Presentation that took place in Poznań, 07.03.2018. Why chatbots are interesting? How to start develop chatbots in PHP, Laravel? What is possible in Messenger?

1. Creating chatbots
with BotMan

2. Adam Matysiak
CTO / Team Leader
adam@highsolutions.pl

3. What is chatbot?
Definition:
“A conversational
user interface
used for interaction
with application”

4. Where we can use it?
- Automatic/interactive deployments
- DevOps
- Sales support (E-commerce)
- Customer service support
- Brand marketing
- Blog/content promotion
- Self-service (e.g. weather forecast, bus timetable etc.)
- Fun
- … ?

5. Examples
https://highsolutions.pl/blog/wpis/7-zastosowan-chatbota-
o-ktorych-musisz-wiedziec-prowadzac-biznes

6. The time is now?
“Chatbot Market Size Is About To
Reach $1.25 Billion By 2025”
GrandViewResearch, August 2017

7. Efficiency
Data source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/open-rates-facebook-messenger

9. BotMan
composer create-project --prefer-dist botman/studio your-awesome-bot
Requirements: PHP >= 7.0
● https://botman.io/ - Documentation / Demo
● https://buildachatbot.io/ - Video course
● https://playground.botman.io/ - On-line IDE
● https://christoph-rumpel.com/build-chatbots-with-php - E-book

10. Available services
- Amazon Alexa
- Cisco Spark
- Facebook Messenger
- HipChat
- Kik
- Microsoft Bot Framework
- Nexmo
- Slack
- Telegram
- Twilio
- WeChat

11. How chatbots work
1. Listening 🙉
2. Processing 🌀
3. Responding 📢

12. How chatbots work

13. Hear and respond...
File botman.php in routes directory
$botman->hears('Hi', function ($bot) {
$bot->reply('Hello World!');
});
// Process incoming message
$botman->listen();

14. Sending to controller...
$botman->hears('Hi', 'SomeNamespaceCommandController@respond');
class CommandController {
public function respond($bot) {
$bot->reply('Hello World!');
}
}

15. Parameters and regular expressions
$botman->hears('I like {team}', function ($bot, $team) {
$bot->reply('You like: '. $team);
});
$botman->hears('.*(hi|hey|hello).*', function ($bot) {
$bot->reply('Hello World!');
});
$botman->hears('I want to buy ([0-9]+) tickets', function ($bot, $number) {
$bot->reply('I am ordering ’. $number .’ tickets for you!’);
});

16. Attachments (images, videos, localization etc.)
$bot->receivesImages(function($bot, $images) {
foreach ($images as $image) {
$url = $image->getUrl(); // The direct url
$title = $image->getTitle(); // The title, if available
$payload = $image->getPayload(); // The original payload
}
});

17. Responding
$botman->hears('Hi!', function (BotMan $bot) {
$bot->reply("Foo");
$bot->reply("Bar");
$bot->typesAndWaits(2); // It shows typing icon for 2 seconds...
$bot->reply("Baz!");
});

18. Responding with an image
use BotManBotManMessagesAttachmentsImage;
use BotManBotManMessagesOutgoingOutgoingMessage;
$botman->hears('Show me your logo', function (BotMan $bot) {
// Create attachment
$attachment = new Image('https://highsolutions.pl/images/logo-image.png');
// Build message object
$message = OutgoingMessage::create('Our logo')
->withAttachment($attachment);
// Reply message object
$bot->reply($message);
});

19. Conversations
$botman->hears('I want to create an account', function($bot) {
$bot->startConversation(new AccountRegisterConversation);
});

20. Conversations
class AccountRegisterConversation extends Conversation
{
protected $name;
protected $email;
public function run()
{
$this->askName();
}
public function askName()
{
$this->ask('What is your name?', function(Answer $answer) {
$this->name = $answer->getText();
$this->say('Nice to meet you, '. $this->name);
$this->askEmail();
});
}
public function askEmail()
{
$this->ask('Please provide your e-mail address:', function(Answer $answer) {
$this->email = $answer->getText();
// ... sending e-mail
$this->say('Thank you. We send confirmation e-mail to: '. $this->email);
});
}
}

21. Questions
public function askWhoWillWinNextMatch()
{
$this->ask('Who will win next match?', function (Answer $response) {
$this->say('Great, your answer is - ' . $response->getText());
});
}

22. Questions with predefined options
public function askForNextMatchWinner()
{
$question = Question::create('Who will win next match?')
->fallback(“Can’t say...”)
->callbackId('who_will_win_next_match')
->addButtons([
Button::create('Team A')->value('a'),
Button::create('Team B')->value('b'),
]);
$this->ask($question, function (Answer $answer) {
// Detect if button was clicked:
if ($answer->isInteractiveMessageReply()) {
$selectedValue = $answer->getValue(); // will be either 'a' or 'b'
$selectedText = $answer->getText(); // will be either 'Team A' or 'Team B'
}
});
}

23. Questions with patterns
public function askWhoWillWinNextMatch()
{
$this->ask('Who will win next match? [Real - Barca]', [
[
'pattern' => 'real|madrid|hala',
'callback' => function () {
$this->say('In Cristiano you trust!');
}
],
[
'pattern' => 'barca|barcelona|fcb',
'callback' => function () {
$this->say('In Messi you trust!');
}
]
]);
}

24. User information
/**
* Retrieve User information.
* @param IncomingMessage $matchingMessage
* @return UserInterface
*/
public function getUser(IncomingMessage $matchingMessage)
{
return new User($matchingMessage->getSender());
}
// Access user
$user = $bot->getUser();

25. Cache
$storage = $botman->userStorage();
$storage = $botman->channelStorage();
$storage = $botman->driverStorage();
$bot->userStorage()->save([
'name' => $name
]);
$bot->userStorage()->all();
$userInformation = $bot->userStorage()->find($id);
$name = $userInformation->get('name');
$bot->userStorage()->delete();

26. NLP
Hey, I am going to match Real - Barca on Sunday at 15:00 with Suzy.
{
"intent": "create_meeting",
"entities": {
"name" : "Match Real - Barca",
"invitees" : [‘Suzy’],
"time": "2017-03-11 15:00:00"
}
}

27. Middleware

28. Testing
/** @test */
public function test_simple_reply()
{
$this->bot
->receives('Hi')
->assertReply('Hello World!');
}
/** @test */
public function test_image_reply()
{
$this->bot
->receivesImage(['https://highsolutions.pl/images/logo-image.png'])
->assertReply('This is our logo!');
}

29. Testing
/** @test */
public function test_conversation()
{
$this->bot
->receives('Hi')
->assertReplies([
'Foo',
'Bar',
])->receives('And?')
->assertReply('Baz');
}

30. Web driver

31. Web widget

32. NLP model

34. Messenger / Button Template
$bot->reply(ButtonTemplate::create('How do you like BotMan so far?')
->addButton(ElementButton::create('Quite good')->type('postback')->payload('quite-good'))
->addButton(ElementButton::create('Love it!')->url('https://botman.io'))
);

35. Messenger / Generic Template
$bot->reply(GenericTemplate::create()
->addElements([
Element::create('BotMan Documentation')
->subtitle('All about BotMan')
->image('http://botman.io/img/botman-body.png')
->addButton(ElementButton::create('visit')
->url('http://botman.io')
)
->addButton(ElementButton::create('tell me more')
->payload('tellmemore')
->type('postback')
),
Element::create('BotMan Laravel Starter')
->subtitle('This is the best way to start...')
->image('http://botman.io/img/botman-body.png')
->addButton(ElementButton::create('visit')
->url('https://github.com/botman/botman')
),
])
);

36. Messenger / List Template
$bot->reply(ListTemplate::create()
->useCompactView()
->addGlobalButton(ElementButton::create('view more')->url('http://buildachatbot.io'))
->addElement(
Element::create('BotMan Documentation')
->subtitle('All about BotMan')
->image('http://botman.io/img/botman-body.png')
->addButton(ElementButton::create('tell me more')
->payload('tellmemore')->type('postback'))
)
->addElement(
Element::create('BotMan Laravel Starter')
->subtitle('This is the best way to start...')
->image('http://botman.io/img/botman-body.png')
->addButton(ElementButton::create('visit')
->url('http://botman.io')
)
)
);

37. Messenger / Media Template
$bot->reply(MediaTemplate::create()
->element(MediaAttachmentElement::create('image')
->addButton(ElementButton::create('Tell me more')
->type('postback')
->payload('Tell me more'))
->addButton(ElementButton::create('Documentation')
->url('https://botman.io/'))));

38. Messenger Demo Viewer

39. Questions?
adam@highsolutions.pl
@AdamMatysiak
chatbot.highsolutions.pl