Why testing matters
You want to catch a wrong answer, a broken branch or a missing piece of knowledge before a customer does. Two things make that easy, and they are not the same thing: one screen tells you whether the AI has your content at all, and the widget preview lets you talk to it. Start with the first — most "the AI gave a bad answer" reports turn out to be content that never reached it.
First, check what the AI actually stored
Open Brand → Knowledge, the one screen listing everything your brand knows. Every source has a Status and an Indexed number, and between them they answer the question before you ask it:
- Ready — stored and searchable. This is what you want.
- Not indexed — nothing was stored from it, so the AI cannot answer from it at all.
- Reading… — we are still working through it. Wait and refresh.
- Failed — we could not read it. Hover the status to see why.
- Warning — read, but not cleanly. Hover for the reason.
The Indexed column is how many searchable pieces the AI stored from that source. A dash means nothing was stored. One article usually becomes several pieces, and only published articles count — a draft is invisible to the AI. You can filter the table by status, and if anything failed its last read, a warning appears when the page loads.
Preview Vex in the chat widget
- Go to Brand → Chat widget.
- On a wide screen the live preview is already open beside the settings. In a narrower window, switch to it with the Preview / Settings button in the page header — on a phone that button sits inside the ⋯ menu.
- Your real chat widget appears. Write a message as if you were a visitor.
- Vex answers from the brand's actual knowledge, exactly as it would on your site.
Be aware that this is the genuine widget, not a simulation. Whatever you write there becomes a real conversation in your inbox, and a real AI answer that counts towards your usage — so keep test chats short, and delete them afterwards if they clutter the view.
What to check while you are in there
- Does it answer correctly, and does it link back to the right article?
- Does it refuse questions it should be able to answer? That points back to the Knowledge page.
- Does it behave the way you intended when it finds nothing? That is set on Vex → Personality → Answers, under When the AI Doesn't Know the Answer, which offers two choices: Politely decline (recommended) and Offer to connect with a human. The second one is greyed out until Automatic Agent Handoff is switched on, one tab over on Agent Handoff.
- Does it hand over to a person at the right moment, and does the handoff message read the way you want?
There is no preview for a workflow
Scripted workflows have no preview anywhere in the dashboard. The way to test one is to switch it on and open the widget yourself — on a staging page, or on a page where the widget is already installed. Then walk the whole thing:
- Click every button and answer every question, following each branch to its end.
- Test branching steps both ways — the "yes" path and the "no" path.
- Check that collected fields validate properly (email format, required fields).
- Confirm the request-agent step really does reach a person.
If the workflow runs on other channels, test it there too
The Channels column on Brand → Workflows shows where each script can run. If it says Facebook, Instagram or phone, test it on those as well — a Form step silently makes a workflow unavailable on Facebook and Instagram, and a Form, Link, Buttons, Reply-time, Request-agent, Collect-data or Ask-question step makes it unavailable on a phone call. Hovering the column tells you exactly which step is in the way.
Test on a real page
For the most realistic run, install the Yaplet snippet on a staging site and open the widget in a fresh browser tab as a visitor would. This is the only way to catch triggers that depend on the page address, time on the page or visitor data — none of which the preview can reproduce.
Next step
Found a gap? Fill it with Add knowledge to your brand. Happy with the results? Turn Vex AI and workflows on or off shows you the switches.