The Journey to Conversational Interfaces

Romin Irani | Xoriant | @iRomin

Agenda

Chatbot Ecosystem

Our Story

Help Desk Bots

Initial Target Platform - Slack

NLP + ML + API.AI

Go Language

Chatbots! Chatbots! Chatbots!

It is usually another way to interact with your Web Application, API or Mobile Application

Multiple Messaging Platforms

“Chatbots” are expected to be “The Thing” to do in 2017 ;-)

Rule-based v/s AI

● /find * contains=`xyz`● /find pdf since=2d

● I’d like all documents that contain “xyz”

● Get me all PDF documents created in the last 2 days

Why Slack ?

Popular Messaging Platform

Integrates with Popular Applications

APIs for Custom Integration

Good Documentation

App Store

Starting point to learn more

Respond to Questions

Notifications

Customized Bot

Analyze

Slack API - Go Language packages

You can do everything with standard Go packages

Alternately, here are a couple of packages to consider:

https://github.com/nlopes/slack

https://github.com/bluele/slack

Skills needed

Basic Go Syntax (Struct, Dealing with JSON)

HTTP Basics + Go Language http packages

Respond

Notify

Analyze

Respond/ticket list

Reporting Issue - Slash Command

Slash Command → Messages that start with a slash (/)

For e.g. /ticket or /report or /search

/ticket listlist

Handling a Request from Slack

http.HandleFunc("/ticket", MyTicketHandler)

func MyTicketHandler(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {

//Extract out multiple params from Request

//Validate if the request is coming from Slack and your team

//Perform business logic

//Compose the Response Struct

json.NewEncoder(w).Encode(/* Slack Response Struct */)

}

Slack Incoming POST parameters

token=oyIQ0AjzcBNgxGMcIsEumUpQteam_id=T0001team_domain=examplechannel_id=C2147483705channel_name=generaluser_id=U2147483697user_name=romincommand=/tickettext=listresponse_url=https://hooks.slack.com/commands/1234/5678

Slack Message Formats - 1

{ "username": "Server Monitor" "text": "Cloud Storage Service is facing intermittent issues.\nhttp://status.cloud.google.com",}

Slack Message Formats - 2{ "attachments": [ { "title": "New Ticket: Printer is not working", "title_link": "https://api.slack.com/", "text": "The Printer is not functioning….", "fields": [ { "title": "Priority", "value": "High" }, { "title": "Reported by", "value": "romin", } ], "footer": "My Help Desk system", "ts": 1395676789 } ]}

Notify

Sending Notifications - Incoming Webhook

A mechanism to post a message to a Channel or a specific user

New Tickets are routed as Notifications to respective Channels (Teams)

Updates to Tickets are routed to the specific Users

v := url.Values{"payload": {string(b)}}http.PostForm(WebhookURL, v)

Analyze

Analytics - Outgoing Webhook

Calls your Webhook based on messages sent in a Channel

Any message or specific Trigger Words

Track Command Usage , Sentiment Analysis and more

Explosion of Commands…

/ticket list/ticket create <title> <details> <priority> <department>/ticket update <status> <comment>/ticket close <id>/ticket view <id>/ticket help

….

Can we do better?

General AI Agents

Messaging Platforms

NLP , AI as a Service Platforms

Frameworks & DeploymentPlatforms

Source: https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/infographic-the-bot-platform-ecosystem

Our current architecture

Messaging Platforms

NLP

Integrations

Machine LearningDomains

Bot Endpoint + Logic

Diagram inspired from : https://rasa.ai/

Which tickets are assigned to me?

User input in Natural Language

1

NLP Tool

2

intent : tickets_search,entities: status : open, user : romin, Max_count : 5,

Structured Data3

Here are your tickets:1….2…3….

Bot output in Natural Language

5

How it works?

TicketsAPI / Database

4

Lessons Learnt

Go + Slack is a powerful combination to get going with your Bots.

Need to target most popular Chat platforms.

Build v/s Buying a Machine Learning Engine. Good Alternatives out there but choose carefully.

Voice Interfaces.

It is a journey.

Thank You