Before you begin integrating bots with Live Assist for Microsoft Dynamics 365, it is important to understand the following bot services:
- Bot As An Agent
- Produces bots as if they were Agents within your Dynamics 365 instance.
- Live Assist continues to manage your Campaigns and Engagements
- Bots can transfer chats between other agents
- Bot As An Enabler
- Provides a means to enable other engagement systems to interface with your existing Agents.
- Manage your Campaigns and Engagements via a third party, for example:
- Skype
- Facebook Messenger
- Allows you to pass Visitor Context Data through to your agent.
Both Bot solutions apply your business logic to liaise with your visitors.
If you implement a Bot As An Enabler, it is still possible to implement another bot acting as a Bot As An Agent. In this case, your Enabler bot can escalate its engagement into Live Assist, and target a second bot running as a Bot As An Agent. It's important to distinguish between these bots at runtime.
Bot Agent Connector—Bot as an Agent
If you use the Bot Agent Connector, Live Assist remains in the path from the start of the engagement with a visitor. The customer must be using a web page with the Live Assist tag or a mobile application with our mobile SDK.
In the following diagram, chat routes through Live Assist for Microsoft Dynamics 365 (LA for 365). The chat routes to a bot with appropriate the skill. Later, the bot transfers the chat to a human agent.
Currently, Bot Agent Connector is only available to bots using the Microsoft Bot Framework. See: https://dev.botframework.com/.
Bot As An Agent Learning Path
| Bot As An Agent Guides | |
|---|---|
| Article | Description |
| Bot Agent Connector—API | Introduction to the API |
| Creating a Direct Line Channel Connector | Registering Bots in Live Assist |
| Chat Bot—As An Agent—C# | Example Bot #C |
| Chat Bot—As An Agent—NodeJS | Example Bot NodeJS |
Important: A Bot As An Agent consumes 1 Live Assist license while managing up to 3 concurrent chats.
Pre-Chat Survey
The information your pre-chat survey collects is available to an agent in the Chat Activity after the bot transfers the chat.
Post-chat Survey
The Chat Activity collects any Post-chat survey information:
The transcript labels the bot, agent and visitor, as well as other information.
Bot Escalation SDK—Bot as an Enabler
If you use Bot as an Enabler, your existing bots (from any platform) integrate with Live Assist for Microsoft Dynamics 365. Live Assist does not manage your engagements. A bot can escalate a visitor to an agent in Live Assist, then the chat messages relay through to Live Assist via the bot for the duration of the chat. We provide an SDK in Javascript or .NET to enable your bot.
| Bot As An Enabler Guides | |
|---|---|
| Article | Description |
| Connect Your Existing Chat Bots to Live Assist | Introduction to the API |
| Bot Escalation SDK - Context Service | Introduction to the Context Service |
| Bot Escalation SDK - Chat Activities | Introduction to Chat Activities |
| Chat Bot—As An Enabler—C# | Example Bot #C |
| Chat Bot—As An Enabler—NodeJS | Example Bot NodeJS |
Decisions for Developing and Hosting your Bot in Microsoft Azure
If you host your bot within Microsoft Azure, consider the following:
- Development Language
See the links earlier in this article for examples for the following languages that you can use within the Microsoft Bot Framework:- JavaScript (NodeJS)
- C#
- Bot Service
Microsoft Azure provides Bot Services for:- A Web App Bot, or
- A Functions Bot
- Costing
There are different cost implications associated with Web App Bots and Function Bots. You can use the Microsoft pricing calculator to estimate cost.