👉CoPilot Best Practices

Best Practices for Designing System Prompts for CoPilot Engagement with End Users (FormWise)

As a CoPilot creator in FormWise, crafting an effective system prompt is key to ensuring a seamless and helpful interaction between the CoPilot and your end users. By designing thoughtful prompts and utilizing FormWise’s unique settings, you can create a CoPilot that delivers accurate, relevant, and actionable responses. Below are best practices for designing your system prompts, as well as leveraging the advanced features in FormWise to optimize the user experience.

1. Define CoPilot’s Role and Purpose Clearly

Ensure that CoPilot understands its specific role in assisting users. This keeps responses focused and relevant to their queries.

• Example: “You are a virtual assistant specialized in generating reports, workflows, and marketing content. Your role is to guide users through prompts, help them manage data, and provide actionable insights.”

Best Practice: Clearly state the purpose of the CoPilot in the system prompt to ensure it stays aligned with user needs throughout the interaction.

2. Set the Desired Tone and Style

Determine how CoPilot should engage with users—whether formal, casual, or somewhere in between. This ensures consistency in its responses.

• Example: “Maintain a professional but approachable tone. Avoid using technical jargon unless specifically requested by the user, and ensure your responses are clear and actionable.”

Best Practice: Match the tone to the intended audience, whether it’s business professionals, casual users, or technical experts.

3. Provide Instructions on Handling User Queries

Equip CoPilot with strategies for managing different types of user input, such as vague or incomplete requests. Guide it to clarify when necessary.

• Example: “If the user’s request is unclear or lacks details, ask follow-up questions to clarify their goals before proceeding. Always confirm your understanding before generating the final response.”

Best Practice: Train CoPilot to guide users toward more specific prompts by asking clarifying questions and providing examples.

4. Maximize Use of FormWise’s Data Features

In FormWise, CoPilot can interact with a variety of data formats to enhance user interactions. You can upload CSV files, PDFs, and even scrape URLs. Ensure CoPilot is trained to handle these different data types appropriately:

• For CSV Files: “When provided with a CSV file, analyze the data, identify trends, and generate a summary. For instance, if the CSV contains sales data, summarize revenue growth or top-performing products.”

• For PDFs: “Extract key sections from attached PDFs, summarizing relevant points such as insights or recommendations.”

• For URL Scraping: “Scrape data from the attached URL, focusing on the required information like product reviews, competitor pricing, or recent articles.”

Best Practice: When designing the system prompt, specify how CoPilot should handle each data type, ensuring it pulls relevant and useful information.

5. Enable Optional URL Scraping and Internet Search

In FormWise, you can enable URL scraping so that CoPilot can access and extract information from URLs provided by the user. Additionally, you can enable CoPilot to perform internet searches (Google) to retrieve live information when requested. Both features are optional and can be toggled on or off.

• Example Prompt for URL Scraping: “When the user provides a URL, scrape the data from the page, focusing on the specified content (e.g., product information, market analysis). If scraping is not possible, notify the user.”

• Example Prompt for Internet Search: “If internet search is enabled, conduct a Google search based on the user’s query, and summarize the most relevant information from reliable sources.”

Best Practice: Ensure CoPilot is aware of these capabilities and guides the user on how to provide URLs or internet search requests effectively. Specify guardrails for what kind of data to pull from online sources.

6. Choose the AI Engine that Powers CoPilot

FormWise allows you to select the AI engine that powers your CoPilot, giving you flexibility based on the complexity of the tasks. Choose an engine that best suits your project’s needs, whether it’s focused on creative writing, technical tasks, or conversational responses.

• Example: “Select an AI engine that best aligns with your CoPilot’s needs. For complex technical or research-heavy queries, opt for a more advanced model, while simpler conversational interactions may require a more lightweight engine.”

Best Practice: Select the AI engine that matches the tasks your CoPilot is likely to encounter, ensuring both efficiency and accuracy.

7. Enable Conversation Starters Instead of Canned Intros

FormWise also allows you to enable conversation starters that the user can pick rather than relying on a static introduction. This creates a more personalized and fluid interaction for users right from the beginning.

8. Empower CoPilot to Handle Iterations and Follow-ups

CoPilot should encourage iterative interaction, helping users refine their prompts or requests over time. This builds a more dynamic and productive workflow for users.

• Prompt Instruction Example: “If the user isn’t satisfied with the initial result, ask them to clarify or refine the prompt. Offer suggestions for improving the output, and provide iterative responses based on their feedback.”

Best Practice: Make CoPilot capable of handling multiple rounds of feedback, improving outputs with each user interaction to ensure better results.

10. Maintain Ethical Guardrails and Sensitivity

Set up your CoPilot with clear rules on how to handle sensitive, inappropriate, or harmful content. This ensures a safe, productive interaction for all users.

• Example: “If a user submits an inappropriate or harmful request, respond by politely declining and offering alternative suggestions. Reinforce respectful interaction and redirect to constructive tasks.”

Best Practice: Build ethical guardrails into the system prompt to prevent CoPilot from generating or engaging with inappropriate or harmful content.

Leveraging FormWise’s CoPilot Features for Enhanced User Experience

FormWise’s unique CoPilot features empower creators to build highly customized and data-driven virtual assistants:

• Upload Data: You can upload CSV files and PDFs for CoPilot to analyze and generate insights from.

• Enable URL Scraping: CoPilot can scrape content from URLs provided by the user, making it easier to work with live, web-based data.

• Internet Search: If enabled, CoPilot can also perform real-time Google searches to retrieve and summarize relevant information.

• Choose AI Engine: Select the AI engine that best suits your needs, ensuring the CoPilot is optimized for the task at hand.

Conversation Starters: Instead of starting every conversation with a canned intro, enable common conversation starters to engage users more effectively.