Include all sub-departments, you cannot manually configure which Sub-Departments are included. 
   
    
8. Click Apply to confirm your selections.
9. Confirm the Name field is filled out. Click Submit.

Department availability can be updated by returning to the Rules screen and using the available options. You can click Modify to update the existing configuration, click the X button next to a specific Department name to remove it from the Availability Rule, or click Clear All to remove all Departments. 

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. The Aura Learner Agent supports the following file formats:

• PDF
• 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. 

Edit an External Knowledge Connection

Admins can edit existing External Knowledge connections to remove or add files and folders that are synced through the connection. Editing a connection also enables Admins to re-authenticate the connection. 

Access the External Knowledge page in your organization's Client Settings, and follow these steps.

1. Click View Details next to the connection you wish to edit.
2. Click Edit Connection.
   
    
3. Select either Choose what to share to only sync specific files with Aura, or select Share all to sync all supported folders and files to Aura. 
   1. If you select Choose what to share, either deselect any files you want to remove, or click Add more items to select additional files. 
4. Click Confirm to verify your changes. 

Editing a connection does not remove any Availability Rules for files or folders that are unchanged. New files do not have any Availability Rules added to them, these must be added by an Admin. 

Files or folders removed through editing a connection are also removed from any associated Availability Rules. When the connection re-syncs after editing, only new files are synced, while any removed files will also be removed from the sync. 

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:

1. Click View details next to the connection you want to disable.
   
    
2. Click Delete connection.
   
    
3. Click Delete connection in the new modal.
   

Related Articles

Looking for more information about Aura? You can review these articles to learn more:

• Aura Admin Assist
• Aura Learner Agent
• Absorb AI Program Overview
• Aura Learner Agent: Course Extraction