As chatbots gain acceptance into consumer and businsess tech, they will become more and more complex. This presentation is an attempt to give a formal framework around the development lifecycle of a chatbot. First presented at ChatBotConf 2016 in Vienna. My Twitter: https://twitter.com/soganmageshwar

1. The lifecycle of a
chatbot

2. Sohan Maheshwar
• Leads Developer Relations at Gupshup
• @soganmageshwar
• Likes comic books and frisbees

3. “The difficulty in building a chatbot is less a technical one and more an issue
of user experience. The most successful bots will be the ones that users want
to come back to regularly and that provide consistent value.”
- Matt Hartman, Director of Seed Investments at Betaworks

4. • Software, websites and apps have a dev. lifecycle
• Bot functionality is only going to get more complex
• Formal framework around the bot lifecycle

6. Requirement
• Gather market requirements
• Create user stories with
conversation in mind

7. Spec
• Identify the features and
functionality of the bot
• Choose your messaging
platform(s)
• NLP usage

8. Script
• The conversation is the interface
• Getting input from the user
• Variables in input
• Slot Filling
• Hand-crafting output
• Character
• Friendly
• Guide the user
• Script writers

9. Architect
• Engineering design for the
bot
• Data persistence -
Personalisation & Context
• Cross platform APIs

10. Develop
• Range of tools for bot
development
• Ready-to-publish templates
• Conversation editors
• Cloud-based IDEs
• Custom development
• Simplicity is control

11. Test
• Diversity in messaging apps
• Difference in rendering
messages
• Bot testing tools

12. Deploy
• Deployed to a hosted
environment.
• The hosted environment must
be stable & needs its own
monitoring and devops support

13. Publish
• Approval process for each
messaging platform
• Approval time ranges from
instant (Telegram) to a few days
(Facebook)
• Submissions require bot assets
(icons, videos)

14. Monitor
• Monitor using actual
conversational scripts.
• The bot may be unresponsive
to certain user conversations.

15. Promote
• Bot Store Optimisation
• Cross-platform bot stores
• Third party referrals

16. Analyze
• Messages/session
• Retention
• Location, gender
demographics
• Sentiment analysis

17. Requirement
• Infer new requirements from
analytics
• Create new user stories

18. Questions?

19. © Copyright Gupshup 2016
Gupshup has been a leader in messaging and bots
for many years
19
Cloud APIs for SMS
• Leading cloud
messaging platform
handling 3-4 billion
messages per month.
Launched 2010.
Teamchat messaging
app
• Pioneered structured
messages in chat. Built
and deployed
hundreds of bots.
Launched 2014.
Bot Platform
• Leverages prior
experience and
expertise. Since f8,
2500 bots created,
paying customers.
Launched 2016.
Gupshup has been enabling
advanced messaging-based
services (now called bots)
globally since 2010.

20. Happy Bot Building!