# Training Best Practices

The quality and relevance of your training data directly impacts how well your agent performs. This guide covers what to train on, what to avoid, and how to get the best results.

## Where to connect your knowledge

| Source                        | What it provides                    | Where to connect                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  |
| ----------------------------- | ----------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Help center**               | Published support articles          | [Zendesk](https://docs.eesel.ai/connect-your-tools/helpdesks/zendesk), [Freshdesk](https://docs.eesel.ai/connect-your-tools/helpdesks/freshdesk), [Intercom](https://docs.eesel.ai/connect-your-tools/helpdesks/intercom), [Gorgias](https://docs.eesel.ai/connect-your-tools/helpdesks/gorgias), [Jira](https://docs.eesel.ai/connect-your-tools/helpdesks/jira) |
| **Past tickets**              | Your team's resolved conversations  | Zendesk, Freshdesk, Intercom, Gorgias, Jira                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       |
| **Macros/Canned responses**   | Pre-written response templates      | Zendesk, Freshdesk, Gorgias                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       |
| **Google Docs, Sheets, PDFs** | Documents from Drive                | [Google Drive](https://docs.eesel.ai/connect-your-tools/knowledge-sources/google-drive)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           |
| **Notion pages**              | Wiki and knowledge base content     | [Notion](https://docs.eesel.ai/connect-your-tools/knowledge-sources/notion)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       |
| **Confluence pages**          | Team documentation                  | [Confluence](https://docs.eesel.ai/connect-your-tools/knowledge-sources/confluence)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               |
| **Website pages**             | Any public web content              | [Website Crawler](https://docs.eesel.ai/connect-your-tools/knowledge-sources/website-crawler)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     |
| **Files**                     | PDFs, docs, CSVs, or custom content | [Files](https://docs.eesel.ai/connect-your-tools/knowledge-sources/files)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         |

## How syncing works

Once connected, eesel AI keeps your knowledge up to date:

* **Automatic re-sync** — Content is periodically refreshed to pick up changes
* **Manual sync** — You can trigger a re-sync at any time from the integration settings
* **Status indicators** — The sidebar shows sync status (syncing, complete, failed)

## What makes good training data

### Help center articles

Your help center is usually the best starting point — it's already written for customers and covers common questions.

* Make sure articles are up to date before syncing
* Published articles work better than drafts
* Well-structured articles (clear headings, short paragraphs) produce better answers

### Past tickets

Training on resolved tickets helps your agent sound like your team and handle real-world scenarios.

* Focus on tickets with good resolutions — your agent learns from the quality of replies
* Filter by status (resolved/closed) to avoid training on incomplete conversations
* Recent tickets are more valuable than old ones

### Internal documents

Confluence, Notion, and Google Drive docs give your agent internal context that help center articles might not cover.

* Start with your most frequently referenced documents
* Avoid training on out-of-date or deprecated content
* Organize documents clearly — the agent uses document structure to understand context

### Website content

Crawling your website is a quick way to add product information, pricing, and FAQs.

* Use path filters to include only relevant sections
* Exclude marketing pages, careers pages, or other non-support content
* The crawler respects robots.txt

## Best practices

**More relevant knowledge > more knowledge.** A focused set of high-quality articles works better than dumping everything. Irrelevant content can confuse the agent.

**Keep sources up to date.** If your help center articles are outdated, your agent gives outdated answers. Update the source and re-sync.

**Combine source types.** Help center + past tickets + internal docs gives the most complete coverage:

* Help center → what to answer
* Past tickets → how to sound
* Internal docs → extra context and edge cases

**Test after adding sources.** After adding new knowledge, test in the chat to make sure the agent finds and uses it correctly.

**Monitor unanswered questions.** Use [Analytics](https://docs.eesel.ai/admin/analytics) to find questions your agent can't answer, then add knowledge to fill those gaps.
