Alterations – A Hidden Gem In QnA Maker
January 15th, 2020QnA Maker has many features: Active Learning, Multi Turn Questions, and one-click bot publishing. But there's a hidden feature available only through the API: Alterations. These are synonym lists that make your QnA Maker smarter with less training.
Why alterations matter for non-English bots
QnA Maker is pre-trained with English synonyms. For other languages, synonym coverage is limited. Adding well-chosen alterations — for example, mapping 'GDPR' to 'AVG' in Dutch, or 'auto' to 'wagen' — significantly reduces the number of alternative questions you need to add to your knowledge base.
How to add them via the API
Use the REST API PUT endpoint at {Endpoint}/qnamaker/v4.0/alterations with your Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key. The body contains a wordAlterations array of synonym groups. Note: this replaces all existing alterations and applies across all knowledge bases in your QnA Maker service.
Note - QnA Maker retired on 31 October 2025
QnA Maker was retired on 31 October 2025. Its successor is custom question answering in Azure AI Language. Synonyms (the alterations equivalent) work much the same way — the principles in this article still hold.
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