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Why do I see the Answer Bot in the Chat SDK even though I don't have a subscription?

Arnaud Joly
  • Edited
Zendesk Customer Advocate

Question

I see that I have Answer Bot when I start a chat using the Chat SDK, but I don't have a subscription for Answer Bot. How is that possible?

Answer

In the Chat SDK V2, the Answer Bot feature visible in the Chat is a simple chat bot to make the interaction more human. It is there to replace the pre-chat form. You will not be billed for using this feature. 

This feature is different from the Answer Bot that suggests articles, even though they share a name by default. You can change the name of this bot. For more information on this, see the Android's documentation and the IOS documentation.

If you want to use the Answer Bot feature from Zendesk Guide, check the documentation about the Unified SDK, which can use the Answer Bot engine to suggests articles: Unified SDK Android and Unified SDK iOS.

If you do not want to ask questions to your users, disable the pre-chat form (Chat SDK v2 for Android and Chat SDK v2 for iOS) and set the .withPreChatFormEnabled option to false in the builder of the Messaging Activity (what starts the Chat).

A caveat to this behavior is when your account is offline and the .withAgentAvailabilityEnabled is set to true.

  • If it is, the SDK checks if your account is available, and if it has at least one agent online. If those conditions are not fulfilled, the bot will then advise you that the account is offline.
  • If .withOfflineFormsEnabled is true (default) you will be able to leave an offline message. If it isn't the bot will inform you that the account is offline and will tell you to try later on.
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10 Comments

  • Gokul Kattamanchi
    • Edited

    Setting chatConfiguration.isPreChatFormEnabled = false still pulls up Chat with an agent and answer bot message on iOS Chat SDK v2, how do I stop it? Thanks

     

     

    0
  • Arnaud Joly
    Zendesk Customer Advocate

    Hi, thank you for your feedback!

    When you set isPreChatFormEnabled to False in the configuration, did you pass it to UI builder afterward like so? (iOS example here - documentation)

    let chatConfiguration = ChatConfiguration()

    chatConfiguration.isPreChatFormEnabled = false

    let chatEngine = try ChatEngine.engine()

    let viewController = try! Messaging.instance.buildUI(engines: [chatEngine], configs: [messagingConfiguration, chatConfiguration])

    The same applies for Android. Could you tell me if that works for you?

    0
  • Gokul Kattamanchi

    Hi Arnaud, thanks for replying.

    Please find the attached code. This is how I pass the chatConfiguration to the UIbuilder . I keep getting Chat with an agent and answer bot message after signing back to the app (Both after ending the chat and signing out without ending the chat ). I also tried the same code that you have posted but I get the same behaviour.

    var chatConfiguration: ChatConfiguration {

            let chatConfiguration = ChatConfiguration()

            chatConfiguration.isPreChatFormEnabled = false

            chatConfiguration.isOfflineFormEnabled = false

            chatConfiguration.isAgentAvailabilityEnabled = false

            return chatConfiguration

        }


        var chatAPIConfig: ChatAPIConfiguration {

            let chatAPIConfig = ChatAPIConfiguration()

            chatAPIConfig.tags = ["iOS", "chat_v2"]

            return chatAPIConfig

        }    
    func buildMessagingViewController() throws -> UIViewController {

            Chat.instance?.configuration = chatAPIConfig

            return try Messaging.instance.buildUI(engines: engines,

                                                  configs: [chatConfiguration])

        }
    extension ZendeskMessaging {

        var engines: [Engine] {

            let engineTypes: [Engine.Type] = [ChatEngine.self]

            return engines(from: engineTypes)

        }

        

        func engines(from engineTypes: [Engine.Type]) -> [Engine] {

            engineTypes.compactMap { type -> Engine? in

                switch type {

                case is ChatEngine.Type:

                    return try? ChatEngine.engine()

                default:

                    fatalError("Unhandled engine of type: \(type)")

                }

            }

        }

    }





    1
  • Arnaud Joly
    Zendesk Customer Advocate

    Hi Gokul,

    Thank you for your reply and all this information! As it may require more investigation, I created a ticket so we could communicate more directly.

    0
  • Ronny Fenrich

    I'm facing the same issue. Seems like a bug in the SDK.

    The first chat session works fine but after endChat() everything is messed up. Showing the chat UI again will trigger the bot and immediately start a chat session.

    Any news on the bug fix?

    0
  • Arnaud Joly
    Zendesk Customer Advocate

    Hi Ronny,

    Thank you for your feedback, I have converted your comment into a ticket so I could have a better look at this.

    0
  • Martynas Pašilis
    • Edited

    I'm facing the same issue as well. Is there any estimates when this bug will be fixed?

    0
  • Arnaud Joly
    Zendesk Customer Advocate

    Hi Martynas, 

    Thank you for your feedback. On previous cases we saw that some old zchat pods could create this issue and some other specific settings can make the first chat work as expected but have the bot interact in subsequent ones.

    Could you describe the behaviour you are seeing and on which platform/version of SDK you are running your app? I can turn that into a ticket with those information.

    0
  • Martynas Pašilis
    • Edited

    I'm using 2.9.0 iOS chat SDK v2 and I've installed it with carthage. I'm having exact  behavior where first message is sent without bot, and after you close the chat ViewController, every other Messaging.instance.buildUI instance posts answer bot as in screenshots provided in this thread

    This is my ChatConfiguration setup:

    let chatConfiguration = ChatConfiguration()
    chatConfiguration.chatMenuActions = []
    chatConfiguration.isAgentAvailabilityEnabled = false
    chatConfiguration.isChatTranscriptPromptEnabled = false
    chatConfiguration.isPreChatFormEnabled = false



    0
  • Ronny Fenrich

    Martynas Pašilis

    I was able to avoid the answer bot in my project with a little workaround:
    the bug happens when the viewController returned from Messaging.instance.buildUI() is retained (by having a weak reference). I fixed it by listening to the .viewDidDisappear event and nil that reference.

    1

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