Bots

Bot services

PaaS
Provides an integrated environment that is purpose-built for bot development, enabling you to build, connect, test, deploy, and manage intelligent bots from one place.
You can write a bot, connect, test, deploy, and manage it from your web browser with no separate editor or source control required.
- For simple bots, you may not need to write code at all.
The code glues in an HTTP REST endpoint the following:
- Platform: Platform Services
- AI: Intelligent Tools
- SDK: Bot Framework SDK

Bot services key concepts

Multiple language support
- Leverages Bot Framework SDK with support for .NET and Node.js.
Bot templates
- E.g.:
  - Forms bot for collecting user input
  - a Language understanding bot that leverages LUIS to understand user intent
  - a QnA bot to handle FAQs
  - a Proactive bot that alerts users of events.
Bring your own dependencies: Support NuGet and NPM.
Flexible development options
- Publish from Visual Studio
- Code bot right in the Azure portal
- Set up continuous integration and deploy the bot through GitHub, Visual Studio Team Services, and other supported development tools.
Connect to channels
- Bot Service supports popular channels for connecting your bots and the people that use them.
- E.g. Skype, Facebook, Teams, Slack, SMS, and others.
Tools and services
- Bot Framework Emulator: Allows to test bots.
- Channel Inspector: Allows to preview bots on different channels with the .
Open source
- The Bot Builder SDK is open-source and available on GitHub.

QnA Maker

Trains AI to respond to user's questions in a more natural, conversational way.
Provides a GUI that allows non-developers to train, manage, and use the service for a wide range of solutions.
Extracts a knowledge base from two types of input: FAQ pages (web pages or documents) and product manuals (PDF).
- Once extracted, the QnA Maker service creates a knowledge base and bot using the knowledge bas
Handles indexing and ranking
It can be consumed through REST API
Over time, the knowledge base can be updated, retrained, and republished to meet the morphing needs to a user-facing web application.