Applicable for: organization admins
A Q&A pair is a question you expect visitors to ask, plus the exact answer you want your chatbot to give. You write both, the chatbot trains on them, and it uses your answer when a visitor asks a matching question. Use Q&A pairs when a close-enough answer is not good enough, such as prices, refund terms, or delivery times.
When to use a Q&A pair instead of a web source or document
Web sources and documents give your chatbot broad coverage, and the AI decides how to phrase what it finds. A Q&A pair gives you the wording itself. The three source types work together in the same knowledge base, so you can use all of them on the same chatbot.
Source type | Best for | Who writes the answer |
Web sources | Broad coverage of everything already published on your site | The AI, based on the crawled page |
Documents | Content that is not on your website, such as spec sheets or policy files | The AI, based on the uploaded file |
Q&A pairs | Single high-value questions where the answer must be exact and repeatable | You |
Q&A pairs are a good fit for pricing and fee questions, refund and cancellation policies, common FAQs where you already know the right response, and fixing an answer the chatbot got wrong from a crawled page. For background on adding web pages and documents, see the article “Training Center”.
Where to find the Q&A pair tab
Open your chatbot in the NoForm AI dashboard and go to the Training Center. It has three tabs across the top: Web Sources, Documents, and Q&A pair. Select Q&A pair to see every pair saved for this chatbot.
Each pair appears as a row showing the question and its current training status. Click a row to expand it and read the saved answer along with the Edit Q&A pair and Delete actions. Pairs belong to the chatbot as a whole, so every assistant on that chatbot can use them.
Add a Q&A pair
On the Q&A pair tab, click the “Add Q&A pair” button at the bottom of the list. The “Create Q&A pair” dialog opens.
In the Question field, type the question as a visitor would ask it. The field holds up to 250 characters and shows a character counter as you type.
In the Answer field, type the answer you want the chatbot to give. The field holds up to 1000 characters and shows a counter in the corner.
Click “Add Q&A pair” to save. The button stays disabled until you fill in both fields and the question passes the duplicate check.
The new pair appears in the list with a Training status while the system indexes it. Once the badge reads Trained, the chatbot can use it.
What the training status badges mean
Every pair shows one of four badges, the same set used on the Web Sources and Documents tabs:
Trained: the pair is ready and your chatbot can answer with it.
Training…: the system is indexing the pair right now.
Up next: the pair is in the queue and the system will process it shortly.
Failed: something went wrong while indexing. Edit and save the pair again to retry.
While any pair is in Training or Up next, the list refreshes itself every two seconds, so you can leave the tab open and watch the badge change without reloading the page.
Duplicate questions are blocked
You cannot save two pairs with the same question on one chatbot. The check ignores capitalization and extra spaces, so “Do you offer refunds?” and “ do you offer REFUNDS? “ count as the same question.
Once you have typed two characters in the Question field, a “Saved Q&A pairs” dropdown lists up to five existing questions containing what you typed. Click any suggestion to close the create dialog and open that pair for editing instead. If you finish typing a question that already exists, the field shows the message “A Q&A pair with this question already exists” and the save button stays disabled.
Edit or delete a pair
To change a pair, expand its row and click “Edit Q&A pair”. Adjust the question, the answer, or both, then click “Save changes”. The system retrains the pair, and its badge returns to Training until the update is ready.
To remove a pair, expand its row and click Delete. A confirmation dialog asks “Are you sure you want to delete this Q&A pair?” before anything is removed. Deleting a pair takes its answer out of the knowledge base, and the chatbot falls back to your web sources and documents for that question.
How your answer reaches the visitor
NoForm AI uses RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation). The documents, web pages, and Q&A pairs you provide are processed and stored. When a visitor asks a question, the system finds the relevant information and gives it to the AI along with the question, so answers stay based on your own content.
Two things make Q&A pairs stand out in that process:
The chatbot passes the visitor’s message word for word when it searches your knowledge base, which helps short Q&A entries match.
When a Q&A pair comes back in the search results, it arrives with an instruction telling the AI to reply with your answer word for word if the question matches. Other content arrives as background information the AI can rephrase.
When you save a pair, the system also stores up to five alternate phrasings of your question, so visitors who word things differently still reach the same answer. The search returns the three most relevant pieces of content per reply across all your sources, so a chatbot with a very large knowledge base may occasionally surface other content instead of a pair. To check a specific question, type it into the chat preview panel on the right side of the Training Center and use “Start over” to reset the test conversation.
Turn a real conversation into a Q&A pair
When the chatbot answers a visitor poorly, you can fix that exact exchange without retyping it:
Open the Chats page for your chatbot and click the conversation you want to review.
Select the “Chat history” tab in the details panel to see the full transcript.
Find the bot reply you want to change. Every bot reply that follows a visitor message has a “Correct” chip underneath it.
Click Correct. The create dialog opens with the visitor’s message already in the Question field and the bot’s reply in the Answer field.
Rewrite the answer, then save. The pair trains like any other, and the chip turns green and reads “Corrected”.
The chip also reads “Corrected” when the visitor’s question already matches a saved pair, even on a different conversation. Clicking a green “Corrected” chip opens that pair for editing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who can create and edit Q&A pairs?
The “Add Q&A pair” button and the “Correct” chip appear only for users with the admin role in your organization. Members without that role do not see them.
Will the chatbot repeat my answer exactly?
The chatbot receives an instruction to reply with your answer word for word when the visitor’s question matches the pair. It may still adjust the surrounding wording to fit the flow of the conversation, so treat the pair as the authoritative content rather than a fixed script.
Do Q&A pairs replace my website content?
Q&A pairs sit alongside your web sources and documents rather than replacing them. Use pairs for the handful of questions that need an exact answer, and let crawled pages and uploaded files cover everything else.
What happens if a Q&A pair contradicts my website?
When the visitor’s question matches the pair, the pair’s answer carries the priority instruction and the chatbot follows it. To avoid mixed answers, keep outdated pages and documents out of your knowledge base.
My pair shows Failed. What should I do?
Open the pair, click “Edit Q&A pair”, and save it again to trigger a fresh training run. If the badge stays on Failed after a retry, contact support.
Benefits
You control the exact wording for pricing, policy, and other answers where accuracy matters most.
Fixing a bad reply takes one click from the transcript where you spotted it.
Duplicate blocking keeps one answer per question, so your chatbot cannot give two versions of the same fact.
Status badges and automatic refresh show you when a new answer is live.