Decider-webchat NPM

SAP Conversational AI Webchat

Default Usage	Self-Hosted Installation	Getting Started on SAP Conversational AI	License

What is a webchat?

The SAP Conversational AI webchat let you deploy a bot straight to a website. It will be embed and available through a chat box on your pages. The webchat is one of the many channels available on SAP Conversational AI, and end-to-end bot building platform. This webchat is built using the React library, along with Redux for state managment.

Compatibility

This webchat is supported by all mobile and desktop browsers in their latest versions. Internet Explorer support starts at version 9.0.

Usage

Three different installations on the webchat module are possible.

The default is the simplest and fatest route, and offers some customization options.
The self-hosted webchat offers even more customization option, but you'll have to deal with the hosting and maintenance of the module.
Use it as a React component

Default webchat

To use the webchat, you need an account on SAP Conversational AI and a bot. Then, go to the CONNECT tab and click on Webchat. It will open a window that lets you adjust your webchat settings, including:

color scheme,
header customization,
bot and user pictures,
webchat logo and call to action,
conversation duration

Once you're satisfied with the settings, click on the SAVE button. A script tag appears, and you just have to copy paste it in your web page to embed the webchat. The script must be placed in the <body> tag.

Self-hosted webchat

If you want to customize your webchat even more, you can opt for a self-hosted installatiton. Just fork this project to get started!

Installation

Clone the repository you forked, and install the dependencies.

$> git clone YOUR_REPO_URL
$> cd webchat
$> npm install

Run in development mode

$> npm run start

Eslint + prettier

$> npm run prettier

Build for production

$> npm run build

Use your webchat

Once you're done, build it and host it. To use it instead of the default one provided by SAP Conversational AI, you need to set up the Webchat channel in the CONNECT tab of your bot. You'll be using the same script as the default installation, but you have to replace the src field by your own URL.

<script
  src="YOUR_WEBCHAT_URL"
  ...
></script>

React component

You can import the webchat as a React component like the following example:

import CaiWebchat from 'webchat';

export default class ReactWebchat extends Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <CaiWebchat
        onRef={ref => {
          this.webchat = ref;
        }}
        channelId={YOUR_CHANNEL_ID}
        token={YOUR_TOKEN}
        preferences={{
          accentColor: '#E05A47',
          complementaryColor: '#FFFFFF',
          botMessageColor: '#707070',
          botMessageBackgroundColor: '#F6F6F6',
          backgroundColor: '#FFFFFF',
          headerLogo: 'https://cdn.cai.tools.sap/webchat/webchat-logo.svg',
          headerTitle: 'My awesome chatbot',
          botPicture: 'https://cdn.cai.tools.sap/webchat/bot.png',
          userPicture: 'https://cdn.cai.tools.sap/webchat/user.png',
          onboardingMessage: 'Come speak to me!',
          expanderLogo: 'https://cdn.cai.tools.sap/webchat/webchat-logo.svg',
          expanderTitle: 'Click on me!',
          conversationTimeToLive: 24,
          openingType: 'never',
          welcomeMessage: 'Hello world !',
        }}
        getLastMessage={message => {
          console.log(message)
        }}
      />
    );
  }
}

Props

Name	Type	Required	Description
onRef	function	false	Function which returns ref of the webchat
channelId	string	true	Channel id (you can get in SAP Conversational AI)
token	string	true	Token (you can get in React.ai)
preferences	object	true	Object containing some settings
getLastMessage	function	false	Function which returns the last message sent by the webchat

Methods

You can access these methods by using the reference of the component (use OnRef)

<CaiWebchat
  onRef={ref => this.webchat = ref }
>
...

this.webchat.clearMessages();

Name	Description
clearMessages()	Clear all messages in the webchat

Bot Memory management

One thing you might want to do is to send custom data from your website to the bot, like the name of the logged in user, his ID, the page he is currently on (to send product suggestions for example). To do that, you can define a window.webchatMethods.getMemory function, the webchat will call it before sending user messages, and send your arbitrary payload along with the message to the bot.

If you use SAP Conversational AI's bot-builder (you should :)), your payload will be put in the memory of the conversation, meaning that you will be able to access this data in your bot-builder. Let's say you send this as payload : { "userName": "Dominik", "userId": 123456 }, you will then be able to send this as a greeting message : Hello {{ memory.userName }} ! How do you do ?.

window.webchatMethods.getMemory must return a JSON object or a Promise resolving a JSON object :

{ "memory": { ... }, "merge": <boolean> } where { ... } is your arbitrary payload. merge is an instruction for the bot-builder. If set to true, the payload will be merged with the existing memory, overriding common keys but keeping the ones absent from the payload. If set to false, the memory will be replaced entirely by your payload.

If your getMemory function takes more than 10 seconds, the message will be sent anyway, without waiting for your function to finish.

Examples :

<html>
  <head>
    <script>
      window.webchatMethods = {
        // called at each user message
        getMemory: (conversationId) => {
          const memory = { userName: 'Dominik Bousquet', userId: 123456 }
          return { memory, merge: true }
        }
      }
    </script>
  </head>
  <body>
    <script src="https://cdn.cai.tools.sap/webchat/webchat.js"
      channelId="<channelId>"
      token="<token>"
      id="cai-webchat"
    ></script>
  </body>
</html>

window.webchatMethods = {
  getMemory: (conversationId) => {
    const getCookie = (name) => {
      const value = document.cookie.match('(^|;) ?' + name + '=([^;]*)(;|$)')
      return value ? value[2] : null
    }
    const userName = getCookie('userName')
    const memory = { userName, currentUrl: window.location.href }
    return { memory, merge: true }
  }
}

window.webchatData = {}
window.webchatMethods = {
  getMemory: (conversationId) => {
    if (window.webchatData.savedUserData) {
      return { memory: window.webchatData.savedUserData, merge: true }
    }
    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
      axios.get('/current_user')
        .then((response) => {
          const memory = { userName: response.data.name, userId: response.data.id }
          window.webchatData.savedUserData = memory
          resolve({ memory, merge: true })
        })
        .catch(reject)
    })
  }
}

window.webchatData = {}
window.webchatMethods = {
  getMemory: (conversationId) => {
    if (!window.webchatData.oriUrl) {
      window.webchatData.oriUrl = window.location.href
    }
    // merge: false - reset the conversation if the user
    // switched to another page since the first message
    if (window.webchatData.oriUrl !== window.location.href) {
      return { memory: {}, merge: false }
    }
    return { memory: { userName: 'Dominik' }, merge: true }
  }
}

Getting started with SAP Conversational AI

We build products to help enterprises and developers have a better understanding of user inputs.

NLP API: a unique API for text processing, and augmented training.
Bot Building Tools: all you need to create smart bots powered by SAP Conversational AI's NLP API. Design even the most complex conversation flow, use all rich messaging formats and connect to external APIs and services.
Bot Connector API: standardizes the messaging format across all channels, letting you connect your bots to any channel in minutes.

Learn more about:

API Documentation	Discover the platform	First bot tutorial	Advanced NodeJS tutorial	Advanced Python tutorial

License

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON INFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.