Where does bot framework stores dialog stack? My bot started to act strangely since couple of days. It seems that the bot is stuck in a dialog and is not willing to let go whatever the user says. Even resetting the stack doesn't work.
Does the dialog stack has to do something with the bot state service? Which will be soon deprecated?
The issue was resolved after implementing custom state service with Azure Cosmos DB as described here. - Manage custom state data with Azure Cosmos DB for .NET
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I am currently looking at using Microsoft Web Chat to interact with my existing Node Js application built on MS Bot Framework Core but uses DialogFlow as NLU.
Current implementation: Web Page -> Custom UI Widget -> Connects to Node.js app built on MS Botframework Core -> Queries DialogFlow NLU to identify Intent -> Node.js app constructs the Dialog -> Gives response to user.
Looking at the Web Chat component, I cannot find references using any other NLU except Azure Bot Service. Is it mandatory to use Azure Bot Service/LUIS NLU to integrate with Web Chat?
I have also looked at offline-directline npm module but the last dev on the module is more than 3 years ago.
Firstly, responding with a quick message about using offline-directline, you should feel reasonably comfortable with it. It is a few years old, but seems to stand the test of time with continued use and little in the way of issues that I have heard.
Another option would be to use a 'browser bot'. In this scenario, the bot is contained within the hosting page's html/scripts. So, there is no reliance on using Direct Line. I don't know your whole setup, so this may or may not align with your overall needs and architecture.
As for using Web Chat with something other than the Azure Bot Service, this would be an uphill battle. In theory, this is probably achievable to some degree. The issue is that Web Chat is heavily integrated with the BotFramework-DirectLineJS library. You might be able to cherry pick specific components from Web Chat, replace the Direct Line library with a make of your own, and modify the remaining code to work with your 'service'. But, I'm not certain the effort is worth it. That is something you would have to decide for yourself.
If you do go this direction, you will likely need to configure your 'service' to send messages that conform to the BotFramework schemas when communicating with Web Chat. Even without the dependency on Direct Line for connecting to the service, much of Web Chat is still oriented towards what an incoming message looks like (i.e. a BotFramework Activity) and handling it according to the properties it contains.
To start, here are a few areas you should review in order to correctly configure you service to handle inbound and outbound messages going to and coming from Web Chat:
BotFramework Activity schema
BotFramework Card schema
BotFramework Transcript schema
Web Chat's Activity, Card, Attachments, etc. Types - at present, these are loosely defined. I would expect that to change at some point in the future which may prove to be a changing break in your specific scenario.
This is not exhaustive and would require greater research as there are likely other considerations than the few I've listed above. But, again, this may not be necessary if you decide to utilize offline-directline.
I am developing a customer service chatbot, using Azure's Bot Framework in .NET, using the the Messenger channel. I wanted to know if anyone knows what the best way to handle the handoff to a human on Zendesk (which my platform already uses as its CRM platform). I'm not looking for when to do the handoff, but how to manage what happens next.
What I would love to be able to do would be that so when handoff is needed, a ticket on Zendesk would be created, sending for example a file (the transcript of the conversation so far). Then the agent would be able to solve the customer's problem in that ticket, having a conversation with him, having the bot sending messages back and forth between zendesk and messenger.
I don't know if this has been done before, or if it's at all possible. And I'm free to other solutions to the problem of handling this kind of handoff, without having to create a separate "chat" for the customer service agents to use, like it's explained on the azure documentation.
Thank you for your patience while I researched this. I found this resource that I believe will meet your needs. This functionality is built off of the Bot Framework utilizing .NET (it's also available for Nodejs). There are two available methods to connect a client to an agent.
The first (which should apply to you) aggregates different channels into one allowing an agent to pickup in the same channel where the bot handed off. The second opens a new channel when an agent joins the conversation.
Intermediator Bot
I was able to spin up a bot using this and confirmed the bot was listening for outside traffic.
Hope this helps.
Steve.
One thing that I'm about to try is this:
Bot conversation ends.
Bot service calls an Azure Function, passing the conversation content.
The Azure Function integrates with Trello API, creating an entry on a Kanban board.
So, instead of Trello as I want to do, you can make a call to the Zendesk API.
I'm writing a few articles about developing Azure bots. The next two actually are dealing with these very things. You can find out more here. sign up if you'd like to get notified over the next week or so when the new tutorials are online.
Hope that helps!
Tim
I have developed a small bot using Microsoft Bot Framework. I have deployed it to Azure as an App Service and hooked numerous channels to it. DirectLine, Skype, Facebook and Telegram. Everything worked as expected. I then updated my code to a new distinctly different dialog and republished to Azure from Visual Studio. Now I am seeing strange behavior. My DirectLine channel, my embedded WebChat and the emulator picked up the new bot. My Facebook channel, Skype channel and Telegram channel are still playing the old bot. Any hints what might be causing this? Is Microsoft hosting replicas of my bot? I have restarted everything and even deleted and recreated the App Service, but to no avail.
Tilo
You have probably started conversations on the channels where you still have the old version. The BotState is preserved even after code modification.
If you want to manually reset the conversation's dialog stack and state during development of your bot, you can use the /deleteprofile command to delete state data. Make sure to include the leading space in this command, to prevent the channel from interpreting it.
After your bot has been deployed to production, you can version your bot data so that if you bump the version, the associated state data is cleared. With the Bot Builder SDK for Node.js, this can be accomplished using middleware and with the Bot Builder SDK for .NET, this can be accomplished using an IPostToBot implementation.
More details on the documentation here
I'm looking at using the Bot Framework (https://docs.botframework.com) is it possible to register a bot programmatically e.g via service? I see there are Azure bots but still don't see a way to register via service?
At the moment you have to manually log into the portal to register the bot and obtain your keys. There has not been any indication from Microsoft that this will change in future.
from what I know about the goals of the dev team, since this is a highly requested feature, we will probably see this in action in future version of the bot framework.
But no kind of timeline yet for this feature.
I want to create a bot, but I am confused what is exactly Bot Framework and Azure Bot service? Can anyone explain in detail?
The best way to understand the difference is going through the docs. The Azure Bot Service documentation is available here.
In a nutshell, Azure Bot Service provides a set of templates to get started with the creation of Bots and accelerate the development since it provides an integrated environment. Of course, the templates that it creates are based on the BotFramework. With Azure Bot Service, you can even code your bot directly from the Azure Portal Editor, from the comfort of your browser.
If you don't want to start with Azure right way, and want to develop your Bot locally first, etc, you might want to use the BotFramework builder bits; but as I said; once you se Azure Bot Service, you are able to download the generated bot and continue the development from your machine if you want.
Admittedly you asked your question a year and a half ago, but in early 2018 it seems as though Microsoft uses the two terms interchangeably for one product.
Take, for example the documentation link from the bot framework home page, the title of this page is Bot Service Documentation:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/bot-framework/
Also, in the Azure pricing calculator only Azure Bot Service is listed (under both "Analytics" and "AI + Machine Learning"). "Azure Bot Service" is what appears on the invoice.
Finally, when you go to create a new resource and search for "bot" the only related items that you will see are for Azure Bot Service, there is no mention of Azure Bot Framework there either.
Bot Framework - is comprised of an open-source SDK and tools for end-to-end bot development.
Azure Bot Services - a cloud platform that hosts bots, helps you manage, connect, and deploy your bot across devices and popular channels
Bot Framework Service - a component of Azure Bot Service, that responsible to sending the info between the app and the channel
Microsoft Bot Service SDK