Add Shortcuts to Messages and Cards

(Daniel Beckett) #21

But if you send the card set with the shortcuts and then immediately after that insert an ‘Ask a question’ action to capture the shortcut choice you can direct them to another point in the flow using Goto a label :slight_smile:

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(Andrew Catchpole) #22

@Danielblackett okay I can see this is a possible workaround however correct me if I’m wrong but the Goto a Label action may only be used 20 times (in total) during the course of a flow. https://support.flowxo.com/article/151-flow
The only scalable solution is to use another flow - agreed?

(Karen Barker) #23

Hi @Smartview_Property,

Yes the GoTo label can only be used 20 times in 1 flow. This is to stop you being able to cause infinite loops which could seriously impact the behaviour of your bot. What is sometimes possible however would be to have an Attribute that counts to 20 and then retriggers the same flow - this is at least only 1 additional interaction per 20 loops of the flow as opposed to 20 interactions. For other people simply filtering further actions in the flow based on the shortcut button clicked on the card is ample.

The best way to handle this really does depend on exactly what you are trying to do with your flow. :slight_smile:

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(Andrew Catchpole) #24

Okay thanks @KarenBarker

(Hito Bot) #25

Hello @KarenBarker, how are you?

Taking advantage of your explanation, what is the best procedure for counting the 20 interactions and what is the way to reset the same flow to continue?

Sorry for my bad English.

(Karen Barker) #26

Hi @hitobot,

I see you’ve sent this in to our support email as well so I’ve responded over there with further information :slight_smile:

(Andrew Catchpole) #27

@KarenBarker @hitobot Karen, I would be interested in your response too. i.e. best way to count and reset to the same flow. At the moment I have removed goto actions and always re-start the flow however at scale this is wasteful on interaction costs.

(Daniel Beckett) #28

The solution is to set an Attribute to +1 inside the loop which counts to 20. On the GoTo label you’ll then need a Filter that says attribute < 20. After this you’ll need to retrigger the flow to get another 20 iterations of the loop.

Here’s an example flow showing how this works:

(Emi Akino) #29

I tried to do it with Card Shortcuts and Message Shortcuts, but didn’t succeed.
First of all, which type of Ask a Question we should ask? Text or choice?
Second, if question needs to be choice, then do we need to make any actual choices or leave it blank?
When I ask for a Choice question without actual choices inside, right after Card/Message Shortcuts, it just says nothing and waits for clicking on Shortcut, then it restarts a flow. No answers from Shortcuts recorded.
When I ask for a Text question, right after Card/Message Shortcuts, it waits for input of text answer, then does nothing and then restarts a flow. No answers from Shortcuts recorded.
Please help :disappointed:

(Sarah Palombo) #30

CHOICE QUESTIONS
If you set up a choice question you can display button choices ~(shortcuts) so the user can click on one of your choices. Here, the user will see:

Your question.
[Choice One] [Choice Two] etc

You will need to provide those shortcut options here.

Once a user clicks one of these choices, your flow can then send a message or a reply.
You could filter those replies based on the answer above i.e

Send Message - filter (answer equas Choice One)
Send Message - filter (answer equals Choice Two)

TEXT QUESTIONS
If you just sent a text question your user will receive just the question and can type a reply.
You can then continue sending further messages in your flow.

If you having issues with your flow you can share this using the [Private button] at the top of your flow. This will give you a link to share with the support team support@flowxo.com i’m sure we can help get things working well.

(Emi Akino) #31

Thanks, Sarah.
But these are Question actions. I know and understand them and answers from Choice Question (“shortcuts”) work perfectly well. What I can’t understand is how to catch answers given by Card/Message shortcuts (without quotation marks here) into Question following right after it, as Karen mentioned in her post.

(Karen Barker) #32

Hi @AnFlare,

When you’re using the Ask a Question immediately after sending a card(set) or a message with shortcuts it generally looks better if you just use a text question. This can have any answer given and the buttons will still be on screen from the previous action. If you use a choice question then you’ll need to set the choices to be exactly the same as the shortcut buttons thus duplicating these on screen.

If you’re still having problems with this can you share your flow with us at support@flowxo.com and we’ll happily take a look over it. To share a flow please edit the flow, click the private button at the top of the flow and make it public, you are then provided with a share URL that you can copy and paste to us. :slight_smile:

(Emi Akino) #33

@KarenBarker
May I post test flows here?
Now I tried to make a flow from scratch (Card/Question) and everything works! But then I returned to Sample flow where I did the same (but Message/Question) and this flow is broken. When Question appears, shortcuts from Message above disappear and Question just waits for a text reply.
Here’s working flow, and here’s another one that doesn’t work.

PS: tried to make flow with Message/Question from scratch, it doesn’t work either.

(Daniel Beckett) #34

Hi @AnFlare

Which platform are you using for your bot? Is it Telegram?

(Emi Akino) #35

@DanielBeckett
How did you know it? :flushed: Telegram and Messenger.

(Karen Barker) #36

Hi @AnFlare,

Thanks for sharing your flows - no problem sharing them here as long as you’re happy that other people can possibly install them too.

I noticed when I installed the flows that the difference between them is that the working flow uses a card with shortcuts whereas the one which doesn’t work uses a “Send a message” action with shortcuts.

I’ve experimented a bit further with this and when you use “Send a message” these shortcuts do actually disappear when you send another message i.e. the question. Using a card/card set the short cuts are still available for the user to click once the question is in place.

Thinking about this though if you’re using the send a message action this could just be directly replaced with the Ask a Question action with choices as these will display in the same manner.

(Emi Akino) #37

These ones are nothing more than just test flows, so it’s ok. Whoever finds it useful may take it freely :smile:

Hmm, seems you’re right! But then what’s the purpose of Message shortcuts? Trigger another flow from within first one, that’s all? Just sending text message during the flow can’t do it?

(Daniel Beckett) #38

@AnFlare

The original intended purpose for shortcuts on send a message is primarily for triggering other flows. It does have some other uses for things like an FAQ flow though. If you install the ‘FAQ’ template from the flow editor you can see an example of this :slight_smile:

(Emi Akino) #39

@DanielBeckett
Thank you for explanation. But it’s possible to trigger another flow simply by sending a text input during the flow, isn’t it?

(Daniel Beckett) #40

It is, yeah.

The shortcuts let the user select from a list of keywords / phrases that you’ve setup in the bot so they can trigger the other flows. This let’s the user progress by simply clicking a button rather than having to type a response and/or try to find the right trigger to activate your flows.