Button Message

This page describes where to use and find a button block message type

What is a button message?

The button message enables you to create button driven applications. The Appointment Confirmation bot in the OpenDialog Academy is an example. To sign up for the OpenDialog Academy, contact academy@opendialog.ai.

You can add only one button message type to each message, however, within that you can add as many different buttons as you require. You can do this by clicking on the ＋ next to the button entry you require the button to appear afterwards. Right now you can not reorder the buttons, so they need to be added in the order you want them to appear.

When to use a button message

Buttons are useful for many different reasons. They give you the opportunity to allow your users to select a pre-set answer to a question, instead of them having to type out their own response.

How to create a button message

Via the no-code button block in Message Editor

Navigate to the Message Editor and create a button block by clicking the Add button block icon in the Layout section.

  • Open your OpenDialog application

  • Select the Scenario that you wish to edit

  • Select Design from the left hand panel and select Messages

  • Go into the message that you want to add a message block to

  • Add a 'button' message block

  • Add in your own text to the fields you want to customise

  • To preview your message, go to the Preview section

Via the custom message in Message Editor

Navigate to the Message Editor and create a Custom Message. Copy the XML snippet at the bottom of this page into the black box, or select button-message from the dropdown and your chat message will appear in the Preview panel.

Fill in the template with the properties of your particular message and when you are happy with it make sure to save your message and test it in the Test Preview chat window.

  • Open your OpenDialog application

  • Select the Scenario that you wish to edit

  • Select Design from the left hand panel and select Messages

  • Go into the message that you want to add a message block to

  • Add a 'Custom Message' block

  • Select 'Button messag' from the drop down

  • Add in your own text to the fields you want to customise

  • To preview your message, go to the Preview section

XML Snippet

Button messages allow you to provide the user a number of options to select as a response. The basic mark up is:

<button-message clear_after_interaction="0">
  <external>false</external>
  <button>
    <text>Button text</text>
    <link new_tab="true">linkUrl</link>
    <value>attribute.value</value>
    <callback>button_callback</callback>
  </button>
</button-message>

Setting the external property to true results in the message buttons appearing outside of the button message (this defaults to false if not set).

NB

Button messages with external buttons must be the last message in the intent so they aren't overwritten by any subsequent message in the webchat view.

Setting the clear_after_interaction property to false means that the buttons will remain visible to the user after being interacted with

Buttons

A button message can contain 1 or more buttons for the user to interact with (some platforms have different restrictions on the number of buttons per message) Each button must define a text element to specify the text that should be shown to the user.

OpenDialog has built in support for 4 types of button:

1. Callback buttons

Callback buttons will send a callback_id (and optionally a value) when interacted with by the user that will move the conversation forward. Make sure that any callback_id you use in a button response is mapped to an intent in the interpreter engine config.

    <button>
        <text>Callback Button</text>
        <callback>callback id</callback>
        <value>attribute_name.attribute_value</value>
    </button>

Values can be optionally set on callback buttons to add some extra context to the button response. The format of button values is:

    attribute_name.attribute_value

where attribute_name should be the ID of an attribute that has already been defined in the system.

When passing through the Callback Interpreter, button values will be parsed and an attribute will be returned with the value set as per the button

Example

Here is are examples of a message with one button and two buttons. Clicking on the button would cause that callback value to be sent back to OpenDialog which could then be matched with an incoming intent.


<message>
    <button-message>
        <text> A bit of explainer text at the top </text>
        <button> 
          <text>Click me!</text>
          <callback>intent.app.startAConversations</callback>
        </button>
    </button-message>
</message>

<message>
    <button-message>
        <text> A bit of explainer text at the top </text>
        <button> 
          <text>Click me!</text>
          <callback>intent.app.startAConversations</callback>
        </button>
        <button> 
          <text>Or click me!</text>
          <callback>intent.app.startADifferentConversations</callback>
        </button>
    </button-message>
</message>

2. Link buttons

Links buttons are used to create links to other web pages. The new_tab property can be set to true to force the links to open in a new tab. If not set, links default to opening in the same tab

    <button>
        <text>Link Button</text>
        <link new_tab="true"|"false">http://example.com</link>
    </button>

Example

<message>
    <button-message>
        <text> Here are some very useful resources for you. </text>
        <button> 
          <text>Wikipedia</text>
          <link new_tab="true">https://wikipedia.org</link>
        </button>
        <button> 
          <text>W3C</text>
          <link new_tab="true">https://w3.org.org</link>
        </button>
    </button-message>
</message>

3. Click to Call buttons

Click to call buttons are used to create buttons for telephone numbers. They created a standard format tel: link that depending on the user's current device and platform will start a phone call to the number given

<button-message clear_after_interaction="0">
  <external>false</external>
  <button>
    <text>Button text</text>
    <click_to_call>07999812050</click_to_call>
  </button>
</button-message>

Button Types

Buttons can be defined with a type that can affect how they are displayed as a button on screen. Types are added as properties of the button like this:

<button type="{type}">
    <text>Click me!</text>
    <callback>intent.app.startAConversations</callback>
</button>

There are currently 2 types that can be used:

  • skip - If a button in an external button message has type of skip, it will appear below the other buttons with a different appearance. This can be used in conjunction with other messages to allow a user to skip past an intent

  • inline - If a button in a standard button message (not external) has a type of inline, it will appear along with the button message text, inside the chat bubble.

How to use a button message

Within the button block, you can add some plain text (if you've not already used the text block) and then edit/add new buttons. Within each button you can add:

  • Button text: This is the text that is visible on the button

  • Button functionality: This is the action that you would like the button to perform on click e.g. open an external URL or transition the user to another intent.

Button functionality

Let's focus on transitioning to another intent (Simulate user intent) as this action will likely be what you'll be wanting to perform most. There are two options here, either; locate an intent that you've already created from the drop-down or create a new intent.

To create a new one, you need to open the Conversation where the new intent needs to be located, click on 'Create new intent...' and then add the name and finally select the Scene then Turn it should live in (you can also create Scenes and Turns if required). Remember to click on ✔ to save before closing.

Reminder: If you've created a new intent etc. Remember to go back into the Designer after you've saved the message to fine tune the settings of your new Intent, Scene and Turn. You will need to add behaviours, conditions and/or transitions.

Button Values

Button messages also allow values to be assigned to each button so as well as simulating a user intent, they can assign a value to an attribute that can be saved against the user. For example, if a button message was created to allow a user to answer a question, 2 buttons could be added, 1 with a value of yes and one for no. The value can then later be used in conditions or actions to affect the conversation flow.

Adding Button Values

Button values are added in the Advanced settings dropdown for buttons with the 'Simulate user intent' type behaviour selected in the 'Button functionality' drop down. The example given below will create a button message with 2 buttons - both will simulate the AgeResponse user intent, but each will save a different value against the over18 attribute.

When a user clicks a button, by default the value will be saved to the user context for use later (this can be altered by modifying an intent's advanced settings)

Button behaviours

For the button message type, you can select a number of advanced behaviours depending on your use case.

  • Override user input field - show buttons as main interaction mode: This option will hide the text input within Webchat and show the buttons as the main interaction at the bottom.

  • Allow continued interaction throughout the conversation: This option will allow users to continue to interact with the buttons even if they have moved on from that part of the conversation. This is really useful for FAQ style chatbots.

Saves Message: Always remember to hit 'Save Message' before closing or navigating away from the edit screen

How to construct a button message

When structuring a message, you are able to use multiple different message blocks together to create the message that you are looking for. However, when it comes to ordering and structing these, there are some rules that need to be followed. To learn more about this, please head to the Constructing Messages page for more information.

For all message types, a key element to take into consideration is Accessibility, especially for messages that include customisation with multimedia types such as buttons, images and links. For all information on accessibility within OpenDialog, please click here.

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