elvex Assistants are chatbots programmed to accomplish specific tasks when receiving a prompt. This article explains how to create assistants, their benefits, and how to use them in the elvex platform.
Check out example assistants as well as our template documentation.
How Assistants Can Help
Increase efficiency for repetitive tasks
Automatically include specific guidelines or instructions
Serve as instant experts on various topics when connected to Datasources
Creating a New Assistant
There are three ways to create an assistant in only a few steps:
From the Assistants page in elvex, click Create new assistant at the top right of the screen
Complete the assistant settings described in the following sections.
Click Save and Publish when finished
OR
From the Home App in elvex, Click I want to build a new assistant
Answer the questions posed to you by elvex's Assistant Builder
Launch the pre-configured assistant
Make additional edits
Click Save and Publish when finished
OR
From the Assistants page in elvex, navigate to the Assistant Template Library
Launch a template and connect your personalized datasource
Make adjustments to the rules and context
Click Save and Publish when finished
Assistant Settings
Overview
Name: A short, descriptive name displayed on the assistants page
Tags: Associate tags for easy discovery (Company Admins can manage available tags)
Description: Explain the assistant's purpose, goals, and capabilities
Rules: Define constraints for the assistant's behavior. This is the most important part of creating an assistant. See our documentation on writing good assistant rules.
Context & Datasources
Context and Datasources help ground your assistant and help to prevent hallucinations. This is where we will provide the facts that it needs to keep in mind and connect datasources it can reference.
Context: Add domain-specific knowledge or information (e.g., company acronyms, internal jargon, product names)
Datasources: Connect relevant datasources for enhanced intelligence
For more information on Datasources, refer to our Datasources article.
Tools
Tools are types of functionality that you can direct your assistant to use beyond standard functionality of an underlying AI model. Refer to our Tools article for more detailed pros and cons of each.
Web Browsing
Drafts
Data Analysis
Image Generation
Sources & Citations
Conversation Introduction
Welcome Message: Set the initial message users see (default: "How can I help you right now?"). Use this to help frame the conversation for users who are new to your assistant.
Example Tasks: Provide sample prompts or tasks to guide users
Security & Permissions
Filters: Set up data redaction for sensitive information
Redact Personally Identifiable Information (PII)
Redact financial information
Visibility: Choose between Private (limited access) or Public (company-wide access)
Permissions: Assign Viewer or Editor roles to users
For more information on roles and permissions, see the Roles and permissions article.
Slack
These settings allow users to prompt the assistant from a connected Slack account. See our Slack articles for more details.
Advanced
These settings should only be changed if you are familiar with the AI provider's documentation and have a good understanding of the AI model's capabilities and limitations.
Instruction Template: Instructions use Jinja's template syntax and we validate your template is valid before saving. You can use the following variables in the template:
{{ name }}
{{ description }}
{{ context }}
{{ rules }}
Provider & Model: Select the AI Provider (Open AI, Anthropic, Cohere, or others that are enabled for your account) and Model (ChatGPT 4.1, Claude 4, Gemini 2.5 etc.) that the assistant will use.
Editing Assistants
Assistant owners and users with Editor roles can edit assistants.
elvex tracks changes to assistants over time and will note which version of the assistant is currently in use. If you edit an existing assistant, elvex will automatically note which number version of the assistant is currently in use. You will see the version of the assistant in the chat interface and the Log.
Remember that when an assistant is edited, all users, including any use cases where the assistant is being used via the elvex API, will be forced onto the most recent version of the assistant.
Starting a New Conversation
There are three ways to start a conversation with an assistant.
Open the Assistant
Find the assistant on your home app, your bookmarks or just click in and start chatting.
From the Assistants Screen
Find the assistant you want to use and click the "message" icon. When the chat window appears, start chatting! If you clicked the wrong assistant, you can click the correct assistant before you begin your chat.
From Recents
Recents is where you can view prior conversations or chats you've had with any elvex Assistant. You must be in the assistant to view recents. To start a new conversation from here, click the "New Conversation" icon.
