Knowledge base vs sources

ResponseHub answers from two kinds of material, and which ones it can use depends on what is being answered.

Answering a	Draws on
Questionnaire item	Knowledge base and sources
RFP item	Knowledge base and sources
Knowledge base item	Sources only
Question asked from the home page	Knowledge base and sources

A knowledge base item cannot answer from the knowledge base, because it is the knowledge base. Sources are all it has to work from.

Knowledge base items come first

Where both are available and relevant, ResponseHub prefers a knowledge base item over a passage from a source.

The reason is intent. A knowledge base item is an answer: someone decided how this question should be answered, wrote it, and approved it. A source is a policy document: evidence that supports an answer, but not written to be one.

So the knowledge base is the higher-intent material, and drawing on it first is what keeps your answers consistent with what you have already decided to say.

This is why building the knowledge base pays off

Every approved answer you add shifts the balance. A thin knowledge base means most answers are assembled from policy text each time; a rich one means the same questions come back answered the way you settled on. See updating the knowledge base after a questionnaire.

Next steps

• References: what sits behind an answer
• Verbatim answers