Most people who put a Docutrain assistant on their own site do it in the wrong order. They build the embed, paste the snippet, load the page, and get a login wall instead of a chat box. The cause is almost never the embed. It is one setting on the document, and it is worth settling before you copy any code.
Check the access level first
Every sharing and embedding method delivers visitors to the same chat experience, so the document's access level decides whether those visitors can actually chat. When the document is not public, the Share & Embed card shows a warning banner reading This document is not public, with a badge naming the current level and guidance specific to it.
| Access level | What the warning tells you |
|---|---|
| Registered Users Only | Viewers are prompted to sign in before they can chat. Anonymous visitors arriving through embeds or share links hit a login wall. |
| Passcode Required | Viewers must enter the document passcode first. Share it separately, or use a tokenized share link from a collection if one is available. |
| Owner Group Only | Only signed-in users granted access to your owner group can chat. Public share and embed methods will not work for outside visitors. |
| Owner Admins Only | Only owner administrators can chat. Share and embed methods will not work for anyone else. |
To make a document available to anyone who visits the link, scans the QR code, or uses an embed, set its access level to Public. Public access is itself a plan feature and is not available on the Free plan. See access levels explained and plans and limits.
Sharing by link and QR code
Open the document in the editor and go to Embed & Share. The first tab of the Share & Embed card is QR Code, and it gives you two things.
Share URL is a direct link to the document chat, with Copy URL beside it. If your organization has an active custom domain, share links are generated on that domain; otherwise Docutrain issues a short link on its own short-link domain. The QR code encodes the same link, for printed material, posters, and slides. Download QR Code saves it as a high-resolution image, and the code updates automatically if the document's web address changes.
Three embed types in the editor
The Embed & Share tab offers three formats, all of which work by copying a small snippet and pasting it into your page. Nothing else is required on the Docutrain side.
| Type | Best for | How it appears |
|---|---|---|
| Button | Landing pages and content sites | A call-to-action button; clicking it opens the chat in a fullscreen slide-in panel |
| Inline | Help pages and knowledge-base sections | The full chat interface sits directly in your page layout |
| API | Fully custom interfaces built by your developers | Whatever your team builds |
The Button tab has a Live Preview and a handful of options: Button Color (default blue), CTA Button Text (default "Chat with AI Assistant"), a Show Document Title toggle that is off by default, Title Text, and Title Position — Above Button, Below Button, or Beside Button (Horizontal). When the preview looks right, use Copy Code next to Embed Code.
The Inline tab drops the chat into the page with no button or bubble. It is a streamlined version without the footer or the document switcher, so it stays focused on one document. The snippet includes a sized frame your web team can adjust for width, height, and maximum width.
The API tab is a ready-made example for developers connecting directly to a document's assistant, including live streaming of answers. Programmatic access is an Unlimited plan capability. If you just want chat on a page, the other two options require no development work.
How embeds behave on your site
All embed formats load the real Docutrain chat inside your page, so visitors get references, keyword suggestions, downloads, and your branding without leaving your site. Close controls inside the chat close the panel or widget around it. That works on any website regardless of domain, with messages accepted only from Docutrain's own address for safety.
Saved embeds and the Embeds tab
Floating chat bubbles and document galleries are built somewhere else: the dashboard's Embeds tab, in the Content group of the sidebar. Its intro line explains the point — each embed keeps its own settings, and editing one updates every page that uses it, with no re-pasting.
The tab appears for owner admins on plans that include the embed widget, meaning Business and higher, and for super admins. Creating and publishing are plan-gated. If a plan lapses, already-published embeds keep serving, but you can only list, switch off, and delete.
Under Saved Embeds you get a search box, a Create Embed button, and columns for Embed, Type, Target, Key, Status, Updated, Code, and Actions. Status is the one that matters day to day:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Draft | Created but never published. Its snippet renders nothing. |
| Published | Live — the snippet serves this configuration. |
| Unpublished changes | Live, but you have saved edits that are not serving yet. |
| Inactive | Switched off until reactivated. |
Row actions are Copy embed code (disabled on drafts, since a draft's key resolves to nothing), Duplicate embed (a draft copy with a brand-new key), Edit embed, and Delete embed. Deleting is permanent and destroys the key for good — it can never be reissued, so any snippet already pasted on a website stops working. For the same reason a document cannot be moved to a different owner while saved embeds point at it.
Create Embed asks for a Name ("Only you see this") and What should it show?: Document gallery, or Chat bubble with a Document picker. A bubble's target cannot be changed later; create another embed instead. Collection gallery is shown but not selectable yet. Everything starts as a draft.
Editing opens a modal where changes save automatically as a draft a moment after you stop typing ("Saved as a draft. Publish to update live pages."). Nothing reaches your website until you Publish; Discard changes returns you to what is live. Published changes reach every page carrying the snippet within about a minute.
A chat bubble has an Appearance section (hex colors for Button, Header, and Header text, plus a Screen position of Bottom left or Bottom right) and a Content section (Header text, default "AI Assistant"; an optional Greeting; an optional Avatar image URL; and a Show the document title toggle).
A gallery embed places your library on an external site, fronted by your assistant character's avatar, name, and intro, all of which come from Owner Settings → Chat Assistant (see branding and landing pages). Content filters limit it by Categories, Documents, and Years; categories are matched by identity, so renaming one will not break the embed. Layout & visibility controls the Default view, the Category overview style, collapsible sections, and toggles for the search bar, year filter, heading, intro text, avatar, and document stats. Multi-document chat lets visitors pick up to 20 documents and chat across them. Chat with category adds a control on each category (image tiles, compact tree, or expanded list) that opens a chat scoped to that category's accessible documents; the welcome names the category. With the heading on, a Heading override field accepts {name} to drop in the character's name. The published gallery fetches documents at display time and respects your access rules, so anything hidden from public view stays hidden.
If you configured a floating widget on the old Widget tab or a gallery in Owner Settings, those snippets keep working and their settings were carried over. Both builders are retired, and the old locations now show a pointer card with a Create an embed button.
If your assistants should also reach people who never visit your site, Slack, Telegram and custom domains covers the other half of the integration story.