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Unstructured Data Ingestion

The C3 Generative AI Application supports ingestion of unstructured data from documents, text files, and images. The application uses this data to answer user questions.

The application supports a wide range of unstructured content such as product manuals, scanned documents, meeting notes, and chat logs, in various file formats:

  • .c3doc.md
  • .c3doc
  • .md
  • .ipynb
  • .pdf
  • .c3typ
  • .doc
  • .docx
  • .html
  • .pptx
  • .txt
  • .rtf
  • .png
  • .jpeg

See the Genai.SourceFileTypes Type for supported formats and extension options.

You can add unstructured data in two ways:

Upload documents from local machine

You can upload unstructured files directly into the application for immediate indexing.

Open the documents tab

  1. In the C3 Generative AI Application, select the Data icon.
  2. Select the Documents tab.
  3. Select Upload, then choose Upload files manually.

Upload Documents

Upload your files

Select the files from your local machine. Example files include:

  • product_manual.pdf.
  • compliance_policy.docx.
  • customer_notes.txt.
  • support_chat_transcript.txt.
  • setup_guide.pdf.

Review upload settings

Before you confirm the upload:

  • Leave Automatically update search index enabled to ensure the application immediately chunks, embeds, and indexes your documents.
  • Use the default Directory unless you created a custom data source.

If you don't enable automatic indexing, you can manually start the indexing process by selecting the uploaded files and selecting Add to index.

Select Upload to start processing.

Upload Settings

Monitor chunking and indexing

Each uploaded document corresponds to a Genai.SourceFile instance within a Genai.SourceCollection. This object tracks the file's ingestion status, including Chunked, Indexed, and Needs Reindexing states.

To delete a document, select the file and then select the Trash icon. This action removes the document from the index and prevents future syncing or reindexing.

After you complete the upload:

  • The application chunks the documents into smaller passages.
  • It then indexes these passages into the vector store.
  • The application marks documents as Indexed when it finishes processing them.

If a document is modified after it's indexed, it enters a Needs Reindexing state. You must reindex the document to update the vector store.

You can track progress in the Documents tab.

Monitor Indexing

If documents fail to index or get stuck in processing, see Troubleshoot Common Issues for resolution steps.

Connect an external blob store

To connect an external data source and for all other unstructured data ingestion features, see Understanding Unstructured Data Integration Pipelines.

See also

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