I presented at a tech talk at Howard University earlier this month on how to build chatbots using Slack developer platform tools and botkit framework. This talk discusses early disruptors in bot industry, slack bot project configuration setup deployment, integrating an external API in the bot followed by an example of a custom bot built for PayPal Platforms team.

1. Building Chat Bots !!

2. What is a Chatbot, Slack, SlackBot ..
Chatbot
• A Chatbot is a computer program which conducts a conversation
via audio or textual methods.
• E.g.
• Voice based bots : Alexa, Siri
• Text based chat bots: Slack, Facebook, Skype.
Slack
• Slack is a cloud-based messaging app for team collaboration. Got
very popular due to app integrations. Slack teams consist of
channels, users (humans and bots)
• Similar Instant messenger platforms are Skype, Facebook
Messenger, Whatsapp
SlackBot ??
©2017 PayPal Inc. Confidential and proprietary.

3. Bot Platform to order
from marketplacess.
TacoBot within the
Slack
Twitter Bot to order Pizza
by Tweeting Pizza Emoji
Early disruptors in bots domain

4. PayPal announced their own Slackbot in
early 2017 for to use PayPal within Slack.
Followed by PayPal in 2017…..

5. What can a Slackbot do
Slack Bot interact with a user on a Slack team by
1. Connecting to Slack’s Real time Messaging (RTM )API and
opening a web-socket connection with Slack.
• Bot user will Monitor and process channel activity
• Post messages and react to users
• Web API to post formatted messages, attachments,
emoji
• Make messages interactive with buttons
2. Listening to Slack Events via HTTP based Events API aka
Slack Webhooks . Configure events at
https://api.slack.com/events

6. Developing a SlackBot
Two Kinds of Slack bot you can develop :
Custom Bots
• Custom for a team’s requirements
• Can be used for company’s process automation etc.
Bot Users attached to Slack App
• For distribution to other teams
• Governed by OAuth permission scopes
• Distributed via Slack Button or Slack Appstore
Apps generally start as custom bots and evolve into a Slack App.
©2017 PayPal Inc. Confidential and proprietary.

7. Programming a Slack bot
1. Make authenticated API calls and consume Slack
RTM API
2. Use existing library or SDKs (such as node-slack-
client) https://github.com/slackhq/node-slack-client
3. Botkit Framework :
• Does heavy lifting for Slack API interaction
• Open source bot builder platform for Node.js
• Targets Slack, Facebook, Twilio currently
• http://howdy.ai/botkit
Using Botkit to develop a custom Bot using Slack RTM API.

8. CODE WALKTHROUGH

9. Project Structure
Clone: https://github.com/vasujain/slack-bot-github
• node_modules/ contain botkit module – generated by npm install
• package.json specifies your project details and dependencies
• index.js is the entry point
• Util.js for utility functions
• Config.json for string sensitive data
• Npm-debug.log created by default for error logging
• Lib/ directory containing slack libraries
©2017 PayPal Inc. Confidential and proprietary.

10. Developing a Custom SlackBot - Setup
1. Install Botkit
• From NPM
• npm install --save botkit
• From Github
• git clone
git@github.com:howdyai/botkit.git
• npm install
2. Create a new bot user integration and
customize it
https://my.slack.com/services/new/bot

11. Developing a Custom SlackBot – Hello World
3. Capture token generated in #1, to be used to
connect to Slack API
4. Constructs base 64 encoded value and add it to
config.json (not mandatory for regular bots)
5. Run a sample bot
• npm start index.js
6. Invite Bot to your team
7. Say Hello to your Bot

12. Lets Integrate an API in our bot
1. API to integrate – Github
2. Get tokens and make first successful API call
3. Convert REST Call into Node Code
4. Write a controller using Intents from Slack input
and parsing them for API call
5. Integrate Node code
6. Parse API Response and construct Slack Response
7. Happy Bot-ing !!
©2017 PayPal Inc. Confidential and proprietary.

13. Demo for GitBit !!
&
Questions

15. Thank You !!

16. „ http://www.greenmellenmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/slack-chat.png
„ https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/robot-customer-
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„ https://blog.zipfworks.com/content/images/2016/06/1-6J2T-
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„ https://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/SlackBot-
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„ https://cdn-images-
1.medium.com/max/800/1*SRq8BmUQl1YWXTCbO859kw.png
„ https://robotsandpencils.com/wp-
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Image
Credits