Consume API Services and Call Webhooks from Your Chatbot

You will create a very simple bot that lets the user specify an animal or a location.

1. Create a new bot and call it apidemo. Use the following values:

   Field Name	Value
   1. What do you want your chatbot to do?	Perform Actions
   2. Predefined Skills	None
   3. Create your bot	Name: apidemo Description: A bot to test APIs and webhooks Language: English
   4. Data Policy	Non-personal and Non-vulnerable
   5. Bot Visibility	Public

   Click Create Bot.

2. In the Train tab, create an intent called ask, and add the expression I’m interested in.

   Since we define only one intent, this intent will always be triggered when the user types in a message.

3. In the Train tab, create a restricted entity called animal and add 4 valid values: cat, horse, snail, dog.

   

4. Open the Test tab and test the bot. No matter what you type the intent will be ask.

   Enter dog and it will recognize the animal entity.

   

   Enter New York City and it will recognize the built-in location entity.

   

1. In the Build tab, create a skill called answer, and open it.

2. Under Triggers, set the condition to: If @ask is-present.

3. Under Requirements, specify both #animal and #location, and make the logical operator Or.

   

   Click the New Replies, and add the following text message, and then click Save and Back:

   Message Copy

   I can give you info on an animal, or a map of a location.
   
   Enter an animal or a location.

   This message is displayed if the requirements are missing.

4. Open Chat with Your Bot.

   Enter anything that is not a location or animal, like Hi. This will trigger our skill but not contain the requirements, so the reply when the requirements are missing will be sent.

   Then enter one of the animals. Now the requirements are met but we did not define a reply so the default reply No reply is sent.

   

Now you will call an API to return an a fun fact about the animal you specify.

The API you will use is a simple one so we can focus on the SAP Conversational AI side. It is created by Alex Wohlbruck and returns a fun fact about animals. See https://alexwohlbruck.github.io/cat-facts/docs/.

1. Go to your answer skill, and open the Actions tab.

2. Click Add New Message Group.

3. Click Add Condition and set the condition to If #animal is-present.

   

4. Click Connect External Service | Consume API Service.

   • Set the HTTP method to GET.

   • Enter the URL:

     URL Copy

     https://cat-fact.herokuapp.com/facts/random?animal_type={{memory.animal.raw}}

     Onto the URL we use the scripting syntax to append the animal from the memory. The animal is in memory because the memory contains all the required entities we added to the skills.

   • Under Response, enter for the namespace: funfact

   • Click Save.

   

5. Click Send Message, select Text, and set the message text to:

   Message Copy

   {{api_service_response.funfact.body.text}}

6. Click Update Conversation | Reset Conversation, and click Save.

   We reset the memory so that you can enter a new animal. Otherwise, the chatbot would use the existing value for the animal entity.

For more information on the chatbot syntax, see Scripting with Variables.

Open Chat with Your Bot, and enter any text as well as animals.

Now you will call a webhook designed to receive the chatbot conversation (as JSON) and do custom processing.

The webhook you will use is a demo Python webhook deployed to SAP Business Technology Platform. You can see the code for the webhook in this blog.

1. In the answer skill, click Add New Message Group.

2. Click Add Condition and set the condition to If #location is-present.

3. Click Connect External Service | Call Webhook.

   • Set the HTTP method to POST.

     The conversation context as JSON will automatically be sent to the webhook.

   • Enter the URL:

     URL Copy

     https://sapupschatbot.cfapps.eu10.hana.ondemand.com/get_location_thumbnail

   • Click Save.

4. Click Update Conversation | Reset Conversation, and click Save.

Notice that for the webhook you did not create a message. That’s because the webhook provides the response in the syntax SAP Conversational AI understands – see Getting Response Using Webhook. Of course, you could provide additional messages in this message group.

Open Chat with Your Bot, and enter a location, like New York City.

One more feature: You can define the base URL to be used in both API and webhook calls. Go to the chatbots Settings | Versions | <version> | Bot Builder.

Then, for the URL for each API or webhook call, you could enter just the route, starting with /.