Automatic refresh of website sources

Website sources keep themselves up to date: iAgentify reads the page again every few days, usually once a week, and if it has changed it updates what your agent knows. There is nothing you need to do and no credits are used. Documents, texts and FAQs are not refreshed by themselves.

What is refreshed and what is not

A website source is only read again when its status is Ready. A source that Failed, or is still being indexed, is not part of the automatic refresh: fix it first. The sources of an account whose trial or subscription has ended are not refreshed either.

How often your website is read

Usually once a week, counted from the last time that source was read. You cannot choose the day or the hour: iAgentify spreads the reads over the day and starts with the sources that have gone longest without being read, so a read can be a few hours late.

If you have changed a price or your opening hours and cannot wait, you do not have to: open the source and press Re-index. See re-index a website that has changed.

What happens on each read

• The page has not changed. Nothing is touched. Only the date under Last checked is updated.
• The page has changed. What the agent knows is updated with the new content and the date is recorded under Last change found. While it updates, the agent answers with the previous version: the source never stops being Ready.
• The source is a crawl. If you added it with Crawl the site, the site is crawled again from the same address and with the same maximum number of pages. New pages reached through the links come in, and the ones that no longer exist stop being used.
• The page no longer exists, returns an error or does not answer. The previous content is kept and the agent keeps answering with it. See when a website cannot be refreshed.
• The page returns far less content than last time. That is usually an error or maintenance page, not a real change, so iAgentify keeps what it had and counts it as a failure: “The website returned far less content than last time, so we kept the previous content. If the change is real, re-index the source”.

Where to see when it was last read

• In the list of sources, the Indexed column shows the last time each source was read, by hand or automatically.
• In the source’s details, which open when you press its name, there are two facts: Last checked, the last time iAgentify read the page, and Last change found, the last time it found something different. If no automatic read has happened yet you see “Not checked yet”, and if the page is the same as on the first day, “No changes since it was added”.

Switch the refresh of a source on or off

You need the Member, Admin or Owner role.

1. Go to Knowledge, choose the agent and press the name of the website source.

2. Switch Keep up to date automatically on or off. The change is saved at once.

When you switch it off, “Automatic refresh switched off” appears. The current content is kept, and from then on the source only changes when you press Re-index. Switching it off makes sense for a page you do not want to change without checking it yourself.

With the Read only role you see “It is kept up to date automatically” or “Automatic refresh is switched off”, but you cannot change it.

When a website cannot be refreshed

A single failure does not matter: iAgentify tries again the next day and, meanwhile, the agent answers with the previous content. In the source’s details you see “The last check failed”.

On the third failure in a row:

• Your team receives the A website could not be refreshed notification, in the app and by email. Owners, admins and members receive it, once until the source works again.
• The list says so under the source’s name: “The last 3 automatic refreshes failed: it answers with the previous content”.
• The details show “We cannot refresh this website”, with the reason and the Try again now button.
• The knowledge summary offers the Show the websites button, which leaves only those sources in the list.

What to do:

1. Open the page in your browser and check that it is still published and can be seen without signing in.

2. If the address has changed, add the new one as a source and delete the old one.

3. Press Try again now to read it again right away.

4. If you no longer want it checked, switch Keep up to date automatically off: the current content is kept.

What each reason means is in messages of a failed source.

Worth knowing

• It uses no credits and does not count towards the limit of 10 re-indexes per hour, which is only for the ones you start yourself.
• It only reads what it would read when the source is added: the text of public pages. Menus, the footer, images and anything shown only with JavaScript are still not read.
• It does not tell you when it finds a change. It only tells you when it fails three times in a row. To see whether something changed, look at Last change found.
• It does not replace a review. If your website has a wrong fact, the agent will learn it as it is. After an important change, check it with test a question.