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A Beginner's Guide to Chat
A Beginner's Guide to Chat

Learn how to make the most of Chat following this beginner's guide.

Cindy Chang avatar
Written by Cindy Chang
Updated over 6 months ago

Glean Chat integrates its deep understanding of all your company's content, employees, activity, and how they relate to one another, to deliver personalized answers to you.

Best practices 101

Here are a few best practices to follow as you start using Chat.

1. When to use Chat vs. Search

Use Search when you know the document you're looking for and want to type in key words. Use Chat for everything else!

Typing in question-form and writing sentences will be an adjustment, but think of it as if you are writing a message to a teammate.

2. Be descriptive

Assistant can't read your mind so be descriptive about what you want. Giving specific instructions guides Assistant on what to do.

  • Want a long answer? Tell it to "be elaborate."

  • Want certain apps to be read? Tell it to "look through Google Drive and Gong."

3. Give a thumbs up or down

Sharing feedback is the #1 way we make Chat better. Giving a thumbs up and down button helps improve the quality of your future responses. When you can, leave comments so our quality team can investigate.

Prompts to get started

Glean Chat can assist you in a variety of tasks specific to your role. To get started, here are general use-cases you can try.

1. Summarize this for me

Use Chat to summarize a document, Slack thread, Zendesk ticket, meeting notes, and so much more. Be sure to paste the URL to the document or thread in the chatbox so Assistant can summarize it.

Example prompt: Summarize [paste doc URL] for me. Add a section called “Key Takeaways” with 3 bullet points at the end of the summary.

2. Help me write...

Save time by using Chat to write a first draft of an email, project document, company announcement, or customer message. You can ask it to reference a certain document as a template, to check certain Slack channels for context, or to make the tone of the writing professional, friendly, etc.

Example prompt: Help me write a product requirements document on [brief explanation about project and its goals]. I want it to include sections called “Context” “Objective” and “Open Questions.”

3. Who should I ask?

Chat can help you identify the right subject matter experts. Especially for teams you might not work directly with, ask Chat who you should talk to.

Example prompt: I want to contact the person who is the subject matter expert on [topic] to ask about [describe question]. Who is the best person to talk to?

4. What is... and How to...

Ask about a new company process or terminology you've never heard before. When you don't understand something, ask Chat to "explain it in simple terms." Not sure how to resolve an issue or how to setup something? Ask Chat for instructions.

Example prompt: What is [technical terminology]? Explain it to me in simple terms as a non-technical person.

5. Give me context

Our customers love using Chat when onboarding onto a new team or task to get context at a high-level before diving into the weeds. Getting context can look like asking Chat to describe the progress that's been made on a project, asking what documents you should read, or asking how certain decisions were made in the past.

Example prompt: I am onboarding onto [project or team name]. I want to get up to speed and understand what’s happening at a high-level. Write a section that describes important historical context I should know, documents that I should read to get started, and people I should talk to.

Tips to improve response quality

Here are several tips that may help when you get inaccurate responses.

1. Try asking the Public Knowledge assistant

If you have a question that requires world knowledge or you need help with rewriting content, we recommend using the Public Knowledge assistant which provides similar functionality to ChatGPT. This assistant does not search your internal company knowledge.

Example prompts:

Who are all the major players in [industry] in [country or region]

Draft an email from these bullet points: [bullet points]

Rewrite this so a non-technical person can understand it: [text]

2. Tag documents by pasting the URL

Pasting the URL of the document you're asking about will result in far better answer accuracy. Chat can read indexed documents and PDFs.

3. Add a detail or specific instruction

There may be times when adding a certain word or instruction to your question results in the answer you're looking for. Don't forget to give a thumbs up/down so we can learn and improve from these instances.

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