If it takes minutes to code a bot, building professional bots represents quite a challenge. Soon you realize you need serious programming and API architecture experience but also “Bot” specific skills. In this session, we'll first show the basics to build a ChatBot. Then we'll explore the challenges faced when creating advanced Bots (Context storage, NLP approaches, Bot Metadata, OAuth scopes), and discuss interesting opportunities from latest industry trends (Bot platforms, Serverless, Microservices). This talk is about showing the code and sharing lessons learnt.

1. Building advanced Chat Bots
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
• NodeJS mainly, a bit of #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 Bots
 Demoes & code samples with Cisco Spark
 Challenges & lessons learntT
so what’s on the menu

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My first bot: Daisy Educational purposes
- Nice contact with French spelling
- Typing on Keyboard

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Meet the CiscoDevNet bot
https://github.com/CiscoDevNet/node-sparkbot-samples

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Meet the roomId bot
1. Add roomId@sparkbot.io to a group space
2. The bot sniffs room id, and posts it in a 1-1 space,
3. Finally leaves the group space you originally invited it to join
https://github.com/CiscoDevNet/node-sparkbot-samples

7. What it takes to code a bot ?

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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
8

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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
9
/Teams
https://developer.ciscospark.com/

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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

11. Demo
bot account, requestb.in

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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…

14. What it takes to code a bot ?
2 lines of code …
… with a bot framework

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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 for Cisco Spark
• Flint: https://github.com/flint-bot/flint
• BotKit: https://github.com/howdyai/botkit
https://github.com/CiscoDevNet/node-sparkbot-samples

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

17. What it takes to code a bot ?
think User Experience

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Bot Contest
Sign in on CiscoSpark
Meet the Bot
quizbot@sparkbot.io
Take the challenge

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Meet the QuizBot
19
https://github.com/LucaCalabrese/codemotion-spark-bot
Java, AWS, PostGreSQL, WebHooks

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@QuizBot help

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Best Practices: fallback command
• Help command
• better shown at invite, « welcome message »
• But how much help does it really provide?
• /hlp
• Help
• #help
• HELP!!!

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Best practices: Bring extra value!
23

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…and context storage
24
https://github.com/CiscoDevNet/botkit-ciscospark-samples

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Bring conversations to the game…
25
https://github.com/ObjectIsAdvantag/devnet-botkit-sample

26. Demo
CiscoDevNet bot with 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

29. Taking bots to the next
stage

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• EMEAR Digital Transformation Team
• Cisco Spark Apps & APIs
• #nodejs #python #django #js
#assembly #visualbasic #pascal
• Loves Home Automation
• twitter://@DJ_F3
• tools.sparkintegration.club
Dirk-Jan Uittenbogaard
“Nothing is impossible,
the word itself says
“I'm possible”!
-- Audry H
duittenb@cisco.com
@DJ_F3

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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
31

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• One Platform
• Over 35 Microservice APIs
• Over 600 REST endpoints
• Public and internal endpoints
Cisco Microservice Cloud
Identity
Video
Encryption
Call Control
Conversations
File Management
Devices
Provisioning
Event Delivery
Rooms
Messages
SOLUTION
Teams
Admin

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Spark SDK for JavaScript
Resources
Quick Start Guide
https://ciscospark.github.io/spark-js-
sdk/example/getting-started/
Sample App
https://ciscospark.github.io/spark-js-sdk/app/
Open source code
https://github.com/ciscospark/spark-js-sdk
API reference
https://ciscospark.github.io/spark-js-sdk/api/
And more to come …

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Spark SDK for iOS
… is a set of tools
Quick Start Guide
https://developer.ciscospark.com/iosquickstart.html
Sample App
https://github.com/ciscospark/spark-ios-sdk-example
Open source code
https://github.com/ciscospark/spark-ios-sdk
API reference
https://ciscospark.github.io/spark-ios-sdk/
And more to come …

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How does the Spark Board recognize me?
Earth beams Sound
Patience Karma

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How does the Spark Board recognize me?
Earth Beams Sound
Patience Karma
In the Greenhouse,
next to the entrance
Try it yourself !

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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
39

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Is the bot down ?

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Enriched 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
42

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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
44

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Bots as serverless functions
45
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
46
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)

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Other considerations
Natural language processing
• Think twice before going to NLP
• Do you really need it ? B2C or B2B ?
• Extra costs
• Introduces a 3rd party (lowers your SLA)
• Choose the best approach (local vs 3rd party)
• https://devnetcreate.io/2017 Nick Marus’s Talk

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Other considerations
Machine Learning
• A bot companion can learn from my interactions,
incrementally
• Use case: classify my Twitter Followers
• Who’s ready to pay for it ?
• Data Privacy vs Real Cost

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• Self-service 15’ labs
• Pre-installed laptops
• Proctors to assist
Get hands-on

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May 16th
9:00 Big Container - The power of Connections
11:30 IoT: Voice and Messages to the resue
12:30 Building advanced ChatBots
All day Learn by taking a code lab with proctors
May 17th
11:30 Microservices and containers networking: Contiv
https://github.com/CiscoDevNet/codemotion-amsterdam-2017
Meet Cisco at CodeMotion

52. Thank you
@CiscoDevNet
@CiscoSparkDev
@SteveSfartz
@DJ_F3