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Add Help and Cancel

With even a simple bot, it is a good practice to provide a help command. You'll also want to provide a way for users to back out.

  1. Click + New Dialog in the left hand explorer. You'll see a popup window.

  2. Give this new dialog the name:

    help

  3. Click submit, and you'll land in the editor view for the new help dialog.

    Composer created this new dialog with one BeginDialog trigger pre-configured.

  4. With the BeginDialog trigger selected, use the + button at the bottom of the flow, choose Send a response

  5. In the property editor on the right side, set the text of the activity to:

    I am a weather bot! I can tell you the current weather conditions. Just say WEATHER.

    Next, let's wire this new dialog up to the Main dialog (your bot's brain).

  6. In the left hand explorer, click on weatherBot.Main at the top of the list.

  7. In the right hand property pane, find the "Language Understanding" section and click the "Add" button at the bottom. This will reveal 2 new fields, allowing you to define a new intent.

  8. Set the Intent field to:

    help

    Set the Pattern field to:

    help

  9. In the left hand explorer, click `+ New Trigger'

  10. In the resulting dialog box, select Handle an Intent, then choose the new help intent. Submit the dialog.

  11. In the flow editor, click the + button at the bottom of the empty flow.

  12. Choose Dialogs management > and then select Begin a new dialog

  13. In the right hand property editor, select the help dialog.

  14. Click Reload bot and open it in the emulator.

Now, in addition to giving you the current weather, your bot can also offer help.

However, notice that once you start the weather dialog by saying weather, your bot doesn't know how to provide help. Let's fix this!

Allowing interruptions

  1. In Composer's left hand explorer, navigate back to the getWeather dialog. Make sure to highlight the BeginDialog trigger.

  2. Select the Bot Asks node in the flow that says What is your zipcode?

  3. In the right hand property editor, set Allow Interruptions to true

    This tells Bot Framework to consult the parent dialog's recognizer, which will allow the bot to respond to help at the prompt as well.

  4. Hit Reload Bot and open it in the emulator.

Say weather to your bot. It will ask for a zipcode.

Now say help. It'll provide the global help response, even though that intent and trigger are defined in another dialog. Interruptions are a powerful way to make complex bots - we'll come back to that later.

For now, let's add one more global function - a cancel command.

Global cancel

  1. In Composer's left hand explorer, click the + New Dialog button again.

  2. Give this new dialog the name:

    cancel

  3. Use the + button at the bottom of the flow, choose Send a response

  4. In the property editor on the right side, set the text of the activity to:

    Canceling!

  5. Use the + button again, this time choose Dialog management >, then Cancel all dialogs

    When triggered, this will cause the bot to cancel any active dialogs, and send the user back to the main dialog.

  6. In the left hand explorer, click on weatherBot.Main at the top of the list.

  7. In the right hand property pane, find the "Language Understanding" section and click the "Add" button at the bottom. This will reveal 2 new fields, allowing you to define a new intent.

  8. Set the Intent field to:

    cancel

  9. Set the Pattern field to:

    cancel

  10. In the left hand explorer, click `+ New Trigger'

  11. In the resulting dialog box, select Handle an Intent, then choose the new cancel intent. Submit the dialog.

  12. In the flow editor, click the + button at the bottom of the empty flow.

  13. Choose Dialog management > and then select Begin a new dialog

  14. In the right hand property editor, select the cancel dialog.

  15. Click Reload bot and open it in the emulator.

Say weather to your bot. It will ask for a zipcode.

Now say help. It'll provide the global help respons.

Now, say cancel - notice, the bot doesn't resume the weather dialog. Instead, it confirms the cancelation, and waits for your next message.

Next steps