Bots - CSE Developer Blog

Facilitating Growth Capital Funding in Africa with Bots

Claudius Mbemba July 19, 2017 Jul 19, 2017 07/19/17

Overview We recently worked with Ovamba to build a bot that could simplify their funding application intake process. This code story explores the modular, reusable bot architecture we built, the localization we implemented, and unique challenges we faced while creating the bot (for example, working with the new Adaptive Cards, and combining...

Bot to Human Handoff in Node.js

Lilian Kasem (she/her) June 30, 2017 Jun 30, 2017 06/30/17

One common request from companies and organizations considering bots is the ability to "hand off" a customer from a bot to a human agent as seamlessly as possible. To solve this problem, we implemented an unopinionated e-2-e solution called Handoff, which enables bot authors to implement a wide variety of scenarios with minimal changes to the...

Deploying bots using the Serverless framework

Ville Rantala June 1, 2017 Jun 1, 2017 06/1/17

Introduction Microsoft recently partnered with the makers of the Whim service to experiment with conversational user interfaces. Whim is a Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) solution that allows people to leverage multiple kinds of transportation options with a single monthly fee. The makers of Whim found conversational interfaces interesting...

Collecting Form Data with a LUIS-Based Bot

Ami Turgman February 14, 2017 Feb 14, 2017 02/14/17

Background One major advantage of chatbots, over traditional form-based applications, is that they can extract information from natural language and reduce the amount of time spent on repeat typing and entry of information. For example, if a user wants to order a medium mushroom pizza to their house at 4:00 pm, they could just type “Can I ...

Unit Testing for Bot Applications

Mor Shemesh January 20, 2017 Jan 20, 2017 01/20/17

Image: Mr Robot has some RAM by Chris Isherwood, used by CC BY 2.0 First Things First Writing code using ad-hoc technologies like Microsoft Bot Framework (MBF) is fun and exciting. But before rushing to code bots that can make coffee and send spaceships to the moon, you need to think about unit testing your code. Recently, we worked ...

Building LUIS Models for Unsupported Languages with Machine Translation

Ari Bornstein January 14, 2017 Jan 14, 2017 01/14/17

Overview The following case study outlines a method for providing additional language support for LUIS using the Microsoft Translation Cognitive API. Background Moed.ai is an Israeli Startup that enables service providers to manage and fill their business calendar with a unified cloud-based platform, that is accessible from any device...

Creating a Single Bot Service with Azure to Support Multiple Bot Applications

Ami Turgman January 10, 2017 Jan 10, 2017 01/10/17

Cover image used with permission from moed.ai This post describes a method to create a single bot service that runs on Azure and serves multiple bot applications. One of the benefits of this architecture is the ability to manage it as a single service instead of creating a separate bot service for each bot application. Instead, you can ...

Leveraging Azure Search for Implementing a QnA Bot in Unsupported Languages

Ami Turgman December 10, 2016 Dec 10, 2016 12/10/16

Image: F.A.Q by photosteve101, used by CC BY 2.0 Background Our team recently worked with a Korean company that wanted to expose a QnA (Frequently Asked Questions / Questions and Answers) bot in their web portal to help answer common user questions. Bot Framework provides a QnA service (QnA Maker) that takes a list of common questions and ...

Integrating Payments with Bots

Bhargav Nookala October 31, 2016 Oct 31, 2016 10/31/16

Background At a recent collaboration with a customer, we learned about a few integrations they had wanted to build for Bots running with the Microsoft Bot Framework. One such integration was with a payments service provider, like PayPal. We had created an example of this integration with the C# SDK for Bot Framework, but no such example ...

Servicing FAQ-Style Content Through a Conversational Interface

Toby Bradshaw September 12, 2016 Sep 12, 2016 09/12/16

Background Recent advances in Machine Learning coupled with the growing ubiquity of instant messaging apps have revived interest in the decades-old concept of chatbots, now more commonly known as ‘bots’. Microsoft has taken a leading position in this field with the release of the Bot Framework SDK and LUIS language understanding ...

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