Building a conversation flow

The best place for building out your bot is in the Visual Builder, accessible from the Responses tab.

Build your first response

When you log in for the first time your bot will have 2 blocks on the Visual Builder canvas: Intro and Menu. These are 2 of the default blocks that come with every logicdialog bot.

The Intro block

This block houses what will be said to your visitor the first time they visit your site (or whenever a new session is started). Usually bots will lead with who they are and what they do.

The Menu block

This block is reserved for a short bit of text and optional buttons to get your user started on their conversational journey. Usually the text will consist of a leading question and the buttons will act as hints to the user on what they can use your bot for.

You can edit the Intro and Menu blocks whenever you like. You know better than anyone what your bot will do so will be able to set the scene much more efficiently than the generic content in them at the outset!

If you do not use buttons on your menu block, your users must type what they need instead. That's absolutely fine - as long as your Natural Language Processing is configured properly.

Adding content blocks to your journey

As this is likely your first time designing a bot, we'll walk you through designing a button-led journey first.

• Start by selecting the + icon underneath the Menu block.

• Next, choose the response type. This will be a 'New block' this time as we haven't any other blocks to link it to. Then you'll see a range of types of New block to choose from.

• Then select the type of response you want to create,

• Add a title for the response. For this run through, use Drink choice.

Try to keep block titles meaningful, concise (under 20 characters) and standalone. This is because logicdialog will sometimes suggest content to the user and will create button labels from the block titles. People are more likely to select it when they understand it, rather than if they see a label that says, 'DrnkPrefV2'!

When you're done here you may want to get a rundown of the different types of block and what they're good for, but for now we'll keep things simple and select the 'Basic block'.

• It's always recommended to add your block to a topic when you're actually building, but for now you don't need one, so let's go to the message field and write: What's your daily drink of choice? You can even add an emoji using the field's emoji picker if you like. These are good: ☕👇
• Next select Submit Your flow should update.

• Now to add some options. We'll add 3: Tea, Coffee and Water. Let's start with Tea.

• Click the + icon underneath the block you just created. And run through the steps above again using the info below. Button label: Tea Block type: New block - Basic block Block title: Teaholic Block message: Ahh, the British solution to... well... everything!

• When you've created the Tea block, go back where the tea button is and select the + icon to the right of the button. Now add a coffee option. Add the appropriate labels and message and then finally do the same for water.

When you're done, test your bot using the Preview bot button at the top of the Visual Builder page. Ta-da! Here you have your very first logicdialog bot.

You can type reset user directly into the bot to reset the conversation. This will clear any data previously entered into any forms and allow you to test any changes you've recently made.

Designing journeys only accessible through Natural Language Processing

You may want some journeys within your bot that are only accessible when the user types what they need and the bot recognises what the user wants (See NLP). I.e. Not via any button menus.

To create a new Visual Builder canvas for these journeys you should first create a standalone block from the Responses screen. After you've saved it, you can find the block and select the Visual Builder button on the block itself. That will open the Visual Builder canvas and it will show your new block as the starting point, allowing you to build out the flow as normal.

Note that if at the end of the subflow you return back to the menu, this part of the flow will be removed & disabled to avoid unnecessary duplication. If you wish to edit the core menu structure then open the Visual Builder using the main button at the top of the Responses page.