Interactions

Interactions define the steps of your chatbot behavior and contain information of how exchanges with your users happens. Each interaction will then contain one or more action. Each action defines a minimal unit containing a single step in of a greater interaction. A single action can be, as an example, a speech bubble or a button or an image.

We can add a new Interaction to our design by using the Add Interaction button on the behavior detail panel. Clicking on any interaction or on the small cog button on the top right of the Interaction box will reveal a number of options and details.

1. This is the Interaction name. You can change it anytime to anything you like. It is also possible to rename the interaction by double-clicking on the name in the box itself and then pressing Enter.

   
2. This flag marks the interaction as the start one. The start interaction in a behavior is the default interaction of the behavior if no interaction is specified for a specific operation.

3. The Fallback Interaction flag marks the selected interaction as the fallback for the selected behavior. The fallback interaction is engaged every time your chatbot encounters an error or something it cannot manage.

   Although an interaction can be both Start and Fallback we strongly advise to keep these two types separated.

4. The Enable User Chat flag is marked by default and specifies if the user can write something while the chatbot is in the selected interaction. Not all channels support disabling the message area: those channels will just ignore the flag.

5. Use the "Add Action" button To add a new action to the selected interaction. Actions can have different effects and display different informations to the user.

6. You can completely duplicate the selected interaction with all included actions and operations using the "Clone" button

7. Using the "Move To..." button you can choose to move the selected interaction to a another behavior or even to a new behavior. All dependent interactions will be moved and all attached or referenced "Go To" actions will automatically adjusted for you.

   If the toggle button "Include all related interactions" is turned On, only the selected interaction will be moved. All the referenced "Go To" will still be automatically adjusted.

The toggle specified is turned On by default. You can of course turn it Off / On, before to click confirm.

There is no limit to the number of interactions a single behavior can contain.

The enable user chat flag may have no effect on a particular channel. Please make sure that your target channel supports this kind of feature before relying on it for your flow.

The Start Interaction

The start interaction is the very first interaction that gets executed by the chatbot when no specific interaction is selected. In the chatbot default Behaviour it will be the very first thing that your chatbot will do for the user.

You can change the default interaction anytime by clicking on another interaction and selecting the Start Interaction toggle in the Interaction details on the right panel.

A behaviour must have one and only one start interaction. if you remove the Start Interaction flag from an Interaction, Xenioo will randomly pick another Interaction to be the start one.

The Fallback Interaction

The Fallback Interaction is executed every time your chatbot cannot process and input or an user event. For example if the user says "hello" and no input or global detection catches the text, Xenioo will redirect the output to this Interaction.

After the Actions contained inside the Fallback Interaction are executed, Xenioo will automatically redirect the flow to the Interaction where the Fallback was triggered. You can of course change this behaviour by adding a Go To action inside the Fallback Interaction that redirects where you want.

A behaviour must have one and only one fallback interaction. if you remove the Fallback Interaction flat from an Interaction, Xenioo will randomly pick another Interaction to be the fallback one.

To force your chatbot to restart whenever something unexpected happens you may want to have an interaction to be both Start and Fallback. Although possible, this is not recommended as it may lead to odd flow redirection patterns during execution. A better approach is to redirect the user to a more dedicated handler or to manually Go To the designated Start Interaction.