An agent only knows what you explicitly give it. It reads the Odoo records its Access Rights allow and, when it is serving a signed-in member of staff, anything that person can already see. It does not read files at random. This page explains the two document-access controls and where to find them.

Both controls live on the same screen: open an agent from the AI Agents list, then click the Documents tab.

This Agent’s Documents

The top section of the Documents tab lists the files the agent can draw from when answering questions. Documents are chunked, embedded, and retrieved at answer time — they do not change the agent’s instructions.

⚠  Only PDF files can be indexed into an agent’s knowledge base. Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and image files upload successfully and appear in the Odoo Documents app, but they are never added to the agent’s knowledge — the agent will not quote from them. The confirmation message after uploading tells you how many files were skipped and why. However, the skipped file never appears in the Ingestion Log afterwards — so if you come back later, there is nothing to find. Linked documents (URLs rather than uploaded files) are also skipped. If you need to add a non-PDF file, convert it to PDF first.

There are three ways to add documents. The first two are in the Add Documents modal:

•  Upload new files — upload a file directly from your computer.

•  Select existing documents — pick files already in your Odoo Documents app. No need to re-upload.

•  Subscribe via tag — choose a Documents tag in the Knowledge Tags field on the Documents tab and save. Every PDF carrying that tag is included automatically, now and in the future, and a file that loses the tag is taken out again.

Readable on Someone Else’s Behalf

The bottom section of the Documents tab controls a different scenario: when the agent serves someone who has no Documents access of their own — typically a portal user or website visitor. Internal staff who already have their own access are unaffected; the agent serves them as themselves.

When the agent opens a document through this mechanism to answer a specific question, it reads a wider range of formats than the knowledge base above — including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Odoo spreadsheets. The PDF-only limit does not apply here. This means the same PowerPoint file that is refused by the top half of this tab can be read by the bottom half, which will otherwise look like a bug.

•  Allowed Folders — which document folders the agent may open on behalf of these users.

•  Allowed Documents — which individual files the agent may access.

If both are left empty, the agent cannot read any documents on behalf of users without access. This is the safe default.

ℹ  The Documents tab is covered in full detail on Giving an agent documents, including every field, every button, and troubleshooting for common problems. This page explains the concept; refer to that page for the step-by-step.