Setup
How to set up knowledge base for study faq knowledge base
How to set up knowledge base for study faq knowledge base — answered from your own docs. How Clinical Trial Sites & CROs teams use Chatref (knowledge base, know
You can set up a study FAQ knowledge base for clinical trial sites and CROs in Chatref by uploading your trial documents—protocols, consent forms, visit schedules—and then embedding a widget that answers participant questions directly from those materials. This guide covers the process end to end, from gathering your files to seeing answers live on your study page.
Before you start
- A free Chatref account (new accounts get $50 in credit with no credit card needed). Sign up at app.chatref.ai.
- All study documents you want participants to get answers from—protocols, informed consent forms, schedule-of-events tables, eligibility criteria, contact details, and any other participant-facing material. Acceptable formats: PDF (searchable text preferred), DOCX, TXT, or public URLs (your trial landing page, for example).
- The page on your website where you plan to embed the widget. Typically this is the study information page or recruitment landing page.
If you're managing a Clinical Trial Sites & CROs, this setup centralizes common queries and keeps your team focused on participant care. For more on how Chatref supports Clinical Trial Sites & CROs, see the industry overview.
Step-by-step setup
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Create your agent. In the Chatref dashboard, click “New Agent.” Give it a name that participants will recognize, like “Study FAQ” or “Trial 101.” No need to code anything—agents can be spun up in seconds.
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Add your study content. Go to the agent’s “Knowledge” tab and upload your files or add URLs. Feed it everything a participant might ask about: the full protocol, consent form, schedule of visits, inclusion/exclusion criteria, and any study-specific instructions. Chatref will read and train on these documents. For best results, keep files that are searchable text (not image-only scans) and organize topics into separate files—for instance, one PDF for eligibility and another for visit schedules. That makes it easier to update and reduces the chance of confused answers.
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Customize the agent. Under “Customize,” set the greeting message to something like, “Ask me anything about this study—eligibility, visits, what to expect.” Choose a primary color that matches your site, and optionally upload a small avatar. This keeps the chat widget looking like a natural part of your study page.
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Test in the playground. Before going live, use the “Playground” tab. Ask the same types of questions participants will: “What are the visit dates?”, “Am I eligible if I’m over 65?”, “What are the common side effects?” Read the answers and verify they match your documents. If an answer seems off, check whether the source document contained that detail clearly; you may need to rephrase or split a document and re-upload.
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Embed the widget on your site. Go to the “Widget” tab, copy the provided JavaScript snippet, and paste it just before the closing
</body>tag of your study information page. Set the allowed domains (origin allowlist) to your site’s domain so the widget loads only where you intend. Save, and the widget appears on your study page.
Check it works
- Visit your study page, trigger the widget, and run the same test questions you used in the playground. Confirm that answers appear within a second or two and that they reference study-specific details, not generic web information.
- Try the widget on a mobile device. The design adapts, and participants who browse on their phone will have the same experience.
- Ask a question that should not be answered (e.g., about an unapproved concomitant medication). The agent should politely indicate it can't answer that, not invent a reply. If it does hallucinate, re-examine the training data for that topic and consider adding a clear boundary statement in your content.
- Let a colleague who isn't familiar with the setup test it. Fresh eyes often catch mismatches you'll miss.
If answers are consistently vague, return to the Knowledge tab and see if any large document was only partially processed. You might need to split it into smaller, topic-specific files.
Common issues
- Document won't process. Scanned or image-only PDFs can't be read unless they contain an embedded text layer. Re-save them with OCR or convert to DOCX/TXT and re-upload.
- Widget doesn't appear. Confirm the snippet is inside the
<body>tag, not the<head>. Then check that your domain is listed under the widget's allowed origins. Finally, ensure no ad-blocker or browser extension is hiding the widget. - Information is out of date. When a protocol amendment occurs, upload the revised document and remove the old one. Chatref re-trains on the updated set. Stale answers are a common source of confusion for participants, so treat document updates as part of your amendment workflow.
- Answers mix up details between studies. If you run multiple trials, create a separate agent for each and link the widget to the corresponding study page. Keeping knowledge bases isolated avoids cross-contamination.
FAQ
What causes study faq knowledge base problems for Clinical Trial Sites & CROs?
Study FAQ knowledge bases often break because content lives in scattered emails, shared drives, and static PDFs that nobody updates after a protocol amendment. Staff then answer repeat questions manually, which leads to inconsistent replies, long wait times, and after-hours gaps. Without a single source of truth, participants get outdated or conflicting information, eroding trust and increasing dropout rates.
How do I improve study faq knowledge base for Clinical Trial Sites & CROs?
Centralize all study documents in one tool that can answer directly from them. Upload every amendment as soon as it's approved, remove old versions, and test the widget weekly with real participant questions to catch gaps. Encourage your coordinators to note which questions still end up in their inbox and add clarifying language to your knowledge base. The goal is a living resource that reduces the routine email load, not a one-and-done upload.
Related guides
Put this into practice
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