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How can I use bot builder to capture data in a conversation bot?

Isaiah Allekotte
  • Edited

Question

I want to collect the information from a user's bot interaction and save it within the ticket. How can the bot set ticket fields using bot builder? 

Answer

When the bot collects information from a user using the Ask for details step in bot builder, that information is temporarily stored as a variable. When the bot conversation is later transferred to an agent and becomes a ticket, those variables become permanently stored in ticket fields. Follow the steps below to ensure these variables are captured within the ticket fields.

To create this workflow

  1. Create the ticket fields to capture the information within the ticket. 
    Note: This workflow is compatible with drop-down and text field types only.
  2. In bot builder, add the step Ask for details. Select the relevant ticket fields created in Step 1.
  3. Ensure your bot has the Transfer to agent step as the final step of the answer flow.
  4. When your flow is finished, select Publish bot. 

Now the information collected in the Ask for details step will be stored as ticket fields when a ticket is created from a bot conversation. 

For more information on bot answers, see the article: Building a bot using answers.

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2 Comments

  • Chad Susa (Gravity CX - Zendesk Partner)
    • Edited

    Hi Isaiah Allekotte

    Thanks for this.

    Three questions:

    1. I'm assuming we have to have a 'transfer to agent' step even if we are in an after hours condition branch of the flow, otherwise the ticket won't be created? So essentially 'transfer to agent' is the step that creates the ticket even though we might be out of business hours.
    2. What types of fields are supported in flow builder? Is the documentation somewhere listing the supported field types. Sorry, I tried googling and couldn't find anything. It would be great to be able to use the description field so when a ticket is created, we could ask the customer for a summary of their request and it would be in the body of the ticket (description) instead of a custom field*.
    3. Is it possible to present a form for customers to complete as a step? I guess the workaround could be to send them to the relevant form page via a button/url link - it's just that this method is a bit jarring ;)

    * The reason for this is if we create a custom field (such as a text field) to capture some additional request details from the customer in the messaging widget, this field must be viewable by an end user. This would then need to be on a ticket form otherwise the ticket won't display this information in the ticket, and therefore if a customer goes directly to a Help Centre (HC) form, they will see the custom field asking for additional details etc - which doesn't make sense as the normal description field is already there. I know we can hide fields etc by customising the HC theme, but this doesn't help Zendesk customers who might not know how to do this.

    Many thanks

    0
  • Joyce
    Zendesk Customer Care
    Hello,
     
    To answer your questions:
    1. The 'Transfer to agent' step is a required step in the bot flow in order for tickets to be created on messaging requests sent within and outside your business hours. You can also check this article for more information about this step.
    2. Bot builder only supports Text and Dropdown fields. The article Why aren't all my custom fields appearing as options in the bot builder? provides more information on this.
    3. Flow builder doesn’t support forms today. To capture information, you can use the Ask for details to collect information from end users during the conversation. Or like the workaround you are thinking of, presenting a relevant form link to the customer. 
     
    Hope this helps!
    0

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