Site icon BotFlo

Get your DialogFlow agent to initiate the conversation before user types a message

First published: Aug 2017 | Last Updated: May 2022

So let us understand the question:

When you work with Dialogflow you notice that it follows the “user types something -> agent replies with an answer” sequence. Suppose you wish to get the agent to say something before the user types anything, how do you do it?

Example

In the example bot, the message appears in the chat window BEFORE the user types a message

In my CourseBot (seen above), I initiate the conversation by using the same ideas described on this page.

Dialogflow Built In Welcome Events

When you click inside the Event textbox in Dialogflow, you will notice in the autocomplete a bunch of CHANNEL_WELCOME events.

As you type out the word WELCOME, Dialogflow will autocomplete with the list of WELCOME events which are already available in Dialogflow (note: this might look different now when compared to when I created this GIF)

What are these welcome events?

In principle, this is the feature you should use to initiate conversations on different channels.

Take a look at this page in the documentation, for example:

Welcome events for different channel integrations

The reason I say “in principle”, is because I haven’t been able to successfully implement the bot automatically sending a message at the start of the conversation for some of the channels.

Here is a little report card.

Exit mobile version