Custom Integration - Preparation

There are three stages for building a custom integration with your Ultimate bot:

• What is a custom integration:
• Pre-onboarding scoping
• Questionnaire
• Integration technical requirements
• Reading list
• Phase One
• Phase Two

We recommend only working on one custom integration at a time

What is a custom integration:

We make an API connection to your backend systems to enrich the data within a conversation.

Pre-onboarding scoping

This is the preparation phase to gather information needed from you and your team prior to the onboarding bootcamp. We have prepared a questionnaire and a checklist for you and the team to go through. 

This phase consists of three steps: 

1. Fill out the questionnaire below with the Custom Integration Engineer in your project team and send the answers back to your Delivery Manager or Account Executive, or complete the google form.
2. Pass the integration technical requirements to the Custom Integration Engineer
3. Go through the features in the reading list with the team and your Solution Architect.

Questionnaire

1. What would be the API use-case? What data are we retrieving?
2. Is the API compliant with the technical requirements?
3. Is there documentation about the API? (If yes, please provide it)
4. Is API already used in production?
5. What is the authentication method with your API?
6. Is the API searchable by data a typical customer can provide?
7. Name and email of the technical point of contact?
8. Will the technical point of contact be able to demo an API request during a call?

Once your Delivery Manager has received the second questionnaire from you, she will set up a 45-minute use case mapping meeting to discuss how the integration will look like at a high level. 

Integration technical requirements

Available in another article here.

Reading list

To get the most out of a custom integration, the team should be familiar with the conversation design features listed below: 

• Conditional blocks
• Content Entities
• Actions

Phase One

This phase consists of a use case mapping meeting at the beginning

Before this meeting, please ensure that the tech person can demo a successful API request to your data source

Use case discovery meeting

• A 45-minute meeting to map out use cases to API responses and discuss how the integration will look like at a high level. 
• Meeting goal: Reach a general agreement to how the API integration will behave in a conversation
• Participants: 
  • Bot Builders - provides the customer insights, how they currently resolve the use case
  • Custom Integration Engineer - provides the API response data/schema
  • Ultimate Delivery Manager - assists with designing the use case
  • Ultimate Customer Engineer - assists with designing the integration

Phase Two

This phase consists of a client handover meeting where the Ultimate team hands over the API 

Client handover meeting

• Meeting goal: Bot Builders are comfortable building a dialogue using the API integration
• A 30-minute meeting with your Delivery Manager to discuss the topics below:
  • How to use the API integration within a dialogue
  • What are the input parameters
  • Possible response scenarios
  • How to parse the parameters returned from the API integration