How to design a conversational flow with Bot Designer?
Botmaker has implemented a new interface that will allow you to create conversational flows in a simpler and more intuitive way. Thus, you will be able to visualize your conversations more easily. It will also be possible to test your bot to make changes and confirm the final version of your flow in real time.
Estimated reading time: 14 minutes
What is Bot Designer?
The Bot Designer interface allows you to create bots and manage your conversations based on flowcharts that will shape the interaction with your customers. By going to Menu>Chatbots, you can choose which chatbot to create your conversational flow. Remember that the Multibot functionality allows you to have several chatbots specialized by topics (see the Annex section at the end of the article).
Get to know some of the features of the new interface that will improve your experience in designing conversations on the platform:
- Visual and collaborative interface ⚡
Create your bot quickly and automate complex interactions through a flowchart interface. Work collaboratively on your bot and synchronously with different members of your team.
- Artificial intelligence 🤖
The artificial intelligence engine with natural language interpretation will assist you in creating the conversational flow to:
Choose an answer in the case of having more than one valid answer (disambiguation).
Have response options available when the bot does not understand the user’s message.
- Real-time demo 📱
Test your conversation in real time and check if changes are needed before making the final version available to your customers.
- Templates💪
You can create your bot from templates provided by the platform.
Next, in this article you will learn about the following topics:
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What are the flows in Bot Designer?
a. Main flow
b. Disambiaguation flow
c. Flow when the bot does not understand
d. Agent flow
e. Notification flow
f. Video call flows
g. Other flows
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How do I design a flow? Blocks and organization of the main flow and alternative flows: a. Bot response blocks
b. User input blocks (natural language)
c. Action blocks
d. Condition blocks
e. Recommendations
f. Welcome message
g. Additional considerations on Bot Designer
h. Designer tools (map and zoom, center, full screen)
i. Content Search
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How do I test a flow?
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How do I publish a flow?
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How do I create a new chatbot?
- Annex: Multibot and Master Bot in the Bot Designer interface
- What are the flows in Bot Designer?
The chatbot will be in charge of responding to your users. To do this, you will have to design the main flow: a diagram composed of different response blocks (texts, images, actions, and conditions) that will shape the interaction with the user.
You can also design alternative flows, such as what the bot will say when it does not understand something.
Once you select the chatbot in which you want to create your conversational flow, you will see the following screen, where two main sections are highlighted with a drop-down menu:
- Chatbot: You can move through the different chatbots and select the one you want to work on its configuration.
2. Flow: It divides the different sections of the conversation, allowing you to define actions to be performed according to the chosen flow. There are six flows:
a. Main flow: shows the general conversational flow to interact with the user according to the purpose of the chatbot: queries for a specific product, after-sales, customer service, online sales, regional bot, etc. This is the most important flow.
In the Main flow, you will see the conversation start box or text block:
The conversation start and welcome blocks are predefined and cannot be deleted. As shown in the image, the Conversation starter block marks the beginning of the main flow.
In the following image, you can see how the welcome message is configured. This message is the one that will be displayed to the user when the conversation starts.
b. Disambiguation flow: allows the design of reply options by the chatbot when the user’s message triggers more than one natural language user input.
c. Flow when the bot does not understand: the flow will display a text block to configure the response that the bot will give when it does not understand the user’s message.
d. Agents flow, divided into:
- User waiting for assistance
- No agents available
- User assigned to an agent
- Close conversation
As an example, in the following screen we select the flow with no agents available and configure the following bot-message:
e. Notifications flow: It activates the notifications flow according to the notifications you have configured in Notifications Engine (Menu>Notifications Engine>Campaigns and Notifications) and the WhatsApp templates (see the document for more details on how to create and send a WhatsApp template and optimize response times) that are configured in the platform (Menu>Notifications Engine>Templates).
In the following image, we select happy_ birthday as a notification.
Bot designer will then allow you to add a specific notification related to the WhatsApp happy_birthday notification.
Video calls, divided into:**
- Send an invitation to video call
- Send voice call invitation
- Send call completion message
The following screen shows a text block for sending a voice call invitation:
Others:
- Previous actions for each message received
- Problems when executing code actions
- User has sent a location
- User has sent a contact
The following screen shows a text block to indicate a problem with code actions.
2. How do I design a flow?
Text blocks:
The blocks/boxes are displayed in a graphical way and are sorted according to the selected flow: main, message when you understand, etc.
| Important: In the whole conversational flow, the green blocks are those waiting for user input, and the blue blocks are the bot responses. |
|---|
Organization of the main flow and alternative flows with user inputs and bot responses
To create your conversational flow, you will need to select the necessary flows that will provide you with different blue** blocks of text, images, and buttons for the chatbot messages and user interactions (green blocks). The main flow is the most relevant to the conversation, but the alternative flows share the same dynamics in terms of input possibilities for bot-user interactions.
Thus, by clicking + on the arrows in the diagram, you can add different blocks.
The blocks are divided into 4 groups:
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Bot response blocks: These are the blue blocks. They include the following:
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Text
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Audio
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Video
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File
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Sticker
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User input blocks: These are the green blocks that refer to the data that the bot requests from the user to carry out the interaction by means of natural language.
They include the following:
- Natural language
- Buttons
- List of options
- Form
- Carrousel
- Action blocks: These are the orange blocks used to add a given action. For example, the action save history within Conversations will save the conversations in a given variable. Another example is the go-to action, which will direct to a part of the flow.
.
For more information on the main actions available on the platform, you can read the following article: How to use actions in responses?
- Condition blocks: These are the yellow blocks used to add a condition that triggers a given response. Conditions have a name to define whether or not the condition is met. If it is met, one flow is executed. If it is not met, another one is executed. For example, if the condition User’s language is Spanish is met, the bot will execute the conversational flow in Spanish. If that condition is not met, a different flow will be executed according to your configuration needs.
Note: To add conditions, there are the categories shown in the image below. Each category comprises different options that allow you to configure data. For example, under Channels>Webchat, the options shown in the image in the red box are available.
Regarding the main variables, you can consult the following article: Main variables
e. Recommendations
When designing the conversational flow, it is convenient to use verbs in the titles. For example, Welcome/ Show the food menu, etc. This way, you will be able to better identify the flow as a whole.
f. Welcome message
It is part of the main flow and is the message that will be displayed to the user at the start of the conversation.
Considerations on the advanced settings of the welcome message
The advanced settings section allows you to include keywords or phrases that will trigger the message flow, as they will be recognized by the bot. Additionally, you can include variations of these words so that the bot will interpret them and trigger the corresponding messages. Thus, there are different groups with different variations and you can select the ones you want.
In the example above, if the user types the word “holu” by mistake, the bot will interpret that he meant to say “hello” and therefore trigger the corresponding messages configured in the welcome message.
g. Additional considerations about Bot Designer
- Play in the text boxes
The interface has a play function in any text box. When you press the icon
, it will play from that box down. You will be able to view the organization of the conversation on the right side of the screen, as shown in the following image:
- Trigger
A phrase that will trigger a specific action or response, meaning the phrase that determines the behavior of the chatbot. Once activated, texts, buttons, images, or a particular action are requested from the user. For example, the trigger “Hello”, will execute the start of the conversation.
h. Designer tools
The Bot Designer interface features interactive tools to simplify the design of chatbots.
- Map and zoom
The map allows you to visually locate yourself within the configuration screen by clicking on the show map icon. Zoom in and zoom out allow you to keep track of the conversation layout. When zoomed out, the map appears automatically.
- Center
By clicking on the circular icon, you can quickly visualize the conversational flow in the center of the screen.
3) Full-screen **
**
Clicking on the square will display the conversation in full-screen mode.
i. Content Search
You can search by term to display the blocks related to that term. In the screen below, we searched for the term tickets, and a result was found.
3. How do I test a flow?
On the right side of the screen, you will find the Test Chat, which allows you to test the conversational flow.
By clicking on the icon 
, you can test your chatbot at any time and from any part of the conversation. It can be displayed on different channels: Webchat, WhatsApp, etc.
4. How do I publish a flow?
Once you have designed your conversation, by clicking on Publish in the upper right corner of the screen, you will be able to view the blocks to be published, as well as the type of block that was created, the author, and the date, time of the last modification and the history of changes made. When publishing, the selected blocks will be visible to your users.
5. How do I create a new chatbot?
By going to Menu>Chatbots, besides choosing which chatbot to create the conversational flow in (if you have already created one), it will be possible to create a chatbot from scratch or use the templates provided by Botmaker. The possibility of using templates is available for both chatbots with intentions and chatbots with flowcharts (new Bot Designer interface). In both cases, you must choose one of the options.
Once you select the type of chatbot, when you click on it, the option to use a template or not will be displayed.
The example below shows the creation of a chatbot using the Template Español template.
When you click Save, you will see the new chatbot you created with the selected template.
- Annex: Multibot and Master Bot in the Bot Designer interface
By going to Menu>Chatbots, you can choose which chatbot to create your conversational flow. Remember that the Multibot feature allows you to have several chatbots specialized by topics, and build the ones you need according to a specific need. You can check more details here: Multibot: multiple bots to sort and prioritize your conversations. Likewise, the different chatbots you create can be managed from the Flow Manager tool. For more details, see the following document: What is Master Bot?
Optimize the creation of your conversations
Bot Designer will take the organization of your conversations to another level through a more visual and intuitive interface, allowing you to make changes and configurations in a simple way.
Optimize the creation of your conversational flow with Bot Designer and easily modify it according to your needs!
Remember to visit our Help Center for further information.
Written by: Botmaker Team
Updated: 11/24/2022