Virtual Agent API - Default Topic

viniciusoliveir · ‎01-07-2021

Hello community, we`ve successfully connected the VA Chatbot to WhatsApp using the new VA API that came out on the Paris release, through a 3rd party messaging provider (e.g. twilio).

The problem is, anytime a user starts a chat through the API, the fallback topic is triggered instead, rather than the default topic that we need.

When configuring VA on the portal, we are able to set in the widget instance the default topic sys_id that we want users to meet, but we have not seen such a way to specify what should be the default topic when triggering the VA chatbot through the API.

Has anyone been able to figure out a way for this?

Thanks in advance.

viniciusoliveir · ‎01-14-2021

So just to close this topic, we`ve found a solution for this.

1 - The first issue was related to setting appropriate roles to our VA topic. Since the conversation starts through a non-logged user on whatsapp, we had to add the "public" role to the topic. Once we've done that, the system was able to present the topic to the user.

2 - Now, since we are using keyword-based topics, we had to find a way to trigger that one topic, no matter what the user input - and for sure the user would not enter the keyword that could trigger our topic.

3 - To resolve this, we`ve ended up adding a condition to intercept the first user message in our VA API scripted REST resource, by capturing the "START_CONVERSATION" contextual action on the request, and then we've replaced that first user message with the topic keyword.

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Ct111 · ‎01-07-2021

Have you tried changing the Fallback topic to your default one and tested ?

You can go to General Settings (under Virtual Agent in Filter Navigator) and try changing your Fallback topic and test again both on Whatsapp side and POrtal side.

Let me know your response after test

viniciusoliveir · ‎01-08-2021

Hi, i cannot do that because we need separate topics for greetings and fallback.

Pranesh072 · ‎01-07-2021

CAn you check your general settings?

viniciusoliveir · ‎01-08-2021

Yep, it's all right. The issue is that when triggering the chat tru whatsapp it is triggering the fallback topic, and i've already confirmed that the greetings topic is not the same.