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The Knowledge Base is where you store the documents that govern your work—regulations and ordinances, permitting and compliance procedures, environmental and floodplain management guidance, policy manuals, and similar reference materials. When you ask the AI Assistant a question or have it help fill out a record, it references these documents directly and treats them as the authoritative source. Answers reflect your rules and procedures rather than general knowledge from the open internet.

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How the Knowledge Base works

You control which documents the AI Assistant can draw on, and the assistant works from those documents rather than guessing. The Knowledge Base is a shared account resource. Once a document is added, it can inform the assistant across the places you use it—both when filling out records and, where the account-level assistant is available, when answering questions about your rules and procedures.

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What to add

Good candidates are the documents you already reach for when answering a question or making a determination:
  • Regulations, ordinances, and compliance requirements
  • Permitting and application procedures
  • Environmental and stormwater plans (e.g. SWPPP)
  • Substantial improvement and substantial damage guidance
  • Internal policies, checklists, and staff runbooks
  • Customer- or resident-facing FAQs and guidance you want answered consistently
Documents are added as PDFs. Upload text-based PDFs whose text is selectable—the assistant reads the document’s text, not the page image. If a document is a scan or photo of a page, add a searchable text layer first (any OCR, or optical character recognition, tool will do this) so its content can be read.

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Add a document

Add documents to your Knowledge Base directly in Forerunner.
1

Open Knowledge Base settings

Go to Settings → Account → AI Knowledge. This page lists every document in your account’s Knowledge Base, when each was uploaded, and its size.
2

Select Upload

Select Upload in the top right to open the upload window.
3

Choose a PDF

Select or drag in your document. Files must be PDFs. The file’s name becomes the document’s name, so give it a clear, descriptive name before uploading.
4

Upload the document

Select Upload. The document is added, processed so its contents can be searched, and turned on for AI automatically.
The Knowledge Base appears in settings once it’s enabled for your account. If you don’t see it, contact your Customer Success Manager.

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How the AI Assistant references your documents

Once a document is uploaded and turned on for AI, the assistant can search and reference it when answering your questions—no further setup needed. When the assistant uses a document, it shows a citation you can open to read the source. You can also attach documents to specific record types so the assistant uses them when helping fill out those records:
1

Open the records builder

Go to Settings → Records and open the record type you want to configure.
2

Find the AI knowledge field

In the record type’s form settings, locate the AI knowledge field. This field appears once your Knowledge Base has at least one document.
3

Select the documents to reference

Choose one or more documents from your Knowledge Base. The assistant references these documents when helping with records of this type.
4

Save your changes

Save the record type. Your selected documents take effect for new conversations with the assistant on that record type.

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Manage your documents

On the Settings → Account → AI Knowledge page you can:
  • Open a document — Select a document’s name to open the PDF in a new tab.
  • Turn a document on or off for AI — Use the Enabled for AI switch. Turning it off keeps the document in your Knowledge Base but stops the assistant from using it. Turn it back on at any time.
  • Update a document — When a regulation or procedure changes, upload the current version and delete the outdated one so the assistant always references your latest rules.
  • Delete a document — Open the actions menu on a document’s row and select Delete.

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Best practices

Keep documents current — The assistant is only as accurate as the materials you give it. Replace documents when regulations or procedures change. Name files clearly before uploading — The file’s name becomes the document’s name in your Knowledge Base. Clear names make it easier to pick the right documents on a record type, and they appear alongside the assistant’s citations. Scope documents to where they apply — Attach only the documents relevant to a given record type. Focused materials produce more accurate, on-topic answers than a large, undifferentiated set. Review the citations — When the assistant cites a document, open the source to confirm the answer reflects what the document actually says. You’re always responsible for the accuracy of the final record or determination.

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Accuracy and privacy

Documents in your Knowledge Base are one of the ways Forerunner keeps AI grounded and accurate. Your materials are treated as the authoritative source, and the assistant references them directly rather than relying on general knowledge. For more on how Forerunner keeps AI safe and transparent, see AI policies and data use. For how your data is stored and protected, see Data security and privacy.