Components of Bot Platform 2.0

The root folder located at Folders > Bot (v2.0) keeps all the necessary basic Processes required for Bot Platform 2.0 grouped in subfolders.

• The Viber/Telegram/Facebook Receiver Process

• The Main Process

• Event

• The Router Process

• The Send Message Process

• The Configs Foleder

The Viber/Telegram/Facebook Receiver Process

The Viber Receiver, Telegram Receiver, Facebook Receiver processes are located in the folders of each messenger at Folders > Bot (v2.0) > Messengers > {{Messenger Name}}.

These processes are work starting points of each bot: a messenger Webhook connects to the same-messenger-name Receiver process during Bot Platform creation.

The Receiver processes do the following:

• Receives events (messages and files sent, buttons clicked, links followed, etc.) from users.
• Converts received data to the unified standard data structure:
  • channel - the message channel. Available options: telegram, facebook, viber.
  • chat_id - identifier of a chat, user, etc.
  • event - event type.
  • message - message object.
• Transmits the converted data to the Main process.

Note!

If you need to attach another bot to an existing project at Bot Platform, you need to connect a webhook of this bot to the corresponding Receiver process manually:

1. Click the corresponding {{Messenger Name}} Receiver process and then click View details.

2. In the {{Messenger Name}} Receiver pane appeared on the right, go to the Webhook tab.

3. Click the Connect to messenger button. The Connect to messenger dialog box appears.

4. Click the corresponding messenger button. A blank text box field appears in the Connect to messenger dialog box.

5. Enter an access token to the new bot in the text box field and then click ОK.

6. Update the token in the Tokens state diagram. The Task REF should have the token name.

Press the button Connect to the messenger, select the messenger and specify a new token to connect webhook to the process. It is also necessary to update tokens in [token state diagrams] (#tokens). The request REF must be called token.

The Main Process

The Main process receives the converted data from the messengers and runs the initial business logic of the bot before routing tasks to sub-processes.

Input JSON Example

{
    "channel": "viber",
    "chat_id": "12312321",
    "event": "message",
    "message": {
    "type": "text",
    "text": "Lorem ipsum..."
	}
}

Description of the incoming data parameters to the Main process

Description of the event types

An example of data transmission using context.

Viber - viber://pa?chatURI={{public_account_name}}&context={{params}}

Facebook Messenger - http://m.me/{{bot_name}}?ref={{params}}

Telegram - https://telegram.me/{{bot_name}}?start={{params}}

The Router Process

This process fulfills the main logic of processing Bot Platform events. All the event types can be processed here.

The Send Message Process

This process is responsible for sending messages to users. It receives text templates, attachments, and argument values to compose them together dynamically into a single ready-for-sending message. Also, it does message localization.

Description of outcoming message parameters of the Send Message process

Input JSON Example

{
	"channel": "viber",
	"chat_id": "12345...",
	"text_id": "main_text",
	"attachment_id": "main_keyboard"
}

Input JSON Example (Dynamic attachment)

{
    "channel": "viber",
    "chat_id": "12345...",
    "text_id": "exchange_rates",
    "attachment_id": "carousel_pattern",
    "items": [{
            "name": "AED",
            "value": 4.283634
        },
        {
            "name": "AFN",
            "value": 85.711652
        },
        {
            "name": "ALL",
            "value": 126.118624
        },
        ...
        "currentPage": 1
    }

The Configs Folder

To store data, Bot Platform 2.0 has the following State Diagrams:

• Attachments - templates of message attachments are stored in JSON.
• Commands - bindings of commands’ names with processes IDs.
• Localization - texts for content localization.
• Tokens - access tokens to bots in messengers.
• User Profile - users’ profiles received from bots.

The Bot Platform processes interact with the state diagrams using the dynamic construction for data receiving.

Attachments

Along with text messages, the Messengers support various Attachments to the messages, like buttons, keyboards, carousels, and so on.

The Attachments state diagram stores all the objects describing the Attachments. When adding an Attachment to this Diagram, it is recommended to specify the name of Task Refecence according to the target action for which this Attachment will be used, for example, mainMenu for displaying the Main menu, exit for a button to exit the current process, etc.

This value is given in the attachment_id parameter when sending a message to a user.

To send a message with an Attachment to a user, a bot uses the following logic:

1. The Send Message process uses dynamic construction {{conv[{{attachment_state_diagram_id}}].ref[{{attachment_id}}]}} to receive an object that describes all Attachments for all messengers.
2. The attachment parameter gets an Attachment that coincides with the channel parameter.
3. The Attachment is localized. Texts from Localization are put instead of all the {{t'<key>}} variables.
4. Values are dynamically inserted into the Attachment. The values of parameters incoming to the Send Message Process with a Task are put instead of all the {{param}} parameters, which are used in the Attachment description.
5. The composed message is sent to a user.

Example

By default, the Attachments state diagram has samples of ready-made Attachments, for example, mainKeyboard - the main menu keys:

Facebook Messenger:

Viber:

Telegram:

More details on attachment types you can find in the API documentation of each messenger:

• Viber
• Facebook Messenger
• Telegram

Attachment JSON Example:

REF: exit

    {
        "telegram": {
            "type": "inline_keyboard",
            "buttons": [
                [{
                    "text": "🚪 {{t'exit}}",
                    "callback_data": "/exit"
                }]
            ]
        },
        "viber": {
            "type": "keyboard",
            "buttons": [{
                "Columns": 6,
                "Rows": 1,
                "BgColor": "#F3F3F3",
                "Text": "🚪 {{t'exit}}",
                "ActionType": "reply",
                "ActionBody": "/exit",
                "TextVAlign": "middle",
                "TextHAlign": "center",
                "TextSize": "regular",
                "Silent": true
            }]
        },
        "facebook": {
            "type": "quick_replies",
            "buttons": [{
                "content_type": "text",
                "title": "🚪 {{t'exit}}",
                "payload": "/exit"
            }]
        }
    }

How Does Dynamic Attachment Work?

When developing a bot, there is often a need to display data of a homogeneous structure, like a catalog of products, a cart with selected goods, a list of current special offers, etc.

The Send Message Process supports the creation of Attachments using a template for a variable quantity of items.

Adding a Template

Let’s discuss how to add a template using an included-in-attachment template for displaying exchange rates.

JSON Example (Dynamic attachment)

REF: carousel_pattern

 {
     "attachment": {
         "facebook": {
             "type": "carousel",
             "items": [{
                 "title": "{{value}} {{name}}",
                 "subtitle": "1 USD"
             }]
         },
         "viber": {
             "type": "carousel",
             "carouselRows": "1",
             "carouselColumns": "6",
             "items": [{
                 "Columns": 6,
                 "Rows": 1,
                 "ActionType": "reply",
                 "ActionBody": "none",
                 "Text": "1 USD = {{value}} {{name}}",
                 "TextSize": "small",
                 "TextVAlign": "middle",
                 "TextHAlign": "middle",
                 "Silent": true,
                 "BgColor": "#FFFFFF"
             }]
         }
     }
 }

Note! There is no template for Telegram because Telegram does not support this kind of messages.

The items Sourcing Array

For creating a carousel, an array is needed for providing values to the template:

"items": [
    {
        "title": "4.183966 AED",
        "subtitle": "1 USD"
    },
    {
        "title": "85.890287 AFN",
        "subtitle": "1 USD"
    }
]

Converting JSON

When calling the Send Message Process, it is necessary to pass the following parameters:

{
    "attachment_id": "carousel_pattern"
    "items": "items"
    "currentPage": 1
    "disableExitButton": false|true (a flag to show the Exit button)
}

A Code node named createDynamicAttachment does all other necessary actions over an object.

The Send Message Process considers messenger limitations and does corresponding pagination automatically: it breaks the array into pages and adds the navigation buttons. The Exit button is added if disableExitButton = false.

The Converted JSON:

 "message": {
     "quick_replies": [{
         "content_type": "text",
         "title": "🚪 Exit",
         "payload": "/exit"
     }],
     "attachment": {
         "type": "template",
         "payload": {
             "template_type": "generic",
             "elements": [
                {
                     "title": "4.183966 AED",
                     "subtitle": "1 USD"
                 },
                 {
                     "title": "85.890287 AFN",
                     "subtitle": "1 USD"
                 },
                 ...
             ]
         }
     }
 }

Examples of Displaying:

Facebook Messenger:

Viber:

Commands

Clicking a bot button initiates a command. To enable this button to launch a Corezoid Process, you need to bind the name of this command name with the ID of this Process.

The Router Process uses the command name to retrive a value of the process_id parameter of a Task from the Commands state diagram and launches the process.

Note! The task REF should have the exact same name and letters case as your command, for example: /changeLanguage.

JSON Example

REF: /changeLanguage

{
	"process_id": "12345"
}

Localization

The Localization state diagram stores all texts of all messages and attachments in one Task:

Task example:

REF: localization

    {
        "/exit": {
            "en": "Exit",
            "ru": "Выход",
            "ua": "Вихід"
        },
        "mainMenu": {
            "en": "Main Menu",
            "ru": "Главное меню",
            "ua": "Головне меню"
        },
        "no": {
            "en": "No",
            "ru": "Нет",
            "ua": "Ні"
        },
        "yes": {
            "en": "Yes",
            "ru": "Да",
            "ua": "Так"
        },
        ...
    }

This approach enables to:

1. Manage all bot texts from one place.
2. Send messages by only specifying a key of the necessary text in the localization object.
3. Localize bot interface. By default, the texts are in the en, ru and ua, languages, but any language can be added.

To send a text message, you need to specify the key name key from the localization task as a value of the text_id parameter.

Example. To send the Main menu to a bot, you need to provide the Send Message process with the following parameters and values:

{
    "attachment_id": "mainKeyboard",
    "channel": "viber",
    "chat_id": "...",
    "text_id": "mainMenu"
}

For localization, attachments should have their parameters of UI texts (button names, labels, etc.) to meet the {{t'<key>}} template, where <key> is the key of a necessary text in the localization object.

Example. Localization of the Exit button:

{
    "content_type": "text",
    "title": "🚪 {{t'/exit}}",
    "payload": "/exit"
}

The Send Message process sends a message in the same language as stored for a user in the User Profile state diagram. The default language is en and can be changed in the Set Parameter node named SET default language == EN of the Send Message process.

Tokens

This state diagram stores bots access tokens.

JSON Example

REF: token

{
	"telegram": "...",
	"viber": "...",
	"facebook": "..."
}

User Profile

This state diagram stores users’ data. A new user profile is created when this person refers to the bot for the first time; then this profile is updated in the future activities.

A task with user data is created and edited in the Main Process using a reference of the strict template:

{{channel}}_{{chat_id}}, where:

• channel is the name of a messenger a user referred from
• chat_id is unique user identifier in the messenger

Example: viber_2yOPxC85DSpJCJHpYzjqTw=

As the channel and chat_id parameters are required in all the Bot Platform processes, the user data can be received and edited at any step.