Building a Spark
The scenario flow, state actions, transitions, character settings and knowledge base behind a Spark.
spark.siminsights.com lists the Sparks that you own or that are shared with you. Create New, top right, starts one. The My Sparks dropdown switches to Sparks other people have shared with you. On each row, the pencil opens the editor, the play button experiences it as a learner would, and the three dots share or delete it.
Scenario Flow
The scenario flow controls the order of events. It is a graph of states: each one holds state actions that fire when the learner arrives, and transitions that decide when they move on.
Set Data
Creates the AI character: name, profile picture and voice.
Speak
A scripted line from that character.
Narration
A line belonging to no character. It appears differently in the chat panel.
Display Message
A popup, usually used to introduce the scenario. It stays in the chat history so the learner can look back at it. Markdown is supported.
Change Character Prompt
Swaps the instructions the character is running on.
Add Feedback Log
Sets what the learner sees when they end the Spark. See Scoring and feedback.
Reset chat
Clears the chat history. Worth doing straight after changing the character prompt, so the character has no memory of what came before.
Transitions:
Voice intent moves on when the learner's input contains one of the phrases you list.
Wait moves on after a set time.
AI Settings
AI Behavior is the character: its picture, name and prompt.
Character voice comes from Google or ElevenLabs. Google is faster and free; ElevenLabs sounds more natural.
Enable AI Chat is always on in a Spark, because the chat box always uses AI Chat. This setting cannot be changed.
Language Model picks which model runs the conversation: GPT-4o mini, GPT-4, GPT-4o or Gemini. See Large Language Models & Data Privacy.
Chunk Response streams the reply as it is written instead of waiting for the whole thing.
Enable PDF Context lets the character use documents you upload under Knowledge Base.
Agents
Agents analyze the conversation and produce outputs. They run when the learner ends the conversation. Their outputs fill feedback templates and, when scoring is enabled, write to user-attribute scores. See Scoring and feedback.
Knowledge Base
PDFs the character can refer to during the conversation. Upload them here, and turn on Enable PDF Context under AI Settings, or they are ignored.
Appearance
Layout is either Background with chat, which puts a scenario image behind the chat panel, or Chat full-screen, which is the chat alone. The background is a PNG or JPG up to 8MB.
Settings
Turn microphone input on or off. This is the difference between a Spark a learner can speak to and one they can only type in.
Publishing
The top bar of the editor shows a Saved indicator, then help, share and save icons, the Open experience button and a close button. Open experience plays the Spark as a learner would, on spark.siminsights.com in a new tab.
A Spark is published when you play it once. Playing it generates a public link, and until you do, nobody outside the editor can open it.
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