Configuring a Chatbot Using the 8x8 Chat Widget

Objective

This guide will cover how to configure your AI chatbot in the Cognigy platform using the 8x8 chat widget.

Before starting this guide, you will need to make sure you have configured the 8x8 extension for ICA.

Applies To

• 8x8 Contact Center
• Intelligent Customer Assistant (ICA)
• Cognigy

Configure the 8x8 Endpoint

1. You will need to obtain a Chat Gateway API Key. You can follow this guide for steps on obtaining the API key. Create an App with a name similar to ICAChatGatewayAPI.
2. Make a note of this key as it will be used in Cognigy.
3. Log into your Cognigy account.
4. Click on the agent you need to handover to 8x8.
   
5. Expand the Deploy tab and select Endpoints.
   
6. Create a new endpoint.
7. Enter a name for the Endpoint
8. Select a Flow.
9. Select 8x8.
10. Click Save.
    
11. Expand the 8x8 Setup section.
12. Enter https://api.8x8.com as the Base API URL.
13. Copy and paste the API Key you acquired in step 1 into the API access token field.
14. Enter your tenant name into the 8x8-Tenant field.
15. Scroll down to the Handover Settings section.
16. Select 8x8 as the Handover Platform.
17. Enter the same information that you just entered.
18. Click Save.
    
19. Copy the Endpoint URL.

Create a Channel for the Cognigy Bot

1. Open your 8x8 Configuration Manager.
2. Go to the Channels tab and click on Chat.
3. Create a new chat channel for your chatbot.
4. Make sure the channel is enabled.
5. Click Save.
   

   Note: Do not create a channel of type ChatAPI.

Create a Webhook in 8x8 to Point to the Cognigy Endpoint

1. Go to the Integration tab and click on Webhooks, then add a new webhook.
2. Enter the Webhook name and the Endpoint URL you copied earlier.
3. In the Chat API Version field, select Chat Gateway v1.0.
4. Click Test Connection to ensure it has been entered correctly and is working.
5. Click Save.
   
6. Edit the Webhook again and assign it to the channel you created earlier.
7. Click Save.
   

Create a Chat Queue for the Cognigy Bot

1. Go to the Queues/Skills tab and create a new chat queue.
   

   Note: Do not add any agents to this queue. A separate queue will be used to handover chats to agents. This queue is to hold chats that Cognigy bot/agent is answering before, or instead of, passing them to a human agent.

Create a Chat Window

In order to use an 8x8 chat widget with Cognigy you will need to create the design of your chat widget. 

1. To do so, go to the Chat Design tab and follow this chat design guide.
2. Once you have created your chat design, click on the Window section and edit the chat Window you are using.
3. Make sure the option for Allow customers to keep session alive is ticked.
4. Set the Duration value to 60 minutes.
   

Create a Chat Script

Now that we have our chat design, we need to create a chat script to piece it all together.

1. Go to the Scripts tab and use this chat script guide to see how to build a chat script, as well as what each script object does.
2. Now that you have created your chat script how you require, add in a Forward to Queue object.
3. Set your Forward to Queue object to point to the chatbot queue you created earlier.
   

This completes the steps on how to integrate your AI chatbot on the Cognigy platform using the 8x8 chat widget. Here are the steps on how to handover a chat session to an 8x8 agent.