Set up Rules

Rules allow you to teach your bot to respond to messages whose intent is the same in every context. This includes messages such as greetings, goodbyes, and thanks.

Glossary

Concept	Definition	Example	What the Bot Does
Utterance	Anything a contact says in an interaction. Sometimes called a message.	"I lost my password." "What is my balance?" "Are you a bot?"	The bot uses Natural Language Understanding (NLU) to analyze each contact utterance to determine its meaning, or intent.
Intent	What the contact wants to communicate or accomplish. Every message the contact sends has an intent.	"I lost my password" has the intent of "reset password". "Hello" has the intent of "greeting".	The bot analyzes a contact's message using NLU This process expands on Natural Language Processing (NLP) to make decisions or take action based on what it understands. to determine the intent. Once it knows that, it can respond with a message of its own. You configure the response you want the bot to use for each intent.
Entity	A defined piece of information in a contact's message.	Person or product name, phone number, account number, location, and so on.	The bot uses NLU to identify entities in a contact's message. Entities help the bot understand what the contact's message means.
Slot	An entity extracted from a contact's message and saved for use in bot responses. Similar to a variable.	Creating a slot for contact name lets the bot use that name in responses during an interaction, making it more personal.	When configured to do so, the bot extracts an entity from a contact message and saves it in a slot. You can have the bot use this information later in the conversation.
Rule	Defines a bot's response to messages that don't change meaning with context.	Single-turn interactions with fixed responses: What are your hours? What is your address? Conversation building blocks: Greetings, good-byes, thank yous and transitions; simple yes/no questions; and acknowledgments. CXone Bot Builder comes with default intents and rules for several of these, including greetings, handover Any contact message that should trigger transfer to a live agent requests, and more. FAQs Insults and classic bot challenges	Rules are one of two ways you can configure how the bot responds to an intent. Rules are useful for certain kinds of intents, but not all intents.
Story	Trains a bot to handle an interaction based on message intent and conversational context.	In an interaction about a forgotten password, the bot would respond to, "How do I do that?" in one way. If the interaction were about creating a new account, the response would be quite different even though in both cases the contact is using the same words with the same intent – to get more information.	Stories are the second of two ways you can configure how the bot responds to an intent. Stories teach the bot how to use the context of the conversation to respond appropriately.
Bot Action	Anything a bot says or does while handling an interaction.	In an interaction about a forgotten password, the bot responds by sending the link to the password reset FAQ on the website. When a contact expresses frustration, such as "I don't understand! It's not working!!!" the bot responds with "I'm sorry. Would you like me to transfer you to a human agent?" When the contact says yes, the bot initiates the transfer.	Actions are the options you have when defining how you want the bot to respond to each intent. They give you the flexibility to configure each response to achieve the outcome that meets the contact's needs.

Create a Rule

In CXone, click the app selector and select Bot Builder.
Click the bot you want to work with.
Click Dialogues in the left icon menu.
Click the Rules tab.
Locate the folder your new rule should go in. You can also click New Folder , enter a name, and press Enter.
Hover over the folder and click New Rule .
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Type a name for the rule and press Enter.
If your rule should only be used under a certain condition, click Add condition. Choose the condition type and the appropriate form, slot value, or both.
Add the contact's message:
1. In the middle panel, click the + icon on the right. It turns into the contact icon . In the Customer may say box, enter a message a contact might send and then press Enter. CXone Bot Builder analyzes the message and offers a list of intents with a confidence level for each.
2. If the top intent is the correct intent, click Confirm. If it's not, click the incorrect intent to expand the Intents list, then select the correct intent and click Confirm.
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Add the bot's response:
1. In the middle panel of the story page, hover over the plus sign + on the left until it changes to a bot icon . Click the General, Forms, or Integrations tab, then click an action.
2. Provide the information matching the action you selected. For example, if you selected Message, enter what the bot should say.
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3. Click the typing indicator to set or override the length of time a typing indicator displays for the action. If smart typing is turned on, the bot automatically determines this for you.
4. For message actions only, clickVariations to open a dialogue where you can add variations to the existing bot message. In this dialogue, click Add Variation, then type a different version of your original message shown at the top. Add as many variations as you want. The bot will randomly select which variation to use in a conversation.
5. For rich message Elements in digital messaging such as buttons, images, menus, and option pickers. actions only, click Rich Message Fallback to customize the response if the message is being sent over a channel that doesn't support rich content. By default, the bot will use what is configured in Rich Messaging Fallback.
You can add more examples to the intent. This helps ensure the rule is triggered for each way a customer may phrase something. You can do this in two ways:
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- Click the intent under the contact message to load it in the Intents pane on the right. Then click Add example and add new messages.
- Go to NLU, then click Add example for the intent you want add messages to.
Click Hide if you want to exclude this rule from training. For example, if you cannot complete the rule in one session, you can hide it until you're able to finish it.
Click Train and Stage to train your bot on the new rule. You can also do more training and testing later.

Add New Training Examples to an Existing Rule's Intent

As you review and refine your bot, you may learn that contacts often use phrases that aren't currently configured for the rule's intent. You can add these to the intent that the rule uses to improve the bot's performance.

In CXone, click the app selector and select Bot Builder.
Click the bot you want to work with.
Click Dialogues in the left icon menu.
On the Rules tab, click the rule you want to work with.
Click Intents in the menu bar on the right side of the page.
Click the intent under the contact message to load it in the Intents pane.
Click Add example and add the new utterance examples.
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When you're finished making changes, click Train and Stage to update your bot model Version of a bot that has been trained and staged to test this change.

Duplicate a Rule

If you have an existing rule that is similar to the one you want to create, you can copy it and edit as needed.

In CXone, click the app selector and select Bot Builder.
Click the bot you want to work with.
Click Dialogues in the left icon menu.
On the Rules tab, hover your cursor over a rule and click Options , then click Duplicate. The copied rule appears in the same folder with the word copy after the name.
Click the copied rule in the list on the left and make changes as needed.
When you're finished making changes, click Train and Stage to update your bot model Version of a bot that has been trained and staged to test this change.

Hide a Draft Rule from Training

You can hide individual dialogues Bot stories and rules in CXone Bot Builder. . This excludes them from training until they're ready.

When hidden, the data is visible to you for editing, but your bot does not learn from it. It is also displayed with the Hidden an eye icon with a slash through it icon.

In CXone, click the app selector and select Bot Builder.
Click the bot you want to work with.
Click Dialogues in the left icon menu.
On the Rules tab, hover your cursor over the dialogue and click Options , then click Hide.
When you're finished making changes, click Train and Stage to update your bot model Version of a bot that has been trained and staged to test this change.

Release a Draft Rule to Training

When you're ready to release a draft dialogues Bot stories and rules in CXone Bot Builder. , you can unhide it and train your bot to use it.

In CXone, click the app selector and select Bot Builder.
Click the bot you want to work with.
Click Dialogues in the left icon menu.
On the Rules tab, hover your cursor over the dialogue and click Options , then click Show.
When you're finished making changes, click Train and Stage to update your bot model Version of a bot that has been trained and staged to test this change.