Use Forms

Concept Definition Example What the Bot Does
Message envelope icon

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.
Magnifying glass icon

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 NLUClosed 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.
Information icon

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 icon

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 icon

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, handoverClosed 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 icon

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.
Action icon, notated by three cogs

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 New Form

  1. In CXone, click the app selector and select Bot Builder.

  2. Click the bot you want to work with.
  3. Click Dialogues icon, which looks like conversation bubbles. in the left icon menu.
  4. In the right pane, click Forms and then click New Form.
  5. Enter a name for your new form and press Enter.
  6. Under Requested Slots, click Add Slot.
  7. Select the Slot from the drop-down, then enter the Question the bot should ask the customer to get the correct information. For example, if your Slot is Name, your Question could be What is your name?
    Screenshot showing an example form being created.
  8. Repeat the previous two steps for any additional slots you want to add to the form.

Activate a Form

You need to include a form in a storyClosed Used to train bot for interaction handling based on intent and context or ruleClosed Used to define bot's response to messages that don't change with context. to describe when the bot should run the form. When the story or rule is triggered, the form will activate and the bot will start to ask the questions.

  1. In CXone, click the app selector and select Bot Builder.

  2. Click the bot you want to work with.
  3. Click Dialogues icon, which looks like conversation bubbles. in the left icon menu.
  4. Add a new story or rule. In this example, the name could be Address Change.
  5. Enter the message a customer may send. In this example, it could be I need to change my address.

    The bot attempts to assign an intentClosed The meaning or purpose behind what a contact says/types; what the contact wants to communicate or accomplish. If the intent is correct, click Confirm. Otherwise, select the correct intent from the list. If the intent you need does not exist, type an intent name into the search field and click Create intent. This creates a new intent based on this message. You can add more examples to the intent later.

  6. Hover over the plus sign until it changes to a bot icon, click the Forms tab, and then click the Activate action.
    The Forms tab where you can select a bot response of Activate, Submit, or Cancel
  7. In the bot response, click the drop-down to select a form.
    Screenshot of rule including a form activation message.

Submit a Form

A form is automatically submitted once all required slots are filled. However, your bot will continue to listen for the next user message, rather than automatically acknowledge that the form was submitted. This can leave the customer wondering whether their submission was successful. For a better customer experience, you can use a ruleClosed Used to define bot's response to messages that don't change with context. or storyClosed Used to train bot for interaction handling based on intent and context to define what the bot should do after a form is submitted.

Any slots collected from the customer can be used as variables to show the bot has collected the data. To use a variable, enclose the name of the entityClosed Keyword or phrase defined in your company profile in Interaction Analytics. Related to an entity type. Can include variants. in curly brackets.

  1. In CXone, click the app selector and select Bot Builder.

  2. Click the bot you want to work with.
  3. Click Dialogues icon, which looks like conversation bubbles. in the left icon menu.
  4. Add a new story or rule. In this example, the name could be Submit Address Change.
  5. Click Add condition, then click Active Form. Click the drop-down to select a form. This ensures that the rule only runs if the specified form is active.
  6. Hover over the plus sign until it changes to a bot icon, click the Forms tab, and then click the Submit action.
    The Forms tab where you can select a bot response of Activate, Submit, or Cancel
  7. In the bot response, click the drop-down to select a form.
  8. Add a message from your bot letting the customer know their submission was successful.
    Screenshot of rule including a form submission message.

Cancel a Form

A customer may change their mind in the middle of filling out a form and decide not to complete it. This can turn into a delicate situation with a customer, so defining a way for your bot to handle this gracefully is a good idea.

Akela's bot was receiving some requests to stop the address change process. The bot wasn't sure how to handle this, so it would handover to an agent, leaving customers frustrated. Akela decided to create a rule her bot could follow to cancel the address change form after it had been activated.

  1. In CXone, click the app selector and select Bot Builder.

  2. Click the bot you want to work with.
  3. Click Dialogues icon, which looks like conversation bubbles. in the left icon menu.
  4. Click the Rules tab.
  5. Click New rule.
  6. Enter a name for the rule. In this example, the name could be Cancel Address Change.
  7. Click Add condition, then click Active Form. Click the drop-down to select a form. This ensures that the rule only runs if the specified form is active.
  8. Enter the message a customer may send. In this example, it could be Nevermind.

    The bot attempts to assign an intentClosed The meaning or purpose behind what a contact says/types; what the contact wants to communicate or accomplish. If the intent is correct, click Confirm. Otherwise, select the correct intent from the list. If the intent you need does not exist, type an intent name into the search field and click Create intent. This creates a new intent based on this message. You can add more examples to the intent later.

  9. Hover over the plus sign until it changes to a bot icon, click the Forms tab, and then click the Cancel action.
    The Forms tab where you can select a bot response of Activate, Submit, or Cancel
  10. Add a message from your bot letting the customer know their request was cancelled.
    Screenshot of rule including a form cancellation message.

Interruptions

Once a bot starts asking form questions, it will keep doing so until all the slots in the form are filled and is not able to process other things. Customers do not always answer all of a form's questions from start to finish. They may ask questions, change their mind, or otherwise change the subject in the middle of the form. These are called interruptions. To handle situations like this, you can write rules or stories that include common interruptions.

An interruption with a recognized intentClosed The meaning or purpose behind what a contact says/types; what the contact wants to communicate or accomplish triggers one of the following behaviors:

A common use for forms is agent escalation. The bot will gather information to pass on to the live agent to simplify the process once the agent is connected. Many times, a customer will ask why the bot needs their information. This is considered an interruption. The bot adjusts to the new intent long enough to answer the question, then returns to the form loop.

Screenshot of an interruption in a form loop.