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Backing up and restoring data

Documentation for the classic Watson Assistant experience has moved. For the most up-to-date version, see Backing up and restoring data.

Backing up and restoring data

Back up and restore your data by downloading, and then uploading the data.

You can download the following data from a Watson Assistant service instance:

  • Dialog skill training data (intents and entities)
  • Dialog skill dialog
  • Actions skill

You cannot download the following data:

  • Search skill
  • Assistant, including any configured integrations

Retaining logs

If you want to store logs of conversations that users have had with your assistant, you can use the /logs API to export your log data. See API reference for details.

To get the workspace ID for a skill, from the skill tile, click the open and close list of options icon, and then choose View API Details.

Logs are stored for a different amount of time depending on your service plan. For example, Lite plans provide logs from the past 7 days only. See Log limits for more information.

You cannot import logs from one skill into another skill.

Downloading a skill

To back up actions or dialog skill data, download the skill as a JSON file, and store the JSON file.

  1. Find the actions or dialog skill tile on the Skills page or on the configuration page of an assistant that uses the skill.

  2. Click the open and close list of options icon, and then choose Download.

  3. Specify a name for the JSON file and where to save it, and then click Save.

Alternatively, you can use the /workspaces API to export a dialog skill. Include the export=true parameter with the GET workspace request. See the API reference for more details.

Uploading a skill

To reinstate a backup copy of an actions or dialog skill that you exported from another service instance or environment, create a new skill by importing the JSON file of the skill you exported.

If the Watson Assistant service changes between the time you export the skill and import it, due to functional updates which are regularly applied to instances in cloud-hosted continuous delivery environments, your imported skill might function differently than it did before.

  1. Click the Skills icon Skills menu icon.

  2. Click Create skill.

  3. Choose to create either an actions or dialog skill, then click Next.

  4. Select the JSON file you want to import.

    The imported JSON file must use UTF-8 encoding, without byte order mark (BOM) encoding. The JSON file cannot contain tabs, newlines, or carriage returns.

    The maximum size for a skill JSON file is 10MB. If you need to import a larger skill, consider using the REST API. For more information, see the API Reference.

  5. Click Upload.

    If you have trouble uploading a skill, see Troubleshooting skill import issues.

  6. Specify the details for the skill:

    • Name: A name no more than 100 characters in length. A name is required.
    • Description: An optional description no more than 200 characters in length.
    • Language: The language of the user input the skill will be trained to understand. The default value is English.

After you create the skill, it appears as a tile on the Skills page.

Re-creating your assistant

You can now re-create your assistant. You can then link your uploaded skills to the assistant, and configure integrations for it.

Update your client applications

When you import a dialog skill that you exported, a new skill is created. The new skill has a new workspace ID. If you have existing client applications that use the v1 API to access this skill, then you must update any workspace ID references to use the new worskpace ID instead.

When you re-create your assistant, it is given a new assistant ID. If you have existing client applications that use the v2 API to access the assistant, then you must update any assistant ID references to use the new assistant ID instead.