Importing chat-enabled services from BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced

As an application business analyst, you can enable chat for services in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced so that end users can request these services from a chat conversation. The services include conversation data (or questions) that enable you to define a conversation flow between BMC Helix Virtual Agent and the user. You use the Publish Chat-enabled Service wizard to enable chat for a service that is available in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog. 

If you published a service once and made changes to the service definition in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog, you can republish the service in BMC Helix Virtual Agent. The previously published values of the service are displayed in the wizard so that you do not have to re-enter the values.

The following video (4:57) provides a demonstration of importing a service from BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced to BMC Helix Virtual Agent:

 https://www.youtube.com/embed/1QS7zrbfaxc

Types of service fulfillment questions that are supported in chat

The following table lists the question types that BMC Helix Virtual Agent supports and does not support:

Question type	Supported?
Text area
Text field
Radio button
Counter
Toggle
Date/Time
Date
Attachment
Dynamic answer
Dependent questions
Lookup (type-ahead or predicted text) Important: If real-time translation is enabled, lookups cannot provide options for partial words. End-users must enter the complete word to view the options.
Table
Question with an option value whose length is greater than 64

Service modifications displayed when republishing a service

When you republish a service, the values changes in the Publish Chat-enabled Service wizard take precedence over changes made in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog or IBM Watson Assistant. 

The following table lists the modifications to the service definitions that are displayed when republishing:

Modification to the service	Displayed when republishing?
Variations added to the user request
A mandatory question is made optional (the Include question field value is changed)
An optional question is made mandatory (the Include question field value is changed)	Important: Because this change might result in broken data, this modification is not displayed.
Modified the natural language expression of the question
Changes made to the default answer
Changes made to the prompt to confirm the default answer
Changes made to the option to display the answers as buttons
Label field in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog
Default value field in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog
Question Values (Toggle, drop-down, check box) field in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog
Required field in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog

Before you begin

Ensure that the following conditions are met:

To select a service for enabling a chat

1. Log in to BMC Helix Innovation Studio and navigate to the Workspace tab. 

2. Click the application in which you have created a chatbot and want to import services in that chatbot.
   For example, BMC Chatbot.

3. Select Actions > Publish Chat-enabled Service.
   The Publish Chat-enabled Service wizard is displayed.

4. On the Cognitive Service Provider tab, perform the following steps:

   • In Chatbot Name, select the chatbot in which you want to publish the service.

     Important

     The Chatbot Name list displays only the chatbots that are configured for the application.

   • In Locale, select the locale for which you want to modify the conversation data.

   • In Publication Space, ensure that the Skill that is configured for the selected locale is populated automatically.

   

5. Click Next. 

   On the Service to Chat-enable tab, the services and service actions that are available in the publication space are populated automatically.
   

6. On the Service to Chat-enable tab, perform one of the following actions: 

   1. (If you are importing a service for the first time), select the check box next to the service for which you want to enable chat.

   2. (If you are re-importing a service that was customized in the wizard during the original import), and want to make incremental changes to the service, click Update Published Definition. 
   3. (If you are re-importing a service that was customized in the wizard), and want to delete the previously imported service definition, click Update Existing Definition > Publish as a New Definition. 

   Important

   You can enable chat only for one service at a time.

   BMC Helix Virtual Agent imports the service's conversation data from BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog. 

   The following image shows the Service to Chat-enable tab:

   
   

7. In Service Actions, select the check box corresponding to the service action that you want to import.
   From a chat conversation, users can select an imported service action for their assets, for example, report an issue, request for a repair, and so on.

   Important

   Only the service actions that you import to BMC Helix Virtual Agent are displayed in the chat conversation. If you are unable to view the service actions, see To resolve issues with creating service requests in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced

8. Click Next.
   On the User request tab, you can modify the conversation data for the selected service.

To modify the conversation data for the selected service

After you have selected the locale and the BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog service, you can modify the service's conversation data to make BMC Helix Virtual Agent respond in a more conversational tone. To do this, the Publish Chat-enabled Service wizard imports the service's existing conversation data from BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog.

1. Log in to BMC Helix Innovation Studio and navigate to the Workspace tab. 

2. Click the application in which you have created a chatbot and want to import services in that chatbot.
   For example, BMC Chatbot.

3. Select Actions > Publish Chat-enabled Service.
   The Publish Chat-enabled Service wizard is displayed.

4. On the User Request tab, complete the fields as described in the following table:

   Field	Action
   Store as	Click Replace. A list containing user requests (intents) that already exist in the target publication space (Skill) is displayed. You can select an appropriate existing user request to replace the current user request.
   Add Request Variation	Add different ways in which users can request for this service.
   Request Clarification Phrase	If you want to use disambiguation, enter the phrase for the selected service. If the chatbot is unable to determine the user's intent, this phrase is displayed as one of the selectable buttons/options to the end users. For example, if you are importing the service to install software, you can enter Download software in this field. Note: You cannot use disambiguation if you leave this field blank.

   
   The following image shows the User Request tab:

   

5. Click Next. 
   On the Questions tab, in the Service Questions pane, questions for the selected service are displayed.

To modify the questions and answers for a service

After you add request variations for selected service, you can modify how you present the service fulfillment questions and their answers to the end users. 

1. Log in to BMC Helix Innovation Studio and navigate to the Workspace tab.
2. Select Actions > Publish Chat-enabled Service.
   The Publish Chat-enabled Service wizard is displayed.
3. On the Questions tab, from the Service Questions pane, select the question that you want to modify.

4. Consider the following information related to the user experience when submitting service requests from a chat conversation: 

   • Conversation channels such as Slack, Skype for Business on-premises, and Microsoft Teams control the number of answers options for questions with dynamic answers that are displayed in a chat. However, you can configure the number of answer options to be displayed on Twilio. For more information, see Setting up chatbots for your line of business.

   • You can add attachment questions to be displayed in a chat conversation in channels such as Slack, Twilio, Microsoft Teams, and Chatbot UI. However, Skype for Business on-premises does not support attachments. Users can add one attachment of size upto 20 MB in each question.

5. To modify the selected question, perform the actions as described in the following table:

   Field	Action
   Include question	Select the check box to include the question in the chat conversation data. Or clear the check box to exclude this question from the chat conversation data. Important: If the question is mandatory, is part of a condition, or a dependent question, you cannot exclude it from a conversation.
   Natural Language Expression of the Question and Insert Chat Variable	Enter a simplified form of the question to suit your business needs.
   	Select an appropriate variable to include context data as part of the rephrased question. The context data comes from Person data. For example, $chatbot_firstName, $chatbot_jobTitle, and so on.
   Replace	Click this to replace the selected answer with an appropriate answer that is already present in the target publication space.
   Display the possible answers to this question as selectable buttons/options	Select the check box to present single-select response options to the user during a chatbot conversation. For multi-select response options, the check box is disabled.
   Default Answer	If a question has a default answer set in the service request, you can use the default answer as is or modify it.
   Insert Answer	(Displayed only if the selected question has a list of predefined options to select from BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced) Select one of the answers from the list as the default answer.
   Insert Chat Variable	Select an appropriate variable to include the chat context data as part of the default answer. The context data comes from Person data; for example, $chatbot_country.
   Prompt user to confirm default answer	Select one of the following options: Enable—To prompt the end user to confirm the default answer. Example: For the question What is your country?, you have set the default answer India. However, the user might want to change this default answer at run time. For such questions, you can enable this option. Disable—To skip the end user prompt. If the default answer is invalid, the selected question is not skipped and the end user is prompted to provide a valid answer. Example: For the question What is your email address?, you have set the default answer in a chatbot variable $chatbot_primaryEmailAddress. The email address of the user does not change. For such questions, you can disable this option.

   The following image shows the Questions tab:
   
   

6. From the Service Questions pane, select the answer option that you want to modify.

   For the selected answer, enter the values in the following fields:

   Field	Action
   Answer Variations	Select the type of answer variation. The following types are available: Natural Language Expression Regular expression—It is suitable for answers that have a pattern. For example, email address, zip code, or phone number.
   Add Natural Language Expression Variation	Click the link to add simplified forms of the answer.  For example, for the Office 365 answer option, you can enter values, such as Microsoft Office 365 or Web-based Office 2010.

7. After you modify the questions and the answers, click Next. 

8. On the Publication tab, click Publish.

   The following image shows the Publication tab, after you publish the service:
   

9. (Optional) Click Publish Another Service to return to the Cognitive Service Provider tab and enable chat for another service.

 After you publish the service, the conversation data for service is imported to the cognitive service provider's publication space, and BMC Helix Virtual Agent application is enabled for the service. Users can now submit the service requests from chatbot conversations. If you have imported localized service definitions, users can submit the service requests in their locale. 

Limitations of the Publish Chat-enabled Service wizard

The Publish Chat-enabled Service wizard does not support the following features:

• The user's time zone is taken into account in the date and time field only for browser-based BMC Helix Virtual Agent clients. For chatbot channels such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Skype for Business on-premises, the date and time field values are in UTC format. (For these channels, the user's time zone is not taken into account.)
• The Password field is accepted as plain text in the chatbot conversation. 
• Regular expressions from BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog are not supported. Regular expressions are used to validate answers to questions such as email address or phone number. If the answer is not in an acceptable format, it is rejected by BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced.

Related topics

Submitting service requests or searching knowledge articles

Customizing the chatbot actions

Creating questions with default responses

Creating selection menus for question responses