Working with messaging bots for your web and mobile channels

You can offer more complex, automated conversations through your Web Widget or mobile messaging configurations, beyond the basic response setup, by upgrading to bot-enhanced messaging and creating a bot to interact with customers before handing them off to an agent.

Note: This article applies to messaging bots for web and mobile messaging channels. If you're using a social messaging channel, See Using Flow Builder to create a social messaging bot.

This article includes the following topics:

• About bot-enhanced messaging
• Upgrading to bot-enhanced messaging
• Creating a new bot
• Publishing a bot to a channel
• Cloning a bot
• Deleting a bot
• Updating general bot settings
• Managing bot language settings

About bot-enhanced messaging

Creating a bot means you can use advanced automation and customization options in your messaging configuration. The bot's behavior is determined by its answers. Answers are sequences of steps, or actions, the bot uses to respond to questions your customers may have. Answers are created in Flow Builder, the click-to-configure tool for customizing more complex bots. See Building a bot using answers for more information.

Messaging bots are listed on the Bots page in Admin Center. The Bots page displays any bots you’ve created, as well as basic information about them including a name, status (live or draft), and the channel(s) connected to it.

From the Bots page, you can add a bot, configure the bot settings, and open a bot to view, edit, or add to its answers and greeting behavior.

Upgrading to bot-enhanced messaging

When you initially activate messaging for a Web Widget or mobile channel, you can choose to upgrade to bot-enhanced messaging as part of configuring the default messaging response. Alternatively, you can choose to return to the widget’s Responses tab to activate it at a later time. In this section, we'll describe the latter.

To upgrade from the default messaging response to a bot

1. In Admin Center, click Channels in the sidebar, then select Messaging and social > Messaging.
2. Click the name of the channel you want to edit. The widget’s edit page opens.
3. Click the Responses tab.
4. At the bottom of the page, click Add a bot.

Note that upgrading a bot as described here does not disable the default messaging response. You need to publish the bot to enable it. Until then, the default messaging response remains active.

Creating a new bot

Creating a bot means you’re adding the ability to use the bot in a channel’s messaging configuration. Until you add a bot to a specific messaging channel and publish it, the default messaging response remains active for that channel.

Note: These instructions assume you have already created a web or mobile messaging channel.

To add a messaging bot

1. In Admin Center, click Channels in the sidebar, then select Bots and automations > Bots.
2. Click Add bot at the top of the page.
3. Enter a name for the bot. This name is displayed at the top of the widget where the bot is deployed.
4. If you’re using multiple brands, use the drop-down to select a brand to apply to the bot.
5. Click Create bot at the bottom of the page.

A basic bot is created, and is opened to its Answers tab. This bot remains in draft mode until it is published and connected to a messaging channel.

Publishing a bot to a channel

Whether you are using the out-of-the-box bot, or building a new bot with custom answers, you’ll need to publish that bot before it appears in any of your messaging channels.

Publishing a bot to a channel means that any other messaging response – either the default messaging response, or another bot – is removed from that channel, and replaced with the newly published bot.

Until you publish a bot:

• If you have not yet published a bot, the default messaging response remains active.
• If you have published a bot, the last published version of that bot remains active.
• Any unpublished answers remain , until they’re published or altered.

Both out-of-the-box and customized bots are published through Flow Builder.

To publish a bot flow to a channel

1. In Admin Center, click Channels in the sidebar, then select Bots and automations > Bots.
2. Hover over the bot you want to work with and click Edit in Flow Builder.
   Note: If you are adding a bot, as described above, the bot automatically opens in Flow Builder.
3. Make any changes necessary to the flow, then click Publish.
   • If the bot is not currently published to a channel, the channel selection screen opens. Select one or more channels to connect to your bot and click Publish to selected channels.
   • If the bot is already live on a channel, it is updated in that channel with any changes made to it.

Cloning a bot

You can create a copy – or clone – of an existing bot, then use it as the starting point for building a new bot.

To clone an existing bot

1. In Admin Center, click Channels in the sidebar, then select Bots and automations > Bots.
2. Hover over the bot you want to update and click the Options icon (), then select Clone.

The bot is copied and added to the end of your bot list, given the same name as the original bot and appended with (copy).

After you’ve cloned the bot, you can build it by adding, editing, or deleting its answers as needed.

Deleting a bot

If you are no longer using a bot, and do not plan on using it in the future, you can delete it.

Note: When you delete a bot, any connected channels will revert to their default response settings.

To delete a bot

1. In Admin Center, click Channels in the sidebar, then select Bots and automations > Bots.
2. Hover over the bot you want to update and click the Options icon (), then select Delete.

   The bot is removed from the bot list. This action cannot be undone.

Updating general bot settings

You can update the following general settings for a bot:

• Name
• Brand (if multiple brands are enabled on your account)
• Channel connection

To update a bot’s name and brand settings

1. In Admin Center, click Channels in the sidebar, then select Bots and automations > Bots.
2. Hover over the bot you want to update and click Settings.
3. In the General tab, update the Name and Brand as needed.
4. Click Save.

The process for connecting a bot to a channel varies slightly, depending on whether the bot is Live (already connected to a channel), or still a Draft (not connected to a channel).

A bot must be connected to one or more messaging channels before it can be published and made available to your end users, and each channel can only be connected to a single bot.

To connect a bot to a channel

1. In Admin Center, click Channels in the sidebar, then select Bots and automations > Bots.
2. Hover over the bot you want to update and click Settings.
3. In the General tab, scroll down to the Channels section.
   • If the bot is a Draft, you’ll see the channels available for connection:

     

     Click the checkbox to select the channel(s) you want to connect to the bot.

   • If the bot is currently Live in a channel, you’ll see the currently-connected channel(s), as well as any other channels available for connection:

     

     Update the channels selections as needed, using the checkboxes.

     Note: If the selected channel already has a bot connected to it, that bot will be disconnected from the channel and replaced with this new bot.
4. Click Save.

Managing bot language settings

You can select a single language for a bot, or configure it to speak in multiple languages for an improved customer experience.

For more information, see Managing languages for a bot.