Answer to a question

Creating Simple Chatbot Responses

Our no-code solution enables you to create various types of chatbot messages. In this article, we will explain how to create a simple bot response to a question.

Create an "Answer to a Question" knowledge item

An Answer to a Question knowledge item consist of a user's question and its corresponding answer. For more complex conversation scenarios where you need to provide different answers based on information given by your users, you can also create a decision tree. (We explain it here)

To create an Answer to a Question knowledge item, please follow these steps:

1. Go to Content > Knowledge.

2. Click the Add button then click New knowledge. Or select a tag and click ... > New knowledge. This second option allows you to assign a tag directly to your knowledge.

1. Click Answer to a question.

1. Enter the user's question and click Create.

You can use matching groups to replace certain words in your questions. To insert a matching group in the user's question, clicking at .

When you click on Create, the bot automatically suggests a list of matching group that you can use. You can accept or ignore the suggestion. (To ignore it, click on "Create" again).

1. Once you have created the question, enter the corresponding answer in the appropriate field in the knowledge builder.

You can use different formatting options and add additional actions to your answer.

It is formatted in HTML and can therefore contain any type of valid formatting in HTML.

For more tips on creating a relevant answer, please read this article.

1. Save your knowledge item with the appropriate status and click at Update. Your knowledge item is now created.

Deep dive into the user's question

Edit the user's question and its associated formulations

Once you have created a simple knowledge item, you can edit the principal user's question, which represent an intention, by clicking on the button.

Since an intention can be expressed in many different ways, you can add similar formulations to the principal user's question through the Formulation field. Click Add or press Entry to validate.

Formulation can be added by entering a string (text) or by adding matching groups.

Once added, formulations can be edited, deleted individually or massively.

note: the mass deletion option will only appear when you have more than 1 formulation. Mass deletion allows you to choose one formulation to conserve while deleting all others.

The added formulations are sorted in the following order (from top to bottom of the list):

• Numbers (sorted by magnitude)

• Formulations using default variables such as integers, dates or email addresses (sorted alphabetically)

• Other formulations such as matching groups or text (sorted alphabetically)

Note that a formulation can only be used in one knowledge item.

Use advanced options for your formulations

There are 4 tabs at the bottom of the user's question panel :

Simple addition

This tab allows you to choose the the type of your formulation:

• Formulation : it's the default type without any special options.

• Keyword : formulations will be created as keyword.

  Keyword has a bigger weight on our matching system, which means if the bot matches with a knowledge item A that contains a keyword and with another knowledge item B that contains only a formulation, the knowledge item 1 will be considered by the bot as a more appropriate answer than B even when B might have a higher matching score.

  Keywords added as a formulation are symbolized by the icon.

• Exclusion: it allows you to exclude a formulation, which means the bot will ignore this formulation in its matching system and, therefore, the knowledge item will never be triggered through this formulation.

  Excluded formulations are symbolized by the icon.

Search

This tab allows you to see the matching details of a given phrase with the existing formulations witin the user's question.

Enter a phrase and click Search. You will see to which extend this sentence matches the formulations you have already added. This will give you a better idea on the relevance of your formulations.

By clicking on the icon, you can get more details about the matching process.

Options

There are 3 options in this tab:

• Export: this allows you to export, in different formats, files containing all the formulations associated with the knowledge;

• Massive addition: this allows you to import multiple formulations at once. Simply enter formulations (separated by line breaks) or copy-paste a list into the designated field, then click Add.

• Options: this allows you to perform advanced actions on your knowledge item:

  • Strict matching on formulations: when this option is activated, the knowledge item will only be triggered when there is a exact "textual" match between the user question and formulation. For example, if two letters of a formulation are reversed, the knowledge will not be triggered.

  • Specific reword sentence: you can find more information here.

  • Enable reword: when this option is activated, this option authorize the bot to use this knowledge item as a reword when it can not find a direct match between the user question and your knowledge base.

  • Non exportable knowledge: when this option is activated, the knowledge can not be exported.

  • Exclude from top knowledge when this option is activated, the knowledge item will not appear in the top knowledge section, whether it is automatic or manual top knowledge.

Decision Trees

A decision tree can be used to manage the conversational logic of a bot in the following cases:

• When a user's question is too vague or can lead to several answers depending on complementary elements;

• When a user types a sentence that makes sense only contextually.

To create a decision tree, just click on the button. Then, the same process of editing the user question and the bot answer occurs. This leads to a knowledge such as:

For more tips on creating decision trees, continue to read this article.

Next step: to enrich the content of your answers, learn more about the answers elements.