Digital assistant
Digital assistants in IBM Robotic Process Automation are bots that interact with users using text or voice messages. A digital assistant can be either a chatbot or an interactive voice response (IVR) agent or both. Digital assistants can use natural language processing (NLP) to interpret messages and provide the appropriate reply to the user.
Prerequisites
To know what resources you need before starting the digital assistant development process, see Requirements.
Free context grammar
A digital assistant can be linear or non-linear.
The linear digital assistant is built based on closed questions. It directs user interaction to get the data you need. User messages not provided by the digital assistant are ignored until the expected message is obtained.
The non-linear digital assistant is built based on open-ended questions and is considered a free context assistant. The tool contextualizes the subject treated between the robot and the user to return the best responses to the message sent by the user. Integration with a knowledge base is needed. For more details, see Knowledge Base.
Chatbot
The chatbot is a feature fully integrated with IBM Robotic Process Automation. You can build, run, and publish chatbots entirely within the platform instead of chatbots are built, executed, and published by the platform.
Chatbot scripts are no different than regular IBM RPA scripts, but they use communication commands.
Chatbots can use a knowledge base for message analysis, in which the model will compute the best answer to the user's questions. In IBM Robotic Process Automation there is also the category of chat commands, which are specific to Chatbots.
IVR
The Interactive voice response (IVR) is a technology that allows humans to interact with a telephone system operated by a computer. Without the need for the intervention of a human attendant at first.
IVR scripts are no different than regular IBM RPA scripts, but they use communication commands.
The IVR can also use a knowledge base for message analysis. In IBM Robotic Process Automation there is also the category of IVR commands, which are specific to IVR.
Developing a digital assistant
Chatbot and IVR have the same development structure. In most cases, it is possible to transform a Chatbot into IVR, and vice versa, with minor changes to the commands that initiate the communication interface and specific Chat or IVR commands.
See the documentation available for building a digital assistant in IBM Robotic Process Automation: