This article describes how you can build and deploy a bot built using Flow Builder and make it visible on your social channels to start deflecting those commonly asked questions.
This article includes the following topics:
Activating social messaging channels on your Zendesk account
You can add a bot to any social channels that are connected to your Zendesk account.
If you have not yet connected your social channel(s), see About messaging channels for the Zendesk Agent Workspace, and use the links to Supported channels to enable the needed channels. Note that each available social channel has its own enabling instructions.
After you have added your social channels, you can continue the processes described in this article.
Building a bot for social channels using Flow Builder
You can create a customized messaging bot using Flow builder, a drag-and-drop tool for creating flows web, mobile, and social messaging interactions with your customers, giving them the opportunity to self-serve their support issues before connecting with agents.
See Using Flow Builder to create bot flows for information about the Flow Builder tool and the bot creation process. When you publish the new bot, you’ll be able to select the social messaging channel(s) you want to connect the bot to.You can also use a previously-created, unused bot, or a bot that is already in use.
Adding a bot to active social channels
You can add a bot you’ve already created to your social channel.
Adding an unpublished bot to social channels
If you choose to add a bot to a social channel that is currently unpublished, you can publish the bot to your social channel in Flow Builder.
To publish an unused bot to a social channel
- In Admin Center, click the Channels icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Bots and automations > Bots.
- Hover over the bot you want to use and click Edit in Flow Builder.
- Make any necessary changes to the flow, then click Publish.
- In the channel selection screen, select one or more channels to connect to your bot, then click Publish to selected channels.
Adding a live bot to your social channels
If you have published a bot to a web or mobile channel and want to now deploy that bot to social messaging channels, you can do so in the bot’s settings.
To add a live bot to a social channel
- In Admin Center, click the Channels icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Bots and automations > Bots.
- Hover over the bot you want to use and click Settings.
- In the General tab, select the channels you want to connect to the bot.
- Click Save.
Removing a bot from social channels
You can remove a bot from a social messaging channel if you no longer wish to use it.
To remove a live bot from a social channel
- In Admin Center, click the Channels icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Bots and automations > Bots.
- Hover over the bot you want to use and click Settings.
- In the General tab, deselect the channels you want to remove.
- Click Save.
Functionality differences from web and mobile messaging
Flow Builder on social channels has the following differences in functionality than compared to native channels:
- Data capture. If you've added a Transfer to agent step and configured support custom fields as a part of your flow, the configured fields will not show on your social channel customer experience. While the conversation will still be transferred to an agent with relevant history, the bot will skip any data capture configured.
- English only options experience. For channels like Whatsapp, quick reply options are not supported, and it will degrade to a text-based experience to list the options for the user. The bot will say “you can say” followed by the options you have configured. For social channels, this phrase “you can say” is not localized and supports English only today.. The bot cannot be configured per channel at this stage; it will be enabled across all Zendesk integrated social channels, including Sunshine Conversation integrations.
- Greetings. On social channels, the bot is not able to send the greeting message to begin a conversation. The user must speak first, and then the bot will follow normal behavior when receiving a free-text message and attempt to find a conversational shortcut.
For a summary of all social channel capabilities, see Sunshine Conversations: Channel capabilities.
11 Comments
Love this idea! I understand that if this feature is toggled on for 1 brand, then flowbuilder will be available on all social channels, but if you are using multibranding, can some brands use this feature and others not?
Will help center articles be available to be viewed in social media as well?
Hi Jordan,
Thank you for raising that up! we appreciate it. I had flagged this article and raise your inquiry to our Team. The article will be updated once further information is available regarding this EAP.
Hi there!

I just got now this Early Access Program but it seems that is not following the same structure of chat bot, the options seems broken and is very hard to our customer understand which option he can choose
As you can see, the option looks great on our website, but on whatsapp is not elegible to use on that way.
Our operation is affecting at this moment and our customer cannot contact us, this is a huge problem!
We need to disable this program right now, this is possible? I'm kindly asking too, if is not possbile to disable that, please do an update on this system to looks like the same chat bot.
Hi Erik, just a reminder – please leave your feedback on Productboard. Thanks!
Just signed in on the EAP. Waiting to be accepted. Love this option
Can you share a tip, how to make bot to react properly to the conversation start?
When we start conversation in a web widget, the bot reacts proactively so users can see icebreakers options straight away.
Yet when using social messaging, the bot does not start by itself, so conversation starts like that:
1. User: Hello!
2. Answer bot: Sorry I do not understand. Please rephrase or
(Start Over)
3. User: Start Over
4. Answer Bot: Please choose your issue (billing) (other)
Is there a way, for the bot to skip to the root tree element (4) when receiving greeting from user or even start proactively in Twitter and other channels, that support it?
As this behavior is happening on an EAP I'll mark this as a feedback. Our options to troubleshoot its functionality is limited right now. Rest assured, our Team will look into it for further improvement.
same here as Anton M. explained, very weird the bot flow starts even before the actual flow starts which is make it an inconvenient and unpleasant experience for the customers.
In the article above:
Is this accurate with the EAP? I seem to be able to create multiple different bots within the same brand now (although I have not yet tried to publish more than one).
Thanks!
Following up on my comment above, I did a quick test, and it seems I was able to create 2 different bots for the same brand, and assign them to unique messaging channels, as shown here.
Totally agree on with what Anton M. explained above. The current flow is very strange. Hope this gets improved very soon!
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