Here are the steps for creating a skill for use in a DA-as-Agent digital assistant.

1. Click to open the side menu, and then click Development > Skills.
2. Click New Skill .
3. Give it a display name that will make sense to someone who is conversing with the digital assistant through the service. The digital assistant uses this value in some automated messages and prompts. For example: You are at <skill-display-name>. Here are some things you can do.
4. Complete the dialog, and then click Create.
5. In the left navigation bar, click Settings , and then click General.
6. Set the Training Model to Trainer Tm.
7. Switch Enable Insights to On.

   You can use insights to analyze and retrain your skill, as described in Review Conversation Trends Insights.

8. Click the Digital Assistant tab.
9. Enter an invocation that will make sense to a customer. This value is copied to the digital assistant's interaction model for the skill and is used in automated digital-assistant prompts and responses. For example:

   You are at <skill-display-name>. Here are some things you can do:
   <skill-invocation-name-from-DA> <skill-one-sentence-description> 
   1. <skill-example-utterance-set-in-DA>
   2. <skill-example-utterance-set-in-DA>
   ...

Add the necessary intents and entities for your skill.

If your DA-as-agent skill is a basic question-and-answer skill, then you can use answer intents to handle the questions and answers. For Oracle B2C Service, you also can use Knowledge Search dialog flow components to address questions and answers. For knowledge search examples, see Use the Knowledge Search Component. Note that you must create a knowledge search integration to use this component.

After you create your intents click Train. You can't test or publish a skill if it hasn't been trained.

To test your intents, click Test Utterances, and then enter test utterances in the Quick Test section to verify that the model is resolving to the desired intents. You should enter utterances from the intents as well as utterances that are not in any intents. The dialog shows the confidence level for each matched intent. If the resolution isn't what you intended, consider adding the utterance to the desired intent or revising the intent that was incorrectly matched. You also can click Go to Test Cases to create or import batch tests. To learn more see Intent Training and Testing.

When users are signed into the service or have provided their first name, last name, and email address on the chat launch page, then the profile.firstName, profile.lastName, and profile.email variables will contain the user information. For Oracle B2C Service, the profile.locale variable is set to the interface language code. For Oracle Fusion Service the locale is based on language that the user selected on the chat launch site, or, if none was selected, the browser's locale.

In addition, the profile.contactInfo variable contains some chat-request info, such as the customer's question (subject) and the product ID and category ID, if applicable. Also, if the chat launch page contains any custom fields, then the values that the customer enters into those fields are passed to the digital assistant in the profile.contactInfo.customFields array. To learn about customizing the fields that are on the Oracle B2C Service chat launch page, see Overview of Chat on the Customer Portal in Using Oracle B2C Service.

Here's the structure of the profile.contactInfo for Oracle B2C Service:

{
  "question": <string>,
  "productId": <number>,
  "orgId": <number>,
  "categoryId": <number>,
  "browser": <string>,
  "ipAddress": <string>,
  "userAgent": <string>,
  "sessionId": <string>,
  "operatingSystem": <string>,
  "customFields": [
    {
      "name": <string-name-of-custom-field>,
      "id": <ID-of-custom-field>,
      "value": <field-value> 
    },
    ...
  ]
}

Here's some example data:

{
   "question":"Do you deliver",
   "productId":7,
   "customFields":[
      {
         "name":"ODA Text",
         "id":44,
         "value":"N/A"
      
},
      {
         "name":"ODA YN",
         "id":45,
         "value":"1"
      
},
      {
         "name":"ODA Nbr",
         "id":46,
         "value":"1"
      
},
      {
         "name":"ODA Date",
         "id":47,
         "value":"2020,2,17"
      
},
      {
         "name":"ODA Menu",
         "id":48,
         "value":"12"
      
},
      {
         "name":"ODA DateTime",
         "id":49,
         "value":"2004,11,18,17,18"
      
}
   
],
   "browser":"FireFox 68.0",
   "ipAddress":"123.45.67.89",
   "userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/68.0",
   "sessionId":"HI6unnBo",
   "operatingSystem":"Windows 10",
   "orgId":-1,
   "categoryId":-1
}

Here's the FreeMarker expression for accessing the value of profile.contactInfo:

${profile.contactInfo.value}

Here are FreeMarker expressions for accessing specific parts of profile.contactInfo:

${profile.contactInfo.value.question}

${profile.contactInfo.value.customFields}

Here's the structure of the profile.contactInfo for Oracle Fusion Service:

{
  "question": <string>,
  "productId": <number>,
  "orgId": <number>,
  "categoryId": <number>,
  "browser": <string>,
  "ipAddress": <string>,
  "userAgent": <string>,
  "sessionId": <string>,
  "operatingSystem": <string>,
  "customFields": [
    {
      "name": "<custom-field-name>",
      "type": "<data-type>",
      "value": "<field-value>",
      "menuItemLabel": "<label-string>"
    },
    ...
  ]
}

If you want the skill to transfer the chat session to a human agent, such as when the user wants something that the skill isn't built to handle, add a state that uses the Agent Transfer dialog flow component.

In the Agent Transfer component, you can specify things like maximum wait time and conditions under which the skill should transfer back to a human agent. This component has the built-in transition actions accepted, rejected, and error. You should map each of these actions to a state or a flow to handle that action. For example:

• accepted could be mapped to a Show Message component that outputs the message:

  I'm transferring you to a human agent. Hold tight.

• rejected could be mapped to a Show Message component that outputs the message:

  I wasn't able to transfer you to a human agent. Please try again later.
  Meanwhile, let me know if there's anything else I can help you with.

• error could be mapped to a Show Message component that outputs the message:

  We're unable to transfer you to a human agent because there was a system error.
  You can ask me another question if there's something else that I can help you with.

See Agent Transfer for details about the component's properties and actions. If your dialog flow is in YAML mode, see System.AgentTransfer.

When you transfer a conversation from a digital assistant to a live agent, you'll most likely want to pass some information to the service, such as values for an escalation rule. You use custom properties in the Agent Transfer component to pass this information.

For Oracle B2C Service, the name can be FIRST_NAME, LAST_NAME, EMAIL, QUESTION, PRODUCT_ID, CATEGORY_ID, CONTACT_ID, INCIDENT_ID, and any custom field of type Incident that has Chat Display enabled in the Visibility settings.

For custom fields, use the field's column name (lower case) preceded by c$. The type can be BOOLEAN, DATE, DATETIME, INTEGER, LONG, STRING, and DECIMAL. The default is STRING. For DATE and DATETIME, use the format yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssXXX. For BOOLEAN, use 1 for true, and 0 for false.

For Oracle Fusion Service, the name can be FIRST_NAME, LAST_NAME, EMAIL, QUESTION, PRODUCT_ID, CATEGORY_ID, CONTACT_ID, INCIDENT_ID, and any field from an Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications (Fusion) object. Note that when you add a custom field to a Oracle Fusion Service object using Application Composer, the _c suffix is added to the name automatically.

To learn about Oracle B2C Service custom fields, see Overview of Custom Fields in Using Oracle B2C Service. For information about Oracle Fusion Service custom property fields, see "Fields" in Configuring Applications Using Application Composer.

The Agent Transfer dialog flow component has two properties that let you configure when to attempt transferring to an agent – Maximum Engagements In Queue and Allow Transfer If.

The Maximum Engagements In Queue property lets you set the maximum number allowed for engagements waiting in the destination queue. When the chat request is sent, the service responds with the current number of engagements waiting in the queue. If this value exceeds the Maximum Engagements In Queue value, the rejected action occurs. If you don't include this property, there's no engagement limit.

You use the Allow Transfer If property to specify when to transfer based on available agents. The options are:

• Agents Are Requesting New Engagements: (default) For Oracle B2C Service agents who must pull chats (request new engagements), this is the most restrictive set of conditions, and the user doesn't have to wait too long before they speak to an agent. The skill attempts to transfer the conversation only if there are agents who have requested new engagements. In all other cases, this option has the same behavior as Agent Sessions Are Available.
• Agent Sessions Are Available: The skill attempts to transfer the conversation if any of the available agents have not reached the maximum number of chats that they are allowed to have at one time. The user may have to wait if the agents are involved in long-running conversations or are doing some post-chat follow-up.
• Agents Are Available: The skill attempts to transfer the conversation if there are any agents online regardless of whether they have reached their maximum number of chats or are requesting new engagements. With this option, the users may have long waits.

If the specified conditions aren't met, then the rejected action occurs.

You can use the Agent Transfer Condition dialog flow component to find out the estimated wait time, display that time, and give the user the opportunity to cancel their request for transfer.

This component addresses the situation when all available agents are busy when a user wants to speak to an agent and there might be a long wait.

You use the component's properties to specify the transfer conditions and the name of the variable to put the status information in. The component returns an action that indicates whether the conditions were met. The built-in transition actions are conditionsMet, conditionsNotMet, and error. You map each of these actions to a state or a flow to handle that action.

For example:

• For conditionsNotMet, you could map it to a Send Message state that has text like:

  Unfortunately, none of my colleagues are currently available to assist with this.
  Still, we’d love to see this through for you.
  Please feel free to contact us at email@example.com.

• For error, you could map it to a Show Message component that outputs a message like:

  We're unable to transfer you to a human agent because there was a system error.
  You can ask me another question if there's something else that I can help you with.

• For conditionsMet, you could map it to a flow that asks the user if they are willing to wait and, if they do, then transitions to an Agent Transfer state to perform the actual transfer. That flow could include the following:
  • A Common Response component that asks the user if they want to wait. Here is how the Metadata property for that component might look:

    
    responseItems:
      - type: "text"
        text:  "${rb('promptTextForTransferDecision','minutes,seconds',agentStatus.value.expectedWaitMinutes,agentStatus.value.expectedWaitSeconds)}"
        separateBubbles: true
        actions:
          - label: "Yes, I'll wait"
            type: "postback"
            keyword: "yes"
            payload:
              action: "yes"
            name: "Yes"
          - label: "No, nevermind"
            keyword: "no"
            type: "postback"
            payload:
              action: "no"
            name: "No"      
    

  • A resource bundle entry for the text response item above to form the wait time message so that the message makes sense whether the time is more or less than a minute and whether the number is zero, one, or more. Here's what that might look like:

    There are some experts online. But it might take {minutes, plural,
         =-1 {}
         =0 {}
         =1 {1 minute and }
         other {# minutes and }
    }{seconds, plural,
         =-1 {a while}
         =0 {{minutes, plural,
              =0 {a very short wait time}
              other {0 seconds}
            }}
         =1 {1 second}
         other {# seconds}
    } for one to join. Are you willing to wait?

  • An Agent Transfer state to perform the transfer if the user is willing to wait for an agent.
  • A state with a response when the user doesn't want to wait.

See Agent Transfer Condition for details about the status information and the actions.

If your dialog flow is in YAML mode, see System.AgentTransferCondition.

DA as Agent channels support the ability of both Oracle Fusion Service agents and users to attach images, audio, video, and files to the conversation.

For this to work, you must use Web Chat for Service, or another messaging platform that supports attachments.

You can create an incident report (or service request) for Oracle B2C Service or Oracle Fusion Service from any skill.

To create an incident report from your skill:

1. Go to Settings > Additional Services > Customer Service Integration and create an integration with the needed service.

   You only need to do this once per instance.

2. Add the incident creation component to your flow. For the Visual Flow Designer, see Incident Creation. For YAML, see System.IncidentCreation.

   If you have created a Oracle Fusion Service integration and have selected Allow only signed-in users to create service request as the authentication type, you also need to do the following:

   1. Set the Incident Creation component's Requires Authentication setting to True.
   2. Add an OAuth Account Link component to the dialog flow to handle user authentication. For the Visual Flow Designer, see OAuth Account Link. For YAML, see System.OAuthAccountLink.

The default chat that's accessed through the service's customer portal is limited to text and images. For example, instead of cards and buttons, it just displays text, and the user has to type the choice or button label instead of just clicking on it.

To display more than just text for the UI components that are in the dialog flow, you can use one of the following options:

• Web Chat for Service (WCFS). This feature enables you to customize the chat widget by using features present in the SDK for Oracle Web user channels. To configure WCFS, see the Web Chat for Service (WCFS) section of Administering Oracle Engagement Engine.
• Oracle Inlay Toolkit Inlays. To learn about Inlays, see the Oracle Inlay Toolkit documentation.

If your chat client is the default chat that's accessed through the service's customer portal, then ensure that you set the Enable Auto Numbering on Postback Actions to true on the Settings > Configuration page for the digital assistant so that the user can respond to the UI component by typing in a number instead of the exact text. If you don't set it to true, then use keywords for response items to minimize what the user has to enter. In this example, autonumbering is set to true whenever the client is Twilio or Oracle B2C Service chat.

${(system.channelType=='twilio'||system.channelType=='osvc' )?then('true','false')}

Here's a comparison of how the UI components are displayed for the different clients.

This table illustrates how different component configurations display in the default chat and Inlays.

Example Component Configuration	Inlay	Default Chat
actionList: component: "System.List" properties: prompt: "System.List Choose an option for setting the transition action" options: - label: "Action 1" value: "action1" - label: "Action 2" value: "action2" - label: "Action 3" value: "action3" autoNumberPostbackActions: false footerText: "Footer" transitions: actions: action1: "output1" action2: "output2" action3: "output3" Note: This example uses a System.List component which is deprecated and is only available in YAML dialog mode. For Visual dialog mode, you can use a Common Response component to get a similar result.
responseItems: - type: "cards" cardLayout: "horizontal" footerText: "Footer Text: Cards with Values: Horizontal" cards: - title: "${myvalues.name}" description: "${myvalues.description}" imageUrl: "${myvalues.image}" cardUrl: "http://www.oracle.com" name: "ValuesCard" iteratorVariable: "myvalues" actions: - label: "I Want This One" type: "postback" payload: action: "itemPicked" variables: user.horizontalVariable: "${myvalues.name}" globalActions: - label: "Cancel" type: "postback" payload: action: "cancel" - label: "Send Location" type: "location"
responseItems: - type: "cards" cardLayout: "vertical" footerText: "Footer text for cards." cards: - title: "Card with Actions" description: "This is a card with actions" cardUrl: "http://www.oracle.com" name: "ActionsCard" actions: - label: "share" type: "share" payload: action: "share" - label: "location" type: "location" payload: action: "location" - label: "url" type: "url" payload: action: "url" url: "http://www.oracle.com" - label: "call" type: "call" payload: action: "call" phoneNumber: "808 888 1212" - label: "ok" type: "postback" payload: action: "ok" variables: user.someVariable: "ok" - label: "not ok" type: "postback" payload: action: "notok" variables: user.someVariable: "not ok"		Note that you can wrap the payload URLs in HTML tags. For example <a href="http://www.oracle.com">Click Here</a>.

After you build the skill, you must train it so that you can use it in the DA-as-agent digital assistant.

1. Go to Settings > General and ensure that the training model is Trainer Tm.

   When you use answer intents, you should always use Trainer Tm, even in development environments.

2. Click Train.
3. (Optional) If you don't intend to make anymore changes to this version of the skill, in the title bar, click the down arrow and select Publish.