Create a Chatbot that Lets Customers Track Packages

1. Go to SAP Conversational AI and log in.

2. Click New Bot and select the following:

   Field Name	Value
   1. What do you want your chatbot to do?	Perform Actions
   2. Predefined Skills	Greetings
   3. Create your bot	Name: ShippingBot Description: A bot to help shipping customers track and price packages Language: English
   4. Data Policy	Non-personal Store Non-vulnerable
   5. Bot Visibility	Public

   

3. Click Create a Bot.

Our bot must be able to extract the parcel number from within the conversation. Such data extracted from a conversation is defined as entities.

The tracking number is based on one of UPS’s standards: 18 characters with constraints, as described in Tracking Number.

1. Under the Train tab, go the subtab Entities.

   

2. Click Create an Entity.

3. Call the entity PARCEL-NUMBER, specify it as a Regex entity, and click Create.

   

   Free entities: You specify the type of data it is, and you teach the bot how to identity a value for that entity. You specify the form of the data but not the actual acceptable values.

   Restricted entity: You specify a limited list of acceptable values.

4. Click PARCEL-NUMBER.

   

5. Enter the following regular expression:

   Regex

   Copy

   \b(1Z[0-9A-Z]{6}[\d]{10})\b
   

   This defines only one kind of UPS tracking number, and is a simple regex that does not distinguish between the parts of the tracking number.

   You can test some of your parcel numbers to make sure they match, for example, enter 1ZISDE016694068891 and click Test:

   

Built-in Entities

SAP Conversational AI comes with built-in entities (called gold entities) for common data, like location, dates, and money values. For more information, see List of Gold Entities.

Customers will have to indicate whether they accept or reject certain requests from the bot, so the bot needs to be able to recognize when a customer means “Yes” and when they mean “No”.

You do not have to create these yourself. Instead, you can fork them from others who have already created them.

Forking is simply copying, and does not create a relationship between your bot and the source of what you forked. You can fork intents, entities, skills or an entire bot. For more information, see Forking Bots, Skills, Intents, and Entities.

1. In a different browser tab, go to cai-adoption / ups-bot / intents / @yes.

   

2. Just above the list of values – NOT at the top of the page (that button is to fork the entire project) – click Fork.

   Select your project, and click Fork.

   

3. Go back to your project and click the Train tab (refresh the page if necessary), and you now see the @yes intent.

   

   Click into it, and see all its expressions, that is, all the ways someone could say “Yes”.

4. Test the intent by clicking the Test flap on the right of the screen, and entering expressions at the bottom.

   Enter Sure and I think so and OK to see that the bot understands the intent. Feel free to add additional expressions.

   

   You can see that the bot detected the intent.

5. Repeat the above steps for the @No intent, located at cai-adoption / ups-bot / intents / @no .

Customers will be indicating that they want information on a parcel, so you need to create an intent for that.

Again, you do not have to create this intent yourself, but you can fork an existing intent.

1. In a different browser tab, go to cai-adoption / ups-bot / intents / @track-parcel.

2. Just above the list of values – NOT at the top of the page (that button is to fork the entire project) – click Fork.

   

   Select your project, and click Fork.

3. Go back to your project and click the Train tab (refresh the page if necessary), and you now see the @track-parcel intent.

   Click into it, and see all its expressions, that is, all the ways someone could indicate they want to track a package.

   Notice that some of the expressions contain a tracking number and some don’t.

4. Test the intent by clicking the Test flap on the right of the screen, and entering expressions at the bottom.

   Try the following:

   • Where is my package
   • Track 1ZISDE016694068891
   

   In the second phrase, you can see that the bot not only detected the intent, but also detected the parcel number.

   Feel free to add additional expressions.

After you’ve determined that the user wants to track a package, you have to build a skill so the bot knows what to do in response to this intent.

1. On the Build tab, click Add skill.

   Call the skill track-parcel, and specify that it is a Business skill, then click Add.

   

2. Open the skill for editing by clicking on its name.

3. Add a trigger so that this skill is triggered when the @track-parcel intent is detected.

   • In the Triggers tab, click in the field next to If.
   • Select @track-parcel.
   • Click Save.
   

The requirements for the track-parcel skill indicate the data the bot needs to extract from the conversation before executing the skill’s action.

You will have several requirements. In this step, you will add the requirement for the parcel number.

1. In the track-parcel skill, go to the Requirements tab.

2. In the first field under Required Information, click and then select #parcel-number.

   

   In the second field (after as), enter parcel-number, and press Enter. This is the name in the memory for storing the data for this entity.

3. Click the Expand arrow.

   

4. Next to If #parcel-number is missing, click New Replies, and then do the following:

   
   • Click Send Message.
   • Click Text.
   • For the message, enter Could you give me your tracking number?
   • Click Save

   Reset the memory:

   • Click Update Conversation > Edit Memory.
   • Under Unset Memory Field, add yes, then add another field to unset, no.
   • Click Save.

   Click Back.

5. Next to If #parcel-number is complete, click New Replies, and then do the following:

   • Click Update Conversation | Edit Memory.
   • In the Set Memory Field, enter parcel-number.
   • For the field value, click in the field and replace the contents with the following:
     JSON

     Copy

     {
     "raw": "{{uppercase memory.parcel-number.raw}}",
     "value": "{{uppercase memory.parcel-number.raw}}"
     }
     

   • Click Save, then click Back.

   The API to get tracking information requires the parcel number in upper case, so this step automatically converts any input to upper case.

   Here, we use Handlebars scripting to access the memory and execute the uppercase function. For more information on how to use scripting to access the memory and other conversation data, see Scripting with Variables.

   Scripting is also used to manipulate data returned by API calls, as described in the tutorial Use Scripting to Design a Chatbot Message from an API Response.

Now you’ll add a second set of requirements – the user’s confirmation that they want to track the package.

1. Add a second requirement by clicking the plus sign ( + ) – the second one that when you hover it says Add a new list of requirements.

   

2. In the first field, click and select @yes.

   In the second field (after as), enter yes (the name in the memory for this value), and press Enter.

   Immediately under @yes, click the plus sign ( + ) and add the @no intent and store its value in the no variable. Press Enter.

   Click the And between @yes and @no and change it to Or.

3. Click New Replies next to If @yes or @no are missing.

   

   Then do the following:

   • Click Send Message.
   • Click Quick Replies.
   • For the message, enter:
     Message

     Copy

     Do you want to track the parcel {{memory.parcel-number.raw}} ?
     

     Above you added code to retrieve the parcel number from the memory – which stores all requirements, and any information you manually store there. For more information on the memory and syntax, see Memory Management.

     • Click Add Quick Reply twice, and:

       • For the first, add Yes for both the title and value.
       • For the second, add No for both the title and value.

     • Click Save, then click Back.

     

Add the action if the user says No.

1. Go to the Actions tab.

2. Click Add New Message Group.

   

3. Click Add Condition, and then in the field next to If, select @no, and click Save.

4. Click Send Message, and then:

   • Select Text.
   • Enter No problem. Let me know anytime if you want to track a package. as the message.
   • Click Save.

5. Click Update Conversation | Edit Memory.

   

   In the Unset memory field, enter no (the value is case-sensitive), and then click Save.

   

   Why unset No ?

   This will make it so the skill no longer fulfilled the requirement of having a Yes or No answer. So now if the user changes their mind, they can enter track package and the conversation will already have the tracking number stored and will only ask for confirmation.

If the customer says Yes, then you will make an API call and retrieve the information to display. You will code this in the next tutorial.

If the Test panel is open, close it.

Click Chat Preview (bottom right) and start a conversation with your bottom. Use this tracking number: 1Z12345E6205277936.

In the example below, notice the bot detects the intent to track a package, but notices the tracking number is missing, and asks for it. Finally, it asks for confirmation, using the tracking number by retrieving it from memory.

After the customer says No, this reply is unset in memory, so if the user again says track package, the bot simply asks for confirmation because the latest tracking number is still in memory.

If the customer says Yes instead, for now the bot shows No Reply because you have not defined an action in this case.

No Reply vs. Fallback Actions

When a bot has detected an intent and that intent triggers a skill, but that skill does not have an action that returns a message, then No Reply is shown.

If a bot cannot figure out the intent of the user, or no skill has been triggered by the detected intent, then the fallback skill is triggered. When you created your bot, a fallback skill was created automatically for you with a default message.