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Batches and Batches of Bots

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This post has been republished via RSS; it originally appeared at: Channel 9.

Is 2017 going to be the Year of Bots? I don’t know about that, but here’s a batch of great resources, links, examples and more for building Bots.

First, Simon Michael gathered a boat load of Bot links and resources…

Microsoft Bot Framework Resources

 

“There are quite a few great tutorials, samples and videos around on Microsoft Bot Framework.

I thought it would be useful to keep a list on these running within this blog for easy reference.

This is meant to help and is not an endorsed list of recommendations (although there is great material here :))

I will keep adding to this list as new material appears and please contact me if you think I am missing something!

There are 5 sections:

****  GENERAL BOT FRAMEWORK LINKS ****

**** BOT FRAMEWORK TUTORIALS *****

**** BOT FRAMEWORK SAMPLES ****

**** BOT ‘SMARTS’ – ADDING INTELLIGENCE TO YOUR BOT ****

**** BOT AND COGNITIVE API CASE STUDIES  ****

… [Click through to see them all]

Next we have Benjamin Perkins who has written up a great guide to Bot samples on GitHub

C# Bot Builder Samples on GitHub

 

“A good way to get ideas and some coding best practice is to look at some examples, there are many of them using C# hosted on GitHub here.

I wanted to walk through what they are so I can for myself find or discover some new ideas and best practices for this, as I am interested in creating a #chatbot like I discussed in these links

Some samples, the name and my description of them

…” [Click through to see them all]

Kate Michel delves into building one of the more common uses for bots…

Building a Cognitive Customer Service Bot

 

“If there is something being talked about with more passion and frequency than “customer 360” or “internet of things” it is certainly “bots.” Bots are taking shape to play a significant role in our lives and have a vital role to play in customer service interactions. In the past, bots or virtual assistants were considered little more than a chat-based IVR system but more and more these A.I. entities are becoming smarter, more helpful and empowering us to do greater things.

When it comes to customer service the bot conversation is simple: One bot can do the work of 1,000 agents at a fraction of the price taking less time to train. As customer expectations for response times, 24/7 availability and simplicity increase, bots are fast becoming an integral part of support teams around the world.

This blog will illustrate some of the ways in which Microsoft Bots can be built to facilitate customer conversations like never before.

Sample code provided in this blog is written to the Microsoft Bot Framework V3. I code my bots using Node.js, please see my colleague Geoff Innis’ blog for related .NET content and samples.

Bots are like Onions

image

Just like an excellent Customer Service Representative, a Cognitive Service Bot is comprised of layers of intelligence. The foundation rests on the Microsoft Bot Framework, an extensible platform that allows you to easily build bots and connect them to several (10+) channels so that your bot is as responsive to customer needs and touch points as a real agent.

The Bot Framework consists of a number of components including the Bot Builder SDK, Developer Portal and the Bot Directory. Features of the Bot Builder SDK include dialogs, prompts, built-in connection to Artificial Intelligence frameworks and the ability to run on nearly any bot platform. I choose to build my bots using the Bot Builder for Node.js.

There is an excellent beginning tutorial to get started with a “Hello World” bot within the Bot Framework Documentation here.

While a basic bot can be a lot of fun, Customer Service has unique challenges and a bot tasked with having a conversation with real customers needs to be more versatile and intelligent than your average bot.

…” [Click through to see the entire post, with all the details]

Last, but not least, Peter Daukintis, Friend of the Blog, shares creating a Bot with the MS Health API…

MS Health Bot Tutorial

 

This is a step-by-step guide to writing an Bot in C# using the Bot Framework Connector SDK .NET template. You will need to have collected some sleep data using a Microsoft Band and have had that synchronised up to the Microsoft cloud as this tutorial uses the Bot Framework to provide access to that data.

1) Install prerequisite software

2) Download and install the Bot Application template

3) Open Visual Studio

…

Microsoft Health API…

Health API Helpers

LUIS ….

Bot Implementation…

Summary

This tutorial has illustrated how to put together a real-world, useful bot not just be providing a text input interface to an API but allowing the user to use their natural voice input to query the aggregated data. Hopefully, this will leave you with some ideas about how to implement a bot for your own scenario.”

[You’re going to want to click through to see the source and more]