How to order catalog items using the Virtual Agent

[G Sai Vamshi]

Hello All,

I have a requirement to submit the catalog items through the virtual agent. I have gone through the OOB Plugins which has "Search for catalog item" and " Order a catalog item" topics blocks. Using them we can submit catalog request.

But it comes with many limitations , for eg it does not support checkbox variable & a reference field with more than 80 records.

I know the way of building a topic for each catalog item and using cart API we can submit the request.

But is there any way to build a topic which supports multiple catalog items with checkbox/reference field support. rather than creating a each topic for catalog item.

[Logan Poynter · Accepted solution]

Hello,

Virtual Agent checks that a particular catalog item passes the has_va_support logic - this essentially checks the catalog item for eligibility to be rendered in the bot (ie. making sure there are no client scripts, no unsupported variables, etc). A full list of what the bot can support can be found here. 

As VA itself cannot support checkboxes, you would have to create a specific topic with scripting to handle the logic (setting it to True/False based on user response). Given the bot supports Yes/No, it may be more feasible to convert the Checkbox variables to Yes/No than to create topics. 

Regarding reference fields, to combat the 80 record limit you may want to look at reference qualifiers to reduce the total count coming back if at all possible in your implementation. Otherwise, there is no way around this. 

Please mark my answer as correct/helpful if it has helped you.

Thanks,
Logan

[Logan Poynter]

Hello,

Just checking if you still require some help with this. If not, would you mind marking my answer as correct/helpful so that it will be marked as solved for others who may share this question in the future? 

Please mark my answer as correct/helpful if it has helped you.

Thanks,
Logan

[G Sai Vamshi]

Hi Logan, Thanks for taking time and helping me.I have 200+ catalog items which contains checbox and ref variables above 80+ (cannot use ref qual)as part of variable sets. These items wont be rendered in VA due to OOB limitation, to make this items work in VA what will be the accurate approach.? Should i create a topic which seeks user inputs and store them into variables using cart api? In that case, we cannot develop a topic for each catalog item to take user input and store them in variables. Could you please help us on accurate approach?

[Sadik Palsania]

Hey @Logan Poynter ,

How can we take user input from variable sets in Virtual agent?

I can get questions from variables, but whenever I create a variable set I am not getting any questions from Catalog Item variable set.

Thanks