Virtual Assistants engage end-users primarily using a conversational interface that typically includes an exchange of a series of messages. But oftentimes, there is a need to gather information from the end-user to proceed further. Examples include providing delivery address while interacting with an eCommerce agent, details of an issue while reporting to ITSM agent, opportunity details while creating a CRM opportunity, capturing customer details to book a flight, etc.

In a standard Dialog Task, this scenario is designed by placing a series of Entity Nodes connected back-to-back and the user is asked for values for each of these entities sequentially, which is quite tedious and frustrating. Digital Forms mitigate this issue by presenting users with an interactive interface that they can use to provide the information they are asked for in one go.

Digital Forms provide a range of input fields that allow your assistant to capture the required details from end-users. After the users complete the form, the input is submitted to the VA to proceed with the task at hand.

In this article, we discuss the features and implementation of Digital Forms in the Kore.ai XO Platform. For a use case example and a step-by-step implementation of a Digital Form click here.

Features

• Improved user experience with a single interface for input collection.
• Easy form creation using simple drag and drop actions.
• Vast component library to cater to all your form requirements.
• Provision to define rules for input validations and visibility suiting your use case.
• Automatic dialog task generation from the Form enabling switching between Form or Conversation experience based on the channel of interaction.

General Setup

You can access Digital Forms from the Build top menu under Digital Skills > Digital Forms.

Here is the overall usage process for Digital Forms within the Kore.ai XO Platform

• Form Creation: Define a Digital Form by adding components and configuring their properties.
• Form Invocation: Forms are invoked from inside a task or process:
  • A form is included as a component in the task. The dialog task offers a Form Experience and Conversation Experience based on the channel of interaction. Learn more by reading about the Form Node.
  • A Digital Form is added to a Digital View with a dialog task triggered when a form is submitted from there.
• Form Submission: When it is submitted, the component values are validated and any errors are highlighted. Based on the mode of invocation, post successful validation:
  • The VA execution proceeds as per dialog flow in case of dialog task invocation.
  • The selected task is triggered.

Create a Form

A Digital Form includes a definition and various components to capture user input.

To create forms, follow the below steps:

1. Under the Build top menu, select Digital Skills.
2. Click Digital Forms > New Form.
3. On the New Form page, enter
   1. Name of the Form
   2. Display Name for the Form
   3. Description of the Form
      
4. Select form’s Header Style: You can choose a specific header style from the listed illustrations – the circle indicates the position of logo/icon with respect to the title of the form in the header. Click the card to select the style. If it has a logo, you can upload an image file (jpg or png) for the logo.
   

   Note: During the Export of the Bot, the logo is not exported along with Digital Forms. So, while importing this Bot, you need to separately copy the logo image file and then manually reupload the logo.

5. Turn on the Description toggle if you want to show a description of the form in the header.
   
   

6. Form Security – Enable Secure Form Data to redact form data from the Bot Context, Debug Logs, Service Calls, Agent Transfer, and the Bot Kit.

   

   While enabling, you can also choose whether to display the Secure Form icon to your end users.
   

   Once enabled, the Platform will replace the user input with a unique random system-generated alphanumeric value in all the modules. Also, the Secure Form icon and a Tip will be displayed, notifying the user that the form is secure.

   

7. Click Save & Proceed.

   
   

Add Components

Once you configure the basic details for your form, the Platform takes you to the form builder, where you can add the components you require.

You can drag and drop the components available on the left pane to the canvas and configure their properties to build the form. For details of the available components & their properties.

You can search for a given component, or scroll through the list to find what you require.

You can view the components list in a grid format by clicking the icon on the top right of the list.

If you hover in-between components within the form itself, you can find an in-form Add Component button which also allows you to search and add new components without having to navigate to the left-side list.

Add Form Sections

If you are working with a longer and more complex form, you can split it into sections. Hover your cursor in-between form components to reveal an Add Section button. Clicking it will add a title and description to your form, which you can use to organize the other fields into sections.

Form Actions

From the Forms Listing page, you can:

• Create a New Form, as seen above.
• Edit the Form.
• Use the Branding option to customize a form.
• Test forms.
• Delete forms.

Edit

You can use the Edit option from the form listing to edit the form. The following actions are performed on the Form in edit mode:

• The Component Listing is used for selecting and adding components to the Form by simple drag and drop action.
• Use the View Toggler to switch between Desktop View and Mobile View.
• Use the Move Component Handle Bar against each of the components to change its location by a simple drag and drop action;
• Use Form Actions to:
  • Test the form to see the preview of the Digital Form in the XO Platform.
  • Delete the Form. Please keep in mind that deleted forms cannot be restored.
  • Change the Form Settings such as name, display name, and description.
• Use the Component Actions to access the Settings, Duplicate, and Delete options for each of the form’s components.
• You can change the components’ properties from the Component Settings popup:
  • Use the Component Docker to dock/undock the settings pane to the screen.
  • Use the Component Selector to navigate through the components on the Form.

Branding

Use the Branding option to change the look and feel of the form to reflect your organization’s standards. An instant preview gives you an idea of how the form would look with the new colors and you have the option to Save or Restore Default scheme.

Test

Test the form to see a preview of what it would look like to the end user. You can do this at any point while you work on the form.

Invoke a Form

A digital form can be invoked as follows:

1. From a Task: You may include a form as a component in a dialog task for defining the task. The dialog task offers Form Experience and the usual Conversation Experience for filling the form data. You can choose the preference based on the channel of interaction or any other criteria based on your requirements.
2. From a UI flow: You can add a Digital Form to a pane and choose a dialog task to trigger when the form is submitted from the pane.

In the following sections, we discuss each of the above invocation processes.

Invocation from Dialog Tasks

Digital Forms are used inside Dialog Tasks for capturing user inputs through a Form Node.

To invoke a form from a dialog task, follow the below steps:

1. Create/open the dialog from where you want to invoke the Digital Form.
2. Click the + icon next to the node where you want to add the Form.
3. Select the Digital Form option and then the form from the list. You can choose to add a Digital Form directly or use an existing Form Node.
4. You are prompted to select the Form Experience, it can be:
   
   1. Only Form UI – This creates a Form Node and associates it with the Digital Form selected. This is the default option.
      
   2. Both Form UI and Conversation Experience – This further prompts you to choose a channel. When a user is using one of the selected channels they are presented with a Form UI, the rest of the channel users get a conversation experience.
      This option creates:
      • A Bot Action Node to determine the transitions to the Form Node and the Sub-dialog Node based on the channels selected.
      • A Form Node for the Digital Form, same as was generated for the Only Form UI above.
      • A Sub-dialog Node to capture the required entities (as defined in the Digital Form using components) for the conversational experience. A Group encompassing the following nodes (see here for details). This grouping can be renamed and/or deleted.
5. You can set the Properties for each of the nodes added.
   1. The Form Node (see here for details).
      Of special interest are the following Component Properties:
      1. Submit Message – Message displayed to the end-user on successful submission of the form
      2. Web/Mobile SDK Form Behavior – Using this option you can either have the form displayed inline the chat window or open on a full page. Also, you can either go ahead with the default submit prompt or configure the setting to display a custom and more specific message to be shown in chat. See here to know how to configure.
   2. Bot Action Node, in case of the conversation experience flow, can also be configured (see here for details) Of special interest is the following:
      1. Manage Context Variables is used to create and set values for the context variables. Remember to use the full path of the variable in the key field ie. context.BotUserSession.<variable_name>


         IMPORTANT NOTE: We strongly urge you not to make changes to the connection settings as this affects the V’s performance.

   3. Sub-dialog Node is configured as normal (see here for details) Of special interest are the following:
      1. Use the Entity Post-assignment to capture the user input.
      2. In case you modify the sub-dialog or the source form, you are presented with an option to Regenerate Dialog. This ensures that the changes are reflected in the task without having to rebuild the entire task. Be aware that the changes are reflected in all places this sub-dialog is used.
         
6. The user input can be accessed as follows:
   1. Form component values are accessed from the Context Object using {{context.forms.<form_name>.<component_name>}}
   2. In the case of the sub-dialog, the variables used in the post-assignment settings as {{context.<variable_name>}}
7. You can continue with the Dialog Task as per your business needs. For example, you can use the Form Component values as input to a Service Node to update the data or use the Script Node to process it further. If you are using the conversation experience too, remember to connect the auto-generated sub-dialog to the process flow.

Invocation from Panels

Digital Forms are rendered in Digital Views by configuring Widgets & Panels, see here for more on Digital Views.

To invoke a form using Widgets and Panels, follow the below steps:

1. Create a widget to invoke the Digital Form from Build -> Digital Skills -> Digital Views option.
   1. Enter the name.
   2. Select Digital Forms as the Source.
   3. Add a Form by selecting it from the drop-down list.
   4. Select the Dialog to Invoke on Submit from the drop-down list.
      Note that while a Digital Form is used to define multiple Widgets and also add to multiple panels, it will be associated with a single Dialog Task across all Widgets and Panels.
   5. Save the widget.
      
2. Add the Widget to an existing panel or create a new panel.
   You can add a form directly to a panel, it creates a widget by default.
3. You can Test the panel.
4. Follow the steps provided here to publish and host the panels.

The User Experience

When the end-user initiates the dialog and reaches the node connecting to the Form node, the following events take place. Depending upon the experience selected at design time and the channel of invocation, the flow is the following:

Form experience

A link to the form is presented to the user. Note that for a synchronous WebHook channel, instead of a link the complete form definition is sent click here for more details.

Clicking the link opens the form in either full-screen or inline mode, based on the selection. Please note the following details about the link:

• The link is active only for a certain duration of time, it becomes inactive after that.
• Even within the active period, it can be used only a limited number of times.

End-users can fill in the values for the components/fields.

Every form comes with a default Submit button. This validates the form entries, prompts for any missing values.

Once the form is validated and submitted, the values are available in the context variable and accessed using the following code: context.forms.<form_name>.<component_name>

Here we are capturing the user entry and displaying it using a message node.

Conversation Experience

From the channel of operation, the end-user is prompted to enter values for every component in the form.

The values are available in the sub-dialog context and are captured using Entity Post Assignment as mentioned above.

Following is the user experience in Conversation mode:

Exceptions

When exceptions are encountered during the dialog execution with a Form Node, they are handled as follows:

Panel Flow

Users can access the form using Panels & Widgets. The experience is the same as for the Process Flow with Form experience.

Once the form is validated and submitted, the values are available in the context variable and accessed using the following code: context.forms.<form_name>.<component_name>

Manage VAs with Digital Forms

Publish

The publishing flow for a VA with Digital Forms has the following special cases:

As with any assistant, the Digital Forms exist in the following states:

• In-development when a form is created.
• Awaiting approval when a form is submitted to Publish and the request is waiting for the admin to take action.
• Rejected when the Publish request is rejected by the admin.
• Published In the XO Platform, the status of a Digital Form remains In Development even after publishing.
  
  
• On publishing the form, you can see the form listed under Publish Status → View Publishing Summary, but the status on the Digital Forms main page remains as In Development.
• The In Development and Published versions of the VA can be viewed by toggling between the respective statuses in the top search-bar.
  

  Note: If any edits are done to the Digital Form while it is In Development, the changes would be reflected in the Published version as soon as you publish the form.

• Suspended when a published form is suspended by the admin.

Pre-publishing Validations

The following validations are performed before a Publish request is processed:

A Dialog Task that contains a Digital Form can be published only if:

• The corresponding Digital Form is already published, or
  • The corresponding Digital Form is also selected for publishing.
• A Digital Form that is configured to trigger a Dialog Task is published only if:
  • The corresponding Dialog Task is already published, or
  • The corresponding Dialog Task is selected for publishing.
• While the dependencies are published together, chances are that all the dependencies might not be available at run-time, in such cases:
  • If the Dialog Task is in a published state, but the Digital Form is not in a published state this triggers:
    • The Task Failure Event and the corresponding behavior is invoked or
    • A relevant Standard Response is displayed and
    • Logged as Failed Task in Analytics.
  • Digital Form is in a published state, but the Dialog Task is not available then on Form submission, the end-user is presented with the Form’s Error Message.

Import/Export

Import

Digital Forms are included in the full and incremental import of the assistant.

For Full Import:

• As with all other VA components, the full import replaces the entire Digital Forms and form details.

For Incremental Import:

• You can choose to include/exclude the Digital Forms in the import.
• This import fully replaces the Digital Forms that are common to the import file and the VA.
• Additional forms in the file are imported into the VA.
• Additional forms in the VA are retained.
• Post import, any invalid Digital Form integration details are disassociated with the corresponding forms.

Export

The Bot Export option is available for Digital Forms with a status of In Development or Published.

• Digital Forms can be selected/deselected from the Bot Export page under the Bot Tasks category.
• Choose the option to Include dependent dialogs to export Dialog Tasks that are integrated with the selected Digital Forms to define widgets.
  Note that this does not include the Sub-dialog Tasks generated using Digital Forms.
• Complete information for each of the selected forms are available in the export file and this includes:
  • Fields,
  • Field properties,
  • Form integrations,

Form Component Details

Components List

Following is a list of available components. For details on the properties of each component.

DESCRIPTION	SAMPLE
Basic
Text Field – used for single-line input.
Text Area – used for multi-line entry
Number – used for numerical entries
Radio Button – used as a selection option from a given list
Dropdown – Used as a selection option from a given list; can be multi-select
Checkbox – Used for multi-select option from a given list
Date – Used for date entries, gives a date picker for the user to choose the date.
Date & Time – Used for date & time entries, give a date and time picker for the user to choose the date and time. Use the Date component and set the Time option to yes; choose from 12- or 24-hour format
Phone Number – Used for phone number entries, allows the user to choose the country code.
Email – Used for email address entries, validates for xxx@uuu.com format
Toggle – Used for switching between two values, ideal for yes/no type of inputs
Address – Used for address entries
URL – Used for web URL entries, validates for xxx.com format
Range Slider – Value selection between specified min and max values; can be represented as a percentage
Password	*****
Advanced
Button – Used as a clickable component to submit, or reset, or open an external URL the form. Choose from Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, Ghost, or Danger.
Label – Used to display a static text box, no action required from the user
Protip – Used to mark important information for the end-user, no user action required.
Note – Used to mark information for the end-user, no user action required.

Component Properties

The following are the properties that can be set for each of the components.

Note: Not all the properties are valid for all the components, refer to the property matrix for the mapping:

Component Mappings

Properties

Basic

Advanced

Dialog Node

The following mapping gives the type of entities included in the sub-dialog when it is auto-generated from a Digital Form.

Context Object

The following mapping gives the context object to capture the component value along with a sample context object.

"forms": {
    "basicpropertieslist": {
      "TextField": "text",
      "Textarea": "text area",
      "Number": 123,
      "Radio": "Male",
      "Dropbox": [
        "UnderGrad",
        "Other"
      ],
      "Checkbox": [
        "Education",
        "Technology"
      ],
      "Date": "07/08/2020",
      "Date&Time": "07/08/2020 19:00 PM",
      "PhoneNumber": "+919999999999",
      "Email": "test@gmail.com",
      "toggle": "Yes",
      "Adress": "Address",
      "Url": "test.com",
      "rangeSlider": 26.1
    }
  }

Prefill Form

You can specify data that can be used to pre-populate the form fields. Platform will check for the availability of any form prefill information before lauching the form. If any information is available, then the corresponding fields in the form are pre-populated before presenting the form to the user. The values can be static or from a context object.