Can I upload a file in markdown format to QnA maker knowledgebase

Question

Can I upload a file in markdown format to QnA maker knowledgebase

Zheng Lin 1 Microsoft Employee

Hi, We are trying to import Onenote pages into QnA maker knowledgebase. At this point, we are able to convert Onenote pages to wiki markdown files. I wonder if it is possible to import markdown files directly into QnA maker knowledgebase. It is not listed in the doc, but I saw FileName="myFileName", FileUri="https://mydomain/myfile.md" listed in one of the QnA maker sample file in github. Want to get clarification on this. One more question is, if it is possible to upload a file in stream to QnA maker knowledgebase since that is much easier. Create entry in Azure blob and make it publicly accessible seems a lot of hustle to get dynamic data into the knowledgebase. Thanks

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Answer 1

romungi-MSFT 48,906 Microsoft Employee Moderator

@Zheng Lin Markdown files cannot be uploaded directly, you can check this when you try to upload a file from the UI.

Could you also provide the link to the repo or file which demonstrates that MD files can be used for reference?

I can understand that pointing a KB to a dynamic site or link might help to make your application pickup the QnA pairs faster from your KB but in the current scenario the process can be sped up using the REST API instead by maintaining your files in a repo or a FAQ type site and calling the update API to update the KB and train API to train your KB. If the development lifecycle guidance is used it can help your KB utilize feature of active learning to create a better model instead of updating the KB for similar QnA pairs frequently.

Zheng Lin 1 Reputation point Microsoft Employee

2021-02-26T19:08:14.673+00:00

The problem we are trying to solve is: we have content in onenote notebook and wiki markdowns that we would like to import into Qna maker knowledgebase. What would you recommend us to do in such situation? I had developed a tool to convert onenote notebook into markdown files and was hoping that I can upload markdown files into KB.

Also for uploading files into KB, I saw the website suggested upload the file into azure blob that is publicly accessible and use the fileURL in the createKBAsync in client SDK. I did so with a simple text file with URL as
https://resourcename.blob.core.windows.net/container-name/somethingeasy.txt
And got error as "File name must be a valid file name with supported extension.". What am I missing here?

Thanks.
romungi-MSFT 48,906 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2021-03-02T07:56:18.617+00:00

@Zheng Lin For files already converted to MD format you can try to convert them to any of the supported formats file formats: ".tsv", ".pdf", ".txt", ".docx", ".xlsx" and upload.

With respect to the error with .txt file when you provide the file URL as azure blob store file the KB should be able to recognize the file and extract the contents. I have tried this from the portal and it recognizes my source and displays the content in the KB.

You could try it from the portal to cross check if there is any issue with the URL before debugging if the SDK call has any issues. Thanks!

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Can I upload a file in markdown format to QnA maker knowledgebase

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