Creating an application

Applications help you organize your AI assistants, documents, and workflows. Here's how to create one.

Prerequisites

You need to have a Docana account with appropriate permissions to create applications. Contact your organization administrator if you don't have access to the Applications section.

Video tutorial

Creating a new application in Docana

Step 1: Create a new application

1. Go to platform.docana.com and sign in
2. Click Applications in the sidebar
3. Click + Create Application (top right corner)

Open an application from the list, or select Create Application to start another.

Step 2: Fill in the form

The form asks for these, in this order:

1. Application Type: how people will interact with it. Assistant is the chat interface most applications want. The other three are Document Insights (labeled Documents Insights in the picker), Search, and Recommendations (beta). See Applications for what each one is right for.

2. Name: Pick a name that describes what the application does (for example "Customer Support", "Sales Automation", "Document Processing").

3. Instructions: the context, objectives, and requirements the application works under. Be specific, and give examples. This is the standing brief every agent inside the application reads.

4. Group (optional): the group the application belongs to, for keeping a long list organized.

5. Persona and tone of voice (optional): how the application sounds when it talks to people. Neutral keeps the standard voice. Give your application a voice below covers this in full.

6. Select Knowledge: tick the collections this application may read. It sees these and nothing else, so a customer-facing assistant can answer from your help docs while staying blind to internal files. You can change this later in the application's Knowledge settings.

7. Members (optional): the people who can use the application, and who can change it.

Choose an application type, enter its name, and write the instructions. This example creates a Documentation Assistant.

Click Create to finish.

Step 3: What's next

After creating your application, open it from the application list. Use Assistant to ask questions or Settings to choose knowledge and other options:

Open Settings to manage knowledge, members, channels, and other application options.

In your application:

• Create and manage AI agents (in the Agents section)
• Set up templates (in the Templates section)
• Search documents and use the Assistant (in the Assistant section)
• Manage uploaded files (in the Uploads section)
• Manage members and permissions (in the Members section)
• Set up integrations (in the Integrations section)
• Configure settings, persona and tone of voice, knowledge sources, uploads, and MCP servers (in the Settings section)

Company-wide:

• Organize collections and libraries or use Enterprise Search
• Manage users and teams at Company Users and Company Teams
• Set up integrations and MCP servers at Developer Integrations and MCP Servers

Give your application a voice

By default, every application speaks in Docana's standard voice. The persona setting changes that. Pick one of 22 presets, and the assistant, the agents, and every channel (web, widget, WhatsApp, Slack, Teams, and voice calls) will answer in that voice.

There are two groups of presets. Voice styles describe how the application sounds: Professional, Friendly, Direct, Empathetic, Witty, Concise, and so on. Use-case presets are tuned for the roles most applications play: Customer Support, Sales, Healthcare, IT Helpdesk, HR, and Financial Services. Neutral is the default, and it keeps the exact voice you have today.

The persona gallery in the application's Settings, with voice styles and use-case presets

You can pick a persona while creating the application, or any time later in the application's Settings, under Persona. That page also lets you fine tune the voice with six trait sliders (formality, warmth, humor, energy, detail, and emoji), add free-text voice notes such as "always greet returning customers by name", and preview a sample reply in the selected voice.

Fine tune the voice with trait sliders, voice notes, and a live preview

The persona changes how the application communicates, not what it knows or does. Your instructions still define the behavior, and a persona never overrides them.

Managing applications

From the Applications list, you can:

• Open: Click an application name to access its features
• Edit: Click the edit icon to change name, description, or settings
• Delete: Click the delete icon to remove permanently

danger

Deleting an application removes everything: agents, collections, and all data. You can't undo this.

Best practices

1. Use clear names: Pick names that show what the application does (e.g., "HR Document Management", "Customer Onboarding").

2. Organize by function: Create separate applications for different departments or functions. This keeps things organized.

3. Set permissions: Give team members the right level of access. Manage users at Company Users and teams at Company Teams. You can also manage members within your application.

4. Add descriptions: Use the description field to explain what the application does. This helps your team and helps agents work better.

5. Clean up: Review your applications regularly. Remove ones you're not using.

Next steps

• Creating a Library: Organize your documents in knowledge libraries
• Creating a Collection: Add collections to organize documents within libraries
• Creating an Agent: Create AI agents in your application
• Creating a Template: Set up templates for document generation