Add and edit Bot topics

What are Bot topics?

Bot topics are responses a Bot gives to user questions or actions. For example, a welcome (Concierge Bot) or greeting (Knowledge Bot) are considered topics. In the screenshot below, Bot responses 1, 3, and 4 are all considered Bot topics. 2 is the user input.

A default set of topics are automatically added for each Bot type. For example, a Concierge Bot comes with a welcome topic, as well as topics that enable a Concierge Bot search.

NOTE: you can only add and edit Bot topics if you have the Train Bots permission. Please email success@goboomtown.com if you wish to get the permission. 

How do I add or edit a Bot topic?

NOTE: these instructions refer to adding/editing topics in an existing Bot. To learn how to set up new Bots, refer here for Concierge, here for Knowledge, and here for Agent Assist Bots.

1. From the main navigation menu on the left, go to Bots > Bots and double click on your Bot or click on  (Pencil) to open it. 
2. On the left navigation bar of the Bots modal, select  (Topics).
3. To add a new topic, click . To edit the topic, double click on it or click  (Pencil) to open it.
4. Fill out the following fields:
   • Status: set as Active.
   • Subject/Title: type a topic name. This name will appear in the internal list of topics, as well as be used by default as a search label for Concierge and Knowledge Bot search. 
   • Text: type the text that will appear to the Bot user when the new topic is invoked.
     • : (optional) attach a file, such as a PDF, image, or GIF, to the Bot topic. This file will show up with the text when the topic is invoked.
     • Bot tokens: (optional) format the topic text with tokens listed here. Reference user and Issue information with tokens listed here.
   • Away Text: (optional, Concierge Bots only) type the message that will appear to the user outside your Team hours of operation or availability. The away message will replace the topic text.
   • KB Article: (optional) attach a Relay Knowledge Base article to the Bot topic. A preview of this article will appear below the topic text.
     • Preview Length: specify how many characters will appear in article preview. By default, the preview length is 350 characters. Users can click on the preview to view the whole article right in the chat window.
   • Keywords: (optional) type the keywords for the Bot topic. These will be used to invoke the topic in a Bot search. For example, including “test” as a keyword will bring up the topic when the user types “What is the test topic?”, “test”, “I’d like to see the test topic” etc. You can, but do not need to, separate the keywords with commas. The order of the keywords does not matter. NOTE: although the search environments vary by Bot type, the same keywords are applicable in all environments.
   • Typing Timeout: select the number of seconds a Bot will wait after a user stops typing to evaluate the user’s response. If you want the Bot to respond immediately, set this field to 0.

5. (optional) Toggle the following fields:
   • Searchable: toggle on to be able to use Concierge Bot keyword search for this topic. A Search Result Label field will appear below.
     • Search Result Label: (optional) when a search is performed, results will be displayed in the form of a topic with clickable search results, and a Search Result Label will be displayed for each clickable topic. If you leave this field blank, the label will be the topic Subject/Title. NOTE: The Search Result Label has a 16-character limit. All further characters will be cut off from the label.
   • Rate-able: toggle on if you want clickable thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons to appear to the user at the bottom of the Bot topic. You can customize Thumbs-Up/Thumbs-Down Follow-up Responses in the Bot Profile () Code Configuration section.
   • Time-out: toggle on if you want to override the Bot’s default time-out behavior (as configured in the Bot Profile ()) for this topic. You will see the Seconds and Text fields appear below.
     • Seconds: type the number of seconds after which the Bot will time out after your topic is invoked.
     • Text: (optional) type the text the Bot will display when it times out on this topic. You can also redirect the Bot to a different topic at time-out instead of displaying text. In order to do so, type topic:[topic key] in the text field. For example, type topic:speak_to_agent to redirect the user to the Speak to Agent topic after the specified number of seconds. NOTE: you can find the topic key at the top of the topic profile. It appears as soon as you save the topic for the first time.

6. Hit Save or Save & Exit to finish editing the Bot topic. If you are editing a new topic, hit Save to be able to add responses and buttons, as well as view the topic key at the top of the modal.