Talk given in #Ottawa Meetup Group https://www.meetup.com/ottawaitcommunity/events/235920172/ Want to learn what bots and Microsoft Bot Framework can offer? The Microsoft Bot Framework provides just what you need to build and connect intelligent bots that interact naturally wherever your users are talking, from text/sms to Skype, Slack, Office 365 mail and other popular services.In this session we will go over building a Bot using the SDK and Bot Connector

1. Introduction to
Bot Framework
Taswar Bhatti
@taswarbhatti
http://taswar.zeytinsoft.com

2. What is a Bot?
• In this context Microsoft Bot Framework, bots are computer
assistants or think of it as just a web api (ASP.NET Web App)
• Bots appear in your favorite messaging app including Facebook
Messenger and Skype
• You use bots for booking flights, hotels, ordering takeaway and much,
much more
• Purchase Request Api to build commerce enabled bot

3. Not, not this Bot!

4. Bot Framework Overview
• The Microsoft Bot Framework consists of:
• Bot Builder SDK(.NET, Node.js, REST Api)
• Bot Framework Emulator for Windows, Linux and Mac
• Bot Connector
• Developer Portal (http://dev.botframework.com)
• Bot Directory

5. High Level view of Bots

6. Bot Connector

7. Deep Vision of Bot

8. An Echo Bot Code
• [BotAuthentication]
• public class MessagesController : ApiController{
• public async Task<HttpResponseMessage> Post([FromBody]Activity activity) {
• if (activity.Type == ActivityTypes.Message) {
• ConnectorClient connector = new ConnectorClient(new Uri(activity.ServiceUrl));
• // return our reply to the user
• Activity reply = activity.CreateReply($"Echo {activity.Text}");
• await connector.Conversations.ReplyToActivityAsync(reply);
• } else {
• HandleSystemMessage(activity);
• }
• var response = Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK);
• return response;
• }
• }

9. Bot Emulator
• The Bot Famework Emulator is a desktop application that allows bot
developers to test and debug their bots on localhost
• It is supported on Windows, Linux and Mac

10. Bot Emulator Screenshot

11. Demo Bot Framework

12. Bot Builder Dialog and Sessions
• Bot builder uses dialogs to manage a bot conversation between a
user
• Session Objects are passed to the dialog handlers
• Session Objects are the primary mechnics between bots and users

13. Types of Dialogs
• Prompts – Text, Confirm, Number, Time, Choice, etc
• Waterfall dialogs – collection and use sequence of steps
• User Data – Store data of user, conversation (private data) Payload
max is 32k
• Intent Dialog – listen to keywords or phrases using NLP (e.g LUIS)
• Attachments and Cards – For Rich Objects (media or images)

14. Demo Search Image and Card
• Using cognitive vision api

15. Guideline for bots
• Don’t send a bot to do a webpages’s job
• Bots are just apps
• Don’t abuse Natural Language Processing
• Sometimes buttons do everything you need
• Its all a matter of User Experience

16. Resources
• Microsoft Bot Framework Resources (http://aka.ms/botresources)
• LUIS (https://www.luis.ai)
• Azure Trail (https://azure.Microsoft.com/services/bot-services)
• Books (Building Bots with Microsoft Bot Framework PACKT)
• Books (Programming the Microsoft Bot Framework MSPress)
• An introduction to Microsoft Bot Framework

17. Questions
• Questions?????