Managed Bots

Overview

Managed Bots is an EDDI feature that provides automatic conversation management, allowing you to trigger bots based on intents without manually creating and managing conversation IDs. EDDI handles the conversation lifecycle for you.

The Problem It Solves

Without Managed Bots (manual approach):

1. Your app creates a conversation: POST /bots/unrestricted/bot123

2. EDDI returns conversation ID: conv-456

3. Your app stores this ID

4. Your app sends messages: POST /bots/unrestricted/bot123/conv-456

5. Your app manages conversation lifecycle

With Managed Bots (automatic approach):

1. You define a bot trigger with an intent keyword

2. Your app sends: POST /managedbots/weather_help/user123

3. EDDI automatically:

   • Creates conversation (if none exists for this user/intent)

   • Routes to correct bot

   • Manages conversation state

   • Reuses existing conversation on subsequent calls

Use Cases

• Multi-Bot Applications: Route users to different bots based on intent without tracking conversation IDs

• Microservices Architecture: Each service triggers bots by intent, EDDI handles coordination

• Simplified Integration: Client apps don't need conversation management logic

• User-Centric Sessions: One conversation per user per intent, automatically managed

• A/B Testing: Define multiple bots for same intent; EDDI picks one randomly

Key Concepts

Intent: A keyword or phrase that maps to one or more bot deployments

• Example: "weather_help" → Weather Bot

• Example: "order_status" → Order Tracking Bot

• Example: "support_technical" → Technical Support Bot

Bot Trigger: Configuration that links an intent to specific bots

User ID: Identifies the user; EDDI maintains one conversation per user per intent

How It Works

1. Define Bot Trigger:
   Intent: "weather_help" → Bot: weather-bot-v2 (unrestricted)

2. User Requests:
   POST /managedbots/weather_help/user-123
   {"input": "What's the weather?"}

3. EDDI Logic:
   - Checks if user-123 has active conversation for "weather_help"
   - If NO: Creates new conversation with weather-bot-v2
   - If YES: Continues existing conversation
   - Processes message through bot's lifecycle
   - Returns response

4. Subsequent Requests:
   POST /managedbots/weather_help/user-123
   {"input": "What about tomorrow?"}
   → Continues same conversation

Benefits

• Simplified Client Logic: No conversation ID management needed

• Intent-Based Routing: Natural way to organize multi-bot systems

• Automatic Session Management: EDDI handles conversation lifecycle

• Initial Context Support: Pass context at conversation start

• Random Bot Selection: A/B testing or load distribution built-in

Managed Bots Configuration

This feature allows you to take advantage of EDDI's automatic management of bots. It is possible to avoid creating conversations and managing them yourself—let EDDI handle it.

This acts as a shortcut to directly start a conversation with a bot that covers a specific intent.

First, you need to set up a BotTrigger.

BotTrigger

The request model

{
  "intent": "string",
  "botDeployments": [
    {
      "environment": "environment",
      "botId": "string",
      "initialContext": {
        "additionalProp1": {
          "type": "string",
          "value": ""
        },
        "additionalProp2": {
          "type": "string",
          "value": ""
        },
        "additionalProp3": {
          "type": "string",
          "value": ""
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Description of the request model

Element	Description
intent	(String) keyword or phrase (camel case or with '-') that will be used in managed bots to trigger the bots defined in this model
botDeployments	(Array:<BotDeployment>) array of BotDeployment. If multiple botDeployments are defined, one will be picked randomly.
environment	(String) the environment that you would like (restricted, unrestricted, test)
botId	(String) the id of the bot that you want to create the botTrigger for it.
initialContext	(Array <Object> ) As context can be handed over on each request to the bot, initialContext allows the definition of context the bot should get at the very first conversation step when a conversation with the bot is started (only way to get context to the bot in the first conversation step)

BotTrigger API endpoints

HTTP Method	API Endpoint	Request Body	Response
DELETE	/bottriggerstore/bottriggers/{intent}	N/A	N/A
GET	/bottriggerstore/bottriggers/{intent}	N/A	Bot Triggers-model
PUT	/bottriggerstore/bottriggers/{intent}	Bot Triggers-model	N/A
POST	/bottriggerstore/bottriggers	Bot Triggers-model	N/A

Triggering a ManagedBot

To trigger a managed bot you will have to call the following API endpoints.

API Methods

HTTP Method	API Endpoint	Request Body	Response
GET	/managedbots​/{intent}​/{userId}	N/A	Conversation model
POST	/managedbots​/{intent}​/{userId}	Input model	N/A
POST	/managedbots​/{intent}​/{userId}​/endConversation	Input model	N/A

Description API endpoint required path parameters

Element	Description
{intent}​	(String) the label/keyword used originally to point to this BotTrigger
{userId}​	(String) used to specify the user who triggered the conversation

Example :

1/Create a BotTrigger

Request URL:

POST http://localhost:7070//bottriggerstore/bottriggers

Request Body

{
  "intent": "weather_trigger",
  "botDeployments": [
    {
      "environment": "unrestricted",
      "botId": "5bf5418c46e0fb000b7636d0",
      "initialContext": {}
    }
  ]
}

Response Body

no content

Response Code

200

Response Headers

access-control-allow-headers: authorization, Content-Type 
access-control-allow-methods: GET, PUT, POST, DELETE, PATCH, OPTIONS 
access-control-allow-origin: * 
access-control-expose-headers: location 
connection: Keep-Alive 
content-length: 0 
date: Mon, 18 Mar 2019 00:31:07 GMT 
keep-alive: timeout=5, max=100 
server: Apache/2.4.29 (Ubuntu)

2/Trigger the ManagedBot

Request URL:

POST http://localhost:7070/managedbots/weather_trigger/myUserId

Request Body

{
  "input": "Hello managed bot!",
  "context": {}
}

Response Body

{
  "botId": "5bf5418c46e0fb000b7636d0",
  "botVersion": 10,
  "userId": "myUserId",
  "environment": "unrestricted",
  "conversationState": "READY",
  "redoCacheSize": 0,
  "conversationOutputs": [
    {
      "input": "Hello managed bot!",
      "expressions": "unknown(Hello), unknown(managed), unknown(bot!)",
      "intents": [
        "unknown",
        "unknown",
        "unknown"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "conversationProperties": {},
  "conversationSteps": [
    {
      "conversationStep": [
        {
          "key": "input:initial",
          "value": "Hello managed bot!"
        }
      ],
      "timestamp": 1552869578596
    }
  ]
}

Response Code

200

Response Headers

access-control-allow-headers: authorization, Content-Type 
access-control-allow-methods: GET, PUT, POST, DELETE, PATCH, OPTIONS 
access-control-allow-origin: * 
access-control-expose-headers: location 
connection: Keep-Alive 
content-length: 0 
date: Mon, 18 Mar 2019 00:31:07 GMT 
keep-alive: timeout=5, max=100 
server: Apache/2.4.29 (Ubuntu)