The document presents an overview of building advanced chatbots and voice interactive assistants using Cisco's Tropo cloud APIs, which enable developers to incorporate communication features into applications. It includes examples of functionalities like text-to-speech, outbound calls, and SMS, as well as guidance on setting up Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems. Additionally, it discusses best practices for chatbot development, including coding standards, serverless architecture, and machine learning integration.

1. Building advanced Chat Bots
& Voice Interactive Assistants
Stève SFARTZ
API Evangelist - Cisco DevNet
stsfartz@cisco.com, @SteveSfartz, github://ObjectIsadvantag

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/Cisco/DevNet/SteveSfartz
• API Evangelist @CiscoDevNet
• Cisco Spark Apps & Tropo APIs
• code addict, nodejs, love story
with #golang
• France and all around Europe
• hosted @PIRL – Paris Innovation
Center & Research Lab
• twitter://@SteveSfartz
• github://ObjectIsAdvantag
“vision without
execution is
hallucination”
-- Thomas Edison
stsfartz@cisco.com
@SteveSfartz

3. 3
 Zero to advanced Voice Machines, ChatBots
 Demoes & code samples
 +39-069-480-4685,
 QuizBot@sparkbot.io
 Challenges & Lessons learnt
T
so what’s on the menu

4. From Zero to advanced
Voice Machines with Tropo

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What is Tropo ?
Cloud APIs enabling developers to quickly
and easily embed communication capabilities
into their applications and business processes.

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+
• Ask
• Call
• Conference
• Hangup
• Record
• Reject
• Say
• Transfer
6
Tropo in a nutshell

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say("hello world");
7
Text to Speech

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Play an Audio File
say(“http://.../troporocks.mp3");

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Outbound Voice Call
call("+14155550100");
say("Tag, you’re it!");
9

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Send a Text Message
call("+14155550100",
{network:"SMS"}
);
say("Tag, you’re it!");
1

11. Asking a Question
var result = ask("What's your favorite
color? Choose red, blue or green.", {
choices:"red, blue, green"
});
say("You said " + result.value);
log("They said " + result.value);
1

12. Voicemail Application
record("Leave your message. Press
pound when finished.", {
beep:true,
timeout:10,
silenceTimeout:7,
maxTime:60,
terminator:'#',
recordFormat:"audio/mp3",
recordURI:"ftp://.../file.mp3" });
1

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How to setup your own Voice Machine
• Signup at http://tropo.com
• Create a new Scripting app
• Point to an IVR script:
http://bit.ly/TROPO-IVR
• Pick a phone number
• Save the application
13

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Globally available
Global Outgoing Calls & Messages
Numbers in 42 countries
80 speech languages
14

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Account Types
• Free
• Low-volume
• Restricted use
• No production
usage
• 24x7 support
Developer
• Pre-paid
• Credit Card
• Self-service
signup
• Shared Cloud
• one minute billing
increments
Production
15

16. Check upcoming talks
via CodeMotion Rome’s
Voice Machine
+39 069 480 4685

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CodeMotion Rome Voice Machine
IVR = Interactive Voice Responder
• Call +39 069 480 4685 and listen…
• Dial 1 to receive more details by SMS, 2 for next
• Check a session details on your mobile phone
• Text your email to the caller /! you’re texting US !!!
• Launch CiscoSpark, and meet the bot…

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{CodeMotion} Rome Voice Machine
18

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How to setup a custom IVR
• The IVR is composed of :
• a local phone number
• a custom script executed by the Tropo Scripting platform
dials #1
+39 069 480 4685
« Welcome »
details via SMS
calls
Voice Machine
script
19

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IVR script highlights
• Forking a new session to send a SMS
20

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Join the Cisco DevNet code labs
https://github.com/CiscoDevNet/codemotion-rome-2017

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Serverless is great
• no deployment hurdles, scalability from day 1
… but
• tedious dev cycles (commit, push, test)
• painful to diagnose (read logs through)
 local emulators to the rescue
 run and debug locally
 integrate in a CI/CD tool chain
Lessons learnt

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Tropo Ready!
• Tropo Ready!
• + URL to the project
• Browse the project
https://github.com/ObjectIsAdvantag/tropo-ready-vscode

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Tropo Emulator in practice
https://github.com/ObjectIsAdvantag/tropo-ready-vscode

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Best practices: ChatOps
Diagnose & follow real time activity
“Follow your
application usage in
real-time”

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Best practices: ChatOps
Diagnose & follow real time activity
“Follow your
application usage in
real-time”

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Best practices: ChatOps
Diagnose & follow real time activity
“Diagnose a Serverless script”

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How to setup ChatOps
To stream logs and get
instant view about your
Voice Machine activity:
1. Create a ChatOps
room
2. Add an Incoming
Webhook
3. Post messages
Voice Machine
script
Log2Spark
library
/new
logs
POST
message
« ChatOps »
Room
1
2
3
28

29. From Zero to advanced
Chat Bots with Cisco Spark

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Cisco Spark
Secure & Open
Complete & Simple
Spark for Developers
User Integrations, APIs/SDKs...
Spark Hybrid Services
Cloud + Prem
Partner Services
Interconnect
Message Meeting Call
1:1 and team messaging Cloud-based phone systemAudio, video, and web meetings
30

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‘Your App’
now with
Cisco Collab!
Spark APIs
extend Cisco Collaboration Cloud
GET
POST
DELETE
PUT
/Rooms
/Memberships
/Messages
/Webhooks
/People
31
/Teams
https://developer.ciscospark.com/

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Meet the roomId bot
• Add roomId@sparkbot.io
to a room
1. The bot sniffs room identifier,
2. Posts the identifier in a 1-1 space,
3. And finally leaves the space you originally invited it to join
https://github.com/CiscoDevNet/node-sparkbot-samples

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• nothing more than an API responding to
events
• a few lines of code with a Bot framework
What it takes to build a Chat Bot
33

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Run a bot sample
• Leverages the node-sparkbot framework
• aimed at Cisco Spark bot education
• https://github.com/CiscoDevNet/node-sparkbot
• Community frameworks
• Flint: https://github.com/flint-bot/flint
• BotKit: https://github.com/howdyai/botkit
https://github.com/CiscoDevNet/node-sparkbot-samples

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Cisco Spark Cloud
Service
1. interacts in spaces
via a Cisco Spark client
Cisco Spark User
Your Bot code running
On-premise or on a Public Coud
2. posts notifications to
registered WebHooks
Publicly accessible APIs
3. posts messages
as notifications fly in
Bot Architecture
 Register WebHook
events your bot is
interested to
listened to
 Messages /
created
 Memberships /
created
 As events happen
in spaces, receive
notifications from
Cisco Spark

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Cisco Spark Cloud
Service
1. interacts in spaces
via a Cisco Spark client
Cisco Spark User
DMZ
2. posts notifications to
registered WebHooks
Publicly accessible
3. responds to
Webhook events
Your Bot code running
on-premises
Enterprise secured
2b. forwards notifications
Bot Architecture: on-premises

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Cisco Spark Cloud
Service
1. interacts in Rooms
via the various Spark Clients
Cisco Spark User
Tunneling
infrastructure
Your Bot code running
on your local machine
2. posts notifications to
registered WebHooks
Dev environmentPublicly accessible
2b. forwards
Webhook events
3. responds to
Webhook events
Bot Architecture: dev machine
ngrok, localtunnel…

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Bot Contest
Sign in on CiscoSpark
Meet the Bot
quizbot@sparkbot.io
Take the challenge
Win an iPhone7…

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Meet the QuizBot
39
https://github.com/LucaCalabrese/codemotion-spark-bot
Java, AWS, PostGreSQL, WebHooks @LukeCalab

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@QuizBot help

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@QuizBot now
41

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Enhance the User Experience
• Help command
• better show at the invite, welcome message
• But how much help do the bot really
provide?
• /hlp
• Help
• #help
• HELP!!!
 Fallback command

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Fallback command
43

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Add conversations to the game…
44
https://github.com/ObjectIsAdvantag/devnet-botkit-sample

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…and context storage
45
https://github.com/CiscoDevNet/botkit-ciscospark-samples

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Bot Frameworks survey

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Bot community frameworks
• Flint, https://github.com/flint-bot/flint
• BotKit, https://github.com/howdyai/botkit

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Community frameworks for Cisco Spark
Flint
First Bot framework for
Cisco Spark
Highly tuned for the Cisco
Spark API (webhooks
events, moderation…)
Basic Key/Value data store
Coding best practices (ES6,
exception handling, logs,
retries, rate limitation)
BotKit
Largest community Bot
framework
Cross platform support with
code reuse (no magic
convert button: events
name, message formatting)
Advanced Key/Value data
store (user / space level)
Powerful conversational
paradigm
https://github.com/flint-bot/flint https://github.com/howdyai/botkit

49. Taking bots to the next
stage

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Taking bots to the next stage
• But who created the bot ?
• What is the usage policy ?
• How can I contact support, send feedback ?
• What about my data privacy ?

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@CiscoDevNet /about
51

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Taking bots to the next stage
Is the bot down ?

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Bot Metadata
HealthCheck

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Is the bot down ? a proposal
• Register the Bot in a Universal Database
• Chat services supported
• Healthcheck endpoints
• Author, Policies
• Metadata again…
• chatbot.land domain reserved
• who’s in ? twitter://@SteveSfartz
54

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Taking bots to the next stage
Hosting
• Many options: IaaS, Containers, PaaS
• Concerns: Availability, Scalability,
Security, Rate Limitation
• Pricing balance: who’s willing to pay for
the bot, and how much
• Heroku PaaS Free Dynos
• AWS/Google/Microsoft free plans
• Currently testing Serverless Functions

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Google Functions pricing
56

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The Serverless Functions opportunity
57
https://github.com/ObjectIsAdvantag/devnetexpress-bot
Remember?
a bot is nothing more
than a POST endpoint
…
with an healthcheck !

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The Serverless Functions opportunity
> gcloud alpha functions deploy sparkbot
--entry-point googlefunction
--stage-bucket objectisadvantag-functions
--trigger-http
--memory 128MB
--timeout 1s
58
https://github.com/ObjectIsAdvantag/devnetexpress-bot

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The Serverless Functions opportunity
• An easy way to remove the Serverless burden
59
https://github.com/ObjectIsAdvantag/devnetexpress-bot

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Taking bots to the next stage
• Pick Bots coding best practices & frameworks
• Exception management, Retries
• Help, Fallback command, Healthcheck
• Conversations (test is challenging)
• Choose the best hosting approach
• Monitor your bot activity
• Chatops + Analytics
• Think twice before going to NLP and then
choose the best approach (local vs 3rd party)
https://devnetcreate.io/2017 Nick Marus’s Talk

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Taking bots to the next stage
Machine Learning
• The bot companion learns from
interactions
• Use case: classify my Twitter Followers
• Who’s ready to pay for it ?
• Data Privacy vs Real Cost

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Join the Cisco DevNet code labs
https://github.com/CiscoDevNet/codemotion-rome-2017

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Bot Contest
• Sign in on Cisco
Spark
• Meet the Bot
quizbot@sparkbot.io
• Take the challenge
• Win iPhone7…

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Meet Cisco at CodeMotion Rome
March 24th
9:40: It's all about Developers, discover Cisco DevNet
11:30: Build advanced Voice Assistants and Chat Bots
14:10: How to embed Video Calls and Messaging without
being a Media, WebRTC, XMPP or SIP expert
All day: Learn by taking a code lab with proctors
March 25th
11:30: Microservices and containers networking: Contiv,
an industry leading open source solution from Cisco
https://github.com/CiscoDevNet/codemotion-rome-2017

65. Thank you
@CiscoDevNet
@CiscoSparkDev
@SteveSfartz