Chatbot Functions

The Pyramid Chatbot is a simple interactive panel lets you ask analytical or other questions in natural language using text or speech, and receive a response that creates or changes your discoveries, publications, or presentations. The idea is that you don't have to painstakingly build or change your visual, but can just "say" (or type) what you want to include, exclude, or change, and Pyramid will make the changes for you. You can then interact with the questions and answers in the panel to build up or improve your content.

At design time, Pro or Analyst users build and analyze their visuals using the Chatbot in Discovery Pro or Lite, and their presentations and publications in Present Pro or Lite or Publish Pro or Lite. At runtime, users can interact with any presentations they have access to using the Chatbot; they can show more data, manipulate content (limiting it to a particular time period or grouping by location, team, or customer's gender), or otherwise explore the visual.

Note: Design time editing in Present Pro and Lite and Publish Pro and Lite are only available where the underlying LLM used by the Chatbot is not the internal Portable Language Model (PLM), "Pyramid internal." For more information, see Multiple LLM Engines.

Chatbot pop-up

The Chatbot is a pop-up that allows users to say or write a sequence of questions in natural language that are interpreted automatically and trigger changes to the currently selected visual.

Note: The red arrow points to the Open Chatbot button, which is used when you are building or analyzing data visuals at design time. If you want to open the Chatbot at runtime, you need to run your visual and open the Chatbot from the panel tools.

Open the Chatbot

How you open your Chatbot depends on whether you are a Designer (a Pro or Analyst user building a Discovery, Presentation, or Publication), or you are viewing and interacting with a Presentation at runtime.

Note: If your administrator has chosen to use the internal Portable Language Model (PLM), Pyramid Internal, then the Chatbot is not available at Design time in either Publish or Present. For more information, see Multiple LLM Engines.

Select your Model

If you are building your Publication or Presentation in Publish or Present, you need to select the Data Source as the first step. The available models are displayed in the Chatbot for selection:

  • Select a Model: You are initially prompted to select a model. Previously used models are displayed by default.
  • More Models: If required, more models can be accessed by clicking this option. You can then select the model from your recent, favorites, or explorer options.

Tip: You can change which model is selected by typing the keyword \data into your Chatbot and selecting the required model.

Chat Session Options

At the top of the panel are a number of options that relate to your current session (yellow, above).

  • Clear Chat Messages: Clears all of the previous chat messages from the Chatbot. This doesn't affect the visual.
  • Reset: Resets the chat session and the visual back to its original state.
  • New Query: (Runtime only) Restarts the chat with a new blank query. All hierarchies and measures are removed from the visual, allowing you to build a new query from scratch.
  • Unmute: Mutes or un-mutes the speech facility used by the Chatbot. Muting the Chatbot means that you will not receive audible responses to your prompts.

Tip: You can choose whether to mute or unmute your Chatbot by default using the Chatbot Audio Response option in your User Defaults.

Ask a question

The text field (orange arrow) is where you ask your question (NLQ) or "prompt". You can either type your question and click Enter or the Arrow button, or you can hold down the Microphone button and just say your question into your microphone. In the latter case, Pyramid uses its speech-to-text facility to show your spoken question in the Chatbot as if you had typed it.

Note: The Chatbot lets you ask multiple questions, and applies the changes associated with each of your questions in a cumulative way. Each additional question adjusts the previous query, regardless of whether the original query was generated by the Chatbot or drawn manually by the user dropping measures into the drop zones.

Wildcards and keywords

As you type, the Chatbot attempts to recognize any hierarchies or measures that you may be referring to, and offers you a list of matches to select from.

You can also use wildcard characters to show different options in the current model if you don't know what to type. This is especially useful if you don't know the exact name of the item you're looking for, or if you want to prompt a particular Chatbot command. Options include:

  • \ - show options - opens a list of available predefined commands.
  • \measures or \m - shows all measures in the model.
  • \hierarchy or \h - shows all hierarchies in the model.
  • \layout - Present and Publish only - changes the available layout for your storyboard.
  • \data - Present and Publish only - changes the model for your storyboard.
  • \redraw - Discover only - refreshes and redraws the visual. You should use redraw if you altered your visual and you want the AI to suggest the best visual type to use. For more information about this keyword, see NLQ: Visualizations.
Restart

The keywords reset/ restart/ start over can be used to reset the Chat session and the query. The same function can be performed by clicking the button in the top of the chat panel.

Type ahead

As you type your question, the "type ahead" functionality offers you options as follows:

  • After you have typed two characters, you can select measures and hierarchies from the model to include in your query (green arrow shows a measure).
  • If another user previously ran a query against the same model, you can select that query from the drop-down list of suggestions. Queries of this type are prefixed with a "re-use" icon (red arrow).
  • If you previously ran a query against the same model, you can select that query from the drop-down list of options. Queries of this type are prefixed with a "user" icon (blue arrow).
Suggestions

A list of the most popular questions for the current model that match the types of questions you are asking in the session. The suggestion list ("re-use" icon, above) can give you a good sense of the sort of information people commonly look for in the current model.

Note: Suggestions are only shown if there are enough questions in the history and there are matches given your line of questioning.

Copy previous question

After you have sent a request, you can use the Copy icon (opens on hover) to copy it from the session. This is useful if you want to repeat a question or make minor adjustments to it before running it again, perhaps after you have reset the Chatbot.

Manage the response

Once your question has been processed, a response is presented in the Chatbot. If you have the sound for your Chatbot un-muted, the response is also spoken aloud.

  • You can replay the spoken response by clicking the audio symbol (red arrow). This works even if the audio was muted; in fact, selecting this option un-mutes the audio.
  • If your prompt was the first question asked in the Chatbot and it created a visual on an empty canvas, you can use the thumbs up and thumbs down icons to like or dislike the result (blue arrow). Liking a result promotes the associated question up the list of type ahead suggestions the next time you open the same model. Note: If this comment has likes from different users, it is suggested globally; that is, to other users of the same model.

Move, resize, close, and open

  • Select the Chatbot by its title bar to drag it around the canvas.
  • Minimize the Chatbot using the button on the top-right.
  • Re-open / maximize the Chatbot using the Open button.
  • Resize the Chatbot by clicking and dragging the handle at its bottom-right.

Change view

Design time only. When you move between the tabs at the bottom of your page, the Chatbot remains open but changes context. Its content always reflects the history associated with the tab that is currently open.

When you open a tab for an app that does not support the Chatbot; for example, when you click a Model tab; the Chatbot closes. It reopens when you tab to another app that does support the Chatbot.

Note: If your administrator has chosen to use the internal Portable Language Model (PLM), Pyramid Internal, then the Chatbot is not available at Design time in either Publish or Present. For more information, see Multiple LLM Engines.

Keyboard Shortcuts

While in the chat text box, different shortcuts are available using the arrow keys:

  • Arrow left and right - will move the cursor between the current text in the text box.
  • Arrow down - will be effective when the entity prompt is. Keying arrow down allows you to select one of the items from the list.
  • Arrow up - when in the text box, this will allow users to cycle to previously written questions in the Chat session.