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SmartSite Assistant SmartSite Assistant

Meet SmartSite Assistant before changing settings

Welcome

This is a website assistant you operate—not a box that becomes trustworthy when switched on.

SmartSite adds conversational AI to WordPress, then gives your team control over identity, approved knowledge, capabilities, visibility, design, channels, security, and operational evidence. You can begin with one general Assistant and grow only when real visitor needs justify more.

One visitor message crosses several systems

Section titled “One visitor message crosses several systems”

A person opens the widget, reads the welcome message, and asks a question. Before an answer appears, SmartSite checks whether that visitor may use the chat and whether the message passes configured safeguards. It loads the active Assistant, sends the conversation to OpenAI, may retrieve synchronized knowledge, and may call an enabled Tool. The response is returned to the widget and recorded for operational review.

That journey matters because a wrong answer does not always belong to “the AI.” A missing policy may be a Knowledge Base problem. A contact email sent unexpectedly is a Tool design problem. A visitor who cannot see the widget may be an access rule. A good administrator changes the system that owns the symptom.

Visitor→Access & security→Assistant/runtime→Knowledge or Tool→Answer & Analytics

The four things that shape an answer

Section titled “The four things that shape an answer”
The core of the visitor experience
PartQuestion it answersWhat it must not be asked to do
Assistant Who is speaking, what is its scope, which model it uses, and how should it behave? Act as a factual database, access control, or secret store.
Knowledge Base Which approved pages and documents can be searched for website-specific facts? Perform live transactions or protect sensitive content through wording alone.
Agent Tools Which controlled data lookups or real actions can code execute? Rely on the model description as authentication or authorization.
Runtime Does one general Assistant handle the conversation, or may a published flow route to specialists? Create facts, repair unclear Tools, or replace source and receiver security.

Everything else supports these four. Design and chat content shape presentation. Settings and visibility decide who receives the experience. Security limits abuse. Channels carry conversation beyond the website. Analytics shows what happened. OpenAI API settings provide the credentials that make model and knowledge operations possible.

Choose Basic or Advanced without fear

Section titled “Choose Basic or Advanced without fear”

Basic runtime is the default Assistant plus Tools experience. One active local Assistant answers general questions, searches shared knowledge, and can use enabled Tools assigned to it. It is usually the right starting point for a business website, support library, or marketing site with a small number of capabilities.

Advanced Agents runtime keeps that selected Assistant as the Base Assistant, then adds a published workflow of specialists, handoffs, routing policy, action approvals, and detailed traces. Use it when tasks genuinely need different specialist instructions or Tool ownership—for example, appointments, billing, and de-escalation.

Turning Advanced Agents off does not delete workflows, assistants, knowledge, or Tools. It locks flow editing and returns visitor conversation to the normal Assistant-plus-Tools runtime. This makes the runtime a deliberate administrator choice, not a permanent migration.

What the plugin stores and sends

Section titled “What the plugin stores and sends”

SmartSite stores configuration and operational data in WordPress: Assistant profiles, API-related settings, selected knowledge metadata, Tool definitions, visibility rules, security settings, workflow revisions, and conversation analytics. Uploaded knowledge also has local records and files.

OpenAI receives conversation content for model responses and receives approved knowledge content for vector retrieval. Tool destinations such as email or webhooks receive the values configured for those actions. WhatsApp uses Meta’s channel infrastructure when enabled. This means production setup is also a privacy and data-governance decision.

People who should own the launch
OwnerDecisionEvidence before launch
Website administrator Installation, settings, visibility, active Assistant, and safe release timing. Restricted end-to-end test and recovery access.
Content owner Which sources and claims are current, public, and authoritative. Approved page/file set and regression questions.
Privacy/security owner What is sent, stored, retained, and protected. Privacy review, security configuration, and incident path.
Integration owner What each Tool may return or cause. Sandbox tests, receiver validation, logs, and kill switch.

One person may hold several roles on a small site, but the decisions still exist. “The plugin was activated” is not content approval, Tool authorization, or a privacy review.

A sensible order for a new site

Section titled “A sensible order for a new site”
  1. Install from the trusted package and confirm WordPress can load the plugin without PHP errors.
  2. Connect OpenAI with the regular API key in the intended project.
  3. Create one Assistant with a truthful public name, short welcome message, and bounded instructions.
  4. Curate a small Knowledge Base and wait for Current/completed states.
  5. Restrict access to an administrator, test role, or named test user.
  6. Run real questions in a separate browser and inspect Chat History.
  7. Configure security and privacy before widening visibility.
  8. Add Tools, channels, or Advanced Agents later, one tested capability at a time.

This order deliberately puts a real conversation before cosmetic polish and puts controlled testing before public traffic. Design still matters, but a beautiful widget with an unclear source or unsafe action is not production-ready.

What SmartSite should and should not promise

Section titled “What SmartSite should and should not promise”

It can help visitors navigate approved information, answer common questions, gather context, retrieve current data through a narrow Tool, and submit approved actions. It cannot guarantee factual truth when sources conflict, understand private customer identity without an authorized integration, replace professional judgment, or turn instruction text into technical enforcement.

When information is missing, the best experience is often an honest limitation and a human next step. Design that behavior intentionally. Do not instruct the Assistant to sound certain merely because confidence looks better in a demo.

Build for an administrator who comes after you

Section titled “Build for an administrator who comes after you”

A production setup should be understandable without the original builder in the room. Use descriptive Assistant, workflow, Agent, and Tool names. Keep source ownership and review dates in the organization’s content process. Document why Advanced runtime is on or off, which Tools have side effects, who monitors destinations, and how the widget is restricted during an incident.

Avoid configurations that work only because one person remembers a hidden relationship. If a Tool belongs to one Assistant, make the assignment explicit. If a specialist owns a task, give it a clear scope and handoff. If a policy replaces a file, remove the obsolete authority. Operational clarity is part of the visitor experience because it determines how quickly the next administrator can correct a problem.

See the operating surface

Section titled “See the operating surface”
Introduction
Capture
Open the main AI Website Chat page with the top tab row visible and Knowledge Base selected. Do not open a record containing real customer data.
Show
Plugin title, all main tabs, Knowledge Base summary area
Viewport
Desktop, 1440 × 900
Annotate
Use numbered callouts only for controls referenced in the procedure.
Redact
OpenAI keys, tokens, secrets, personal information, private URLs, IP addresses, and conversation text

Your next useful page

Section titled “Your next useful page”