Chatflows enable you to build fully customizable chatbots that you can then add to your Messenger widget. Once configured, an end user will be directed sequentially through the flow and depending on their answers, the chatflow will route them through different options.

Chatflows will help you:

1. Build a chatbot that can triage what someone needs help with and therefore route the user to the best person/team to deal with the problem.

2. Answer repetitive low-tier customer questions without human intervention

Building out that path happens here on the canvas. It is as simple as dragging, dropping, configuring, and connecting interactions together.

Getting Started

First you’ll need to go Admin > Channels > Messenger (Beta). Once there, you’ll see a menu expand in the nav bar with options to go to Messengers, Chatflows, or Routing. To setup your first chatflow, click on Chatflows.

To create a new Chatflow, click on the + New button

Give your chatflow a name and be sure to add a description so you can quickly reference what that chatflow is meant to do.

Once you’ve given your chatflow a name and a description, click Create

Chatflow Canvas

This page is called the Chatflow Canvas. here you can design and customize a chatflow that’s unique to your use case.

Chatflow Interaction Menu

The Chatflow Interaction Menu is your toolbox that allows you to build your chatflow.

Building a chatflow is as simple as dragging an interaction to the canvas.

💡 All Chatflows need to have a starting point. The Start node is your default start, and any chatflow you add as the first step, needs to be connected to the Start.

When you add an interaction to the canvas, it is automatically numbered, however you can change the title of the node to whatever you’d like.

If you click on the interaction that you placed on the canvas, that will expand the Settings Menu, which will allow you to configure that specific interaction. Every interaction can be configured via the interaction’s Settings Menu. You will need to ensure you have setup each interaction that you have dragged onto your canvas.

At the top of the canvas, you'll find a toolbar. Here you can:

• Undo/redo changes you've made to nodes on the canvas

• Enable Snap to Grid and Path Animations for easier visual cues on node placement

• Duplicate selected nodes

• Delete selected nodes

You can select multiple nodes by either holding SHIFT and clicking and dragging a frame to highlight nodes, or use your keyboard (Windows: CTRL / MacOS:CMD) to individually select multiple nodes.

Branching

You can branch the chatflow path to different nodes by using the Go To or Choice interactions. When you place the interactions onto your canvas, hovering over the individual choice option, or Go To component will change the cursor to a crosshair. If you click and drag, you can then connect the branching interactions to another node.

💡 Best practice: we recommend stacking interactions within nodes. When you stack interactions, they run sequentially from top down. By doing so, you only need to branch out of that node when you have another set of interactions you want the chatbot to engage the user with.

Styling Tab

You can customize your chatbot’s avatar and name that appear in the widget header when your user engages with the chatflow.

To do so, add an image or icon of your choosing, choose a background colour, then return to the canvas.

Publishing your Chatflow

When you are configuring your chatflow on the canvas, it becomes a Draft. In order to use the chatflow in your messenger widget, you need to Publish it via the canvas. This will ensure it is active and usable when you configure your Message Card. If you have made edits to an existing published chatflow, then you will be prompted to choose what to do in the event that there are users actively using your messenger widget. There are two options to choose from:

1. Publish and Continue Old Version This allows your users who are currently in a chaflow to continue through the previously published version.

2. Publish and Stop Old Version The chatflow would not run and would only start if the page were reloaded with the latest configuration. This is recommedned for major changes.