Sam is an AI-powered assistant that provides two broad capabilities:
- A Customer Support Agent capability that can answer your questions about features and functionality of the Skills Base tool and methodology.
- A Data Analyst capability that can answer questions about your organization's skills data
Customer Support Agent capability
Sam's Customer Support Agent capability is always available to all Skills Base users. Sam is trained on this knowledge base, as well as the Skills Base methdology.
The reponses Sam provides depend on whether the person they are chatting with is a Skills Base Administrator or not. Skills Base Administrators are provided information about configuring Skills Base, as well as other administrative subjects. If Sam can't answer an Administrator's question they will refer the person to our human Customer Support team. Sam will also answer questions from people who are not Administrators in Skills Base, but will generally not discuss subjects involving configuration or setup of Skills Base. Anytime Sam is unable to answer a non-administrator's question they will generally refer the person to the Skills Base Administrators within their organization.
Data Analyst capability
Sam's Data Analyst capability is only offered with Skills Base's Ultimate license. Ultimate license holders can grant this feature to people via the [Ask Sam > Data Queries] Security Group privilege. When enabled Sam will respond to questions about the data in your organization by constructing an appropriate query that returns a set of results.
Sam has a level of data-query capabilty more advanced than other reporting in Skills Base through access to Skills Base's Skill Query language, and so can be used to reveal complex and detailed insights based on your instructions. People that are granted the [Reporting > Skill Query] Security Group privilege are able to review and/or edit the query that Sam generated by clicking the "Review the query" link that appears after the results. Note that reviewing and/or editing the query requires knowledge of Skills Base's Skill Query language.
FAQ
Q: Can I control the data that users can see via Sam?
A: Yes. Security Groups in Skills Base provide comprehensive permissions controls that allow customer the ability to specify data and functionality that people can view and modify. All aspects of Skills Base including Sam enforce these permissions.
Q: Do I have access to Sam?
A: All customers and users have access to Sam to chat, discuss and learn about features and functionality of Skills Base. However, the ability for Sam to execute data queries is only available to Ultimate license holders. This data query ability can also be further restricted by customer administrators to certain groups of users via Security Group privileges. So, to access Sam's data query capability you will require an Ultimate license as well as being granted neccessary privileges by your administrator.
Q: What is Sam exactly?
A: Sam is an colleciton of trained AI models, combined into a cohesive natural language interface. Depending on the type of query you submit, Sam will interact with relevant services (including third party services) and sources in the background to get the right information.
Q: Does Sam or any third party have access to my organization's data?
A: No. Despite Sam being able to write and execute data queries, Sam does not in fact have access to your organization's data. This is evident if you attempt to ask Sam spcifics about the data (eg: "Do you think my skill level in X is high or low?") - Sam will be unable to answer. Once exception is that Sam is provided with the full name of the person that is currently chatting. We do plan in the future to grant Sam access to organizational data in order to be able to provide new deep and powerful insights, however this will be a coordinated activity in consultation with customers.
Q: Can I use Sam to assess and measure skills?
A: No. Measuring skills requires a methodical approach, in order to achieve the right balance of accuracy and usability. This is what the Skills Base Methodology provides, via an assessment approach. AI models are great at dealing with masses of resulting data to provide relevant insights and knoweldge, but they are not well suited to assessing or measuring skills.
Q: Can I use Sam to build my Skills Directory?
A: Sam can provide advice on building your Skills Directory, however the Skills Base Library is a purpose-built tool included free of charge with every Skills Base instance to assist customers with this task.
Q: Does Sam learn from conversations?
A: No. Sam is pre-trained and does not learn or retain any information from conversations with users.
Q: Is Sam guaranteed to be correct/accurate?
A: No. Sam is a beta offering, which means which means Skills Base does not guarantee accuracy or that Sam will work as expected. Sam is a feature for customers to try and explore, and we welcome your feedback.
Q: For what purposes is AI used in Skills Base?
AI is used to generate output that is used to aid customers in their decision making, and to gain insights about the skills of their workforce.
Q: What data is used to train Sam?
A: No data is used to train Sam. Sam is trained on knowledgebase content, and on Skill Query language only.
Q: What types of output does Sam produce?
A: Sam can produce natural language output, and Skill Query output which is executed and rendered by the Skills Base app as a table or other forms.
Q: What does Skills Base do to review the quality of Sam's output?
A: All chats are logged. Skills Base staff review these chats for quality assurance and related purposes. Sam has been trained to mitigate risks of negative and inappropriate responses, however this does not guarantee that Sam's responses will always be appropriate. Report any inappropriate responses to Skills Base Support.
Q: How is Sam tested?
A: Skills Base uses dedicated and separate environments for testing software, including Sam. A range of test plans are used that validate the accuracy and suitability of output across a range of scenarios.
Q: How does Skills Base comply with laws and regulations pertaining to use of AI in the processing of personal data?
A: Aside from basic information such as full name, Sam does not have access to personal data.