Microsoft Azure Archives - BotCore

Creating Intelligent Chatbots Using Power Virtual Agents & Dataverse

Satheesh Kothakapu — Thu, 18 Aug 2022 08:54:52 +0000

Creating Intelligent Chatbots Using Power Virtual Agents & Dataverse

Over the past two years, the shift in how businesses operate worldwide has been palpable. Dynamics have transformed, ushering in an era of rapidly changing customer and employee expectations.

One of the most significant trends witnessed over the past two years has been the unprecedented and unparalleled rise in the use of conversational AI — chatbots and virtual agents — toagents—to provide quick, meaningful, and more personalized service to customers while enhancing employee efficiency levels by minimizing repetitive and redundant tasks.

A well-developed chatbot has the potential to shape a company’s brand image, playing an integral role in attracting and retaining the right market for your product and keeping employees active, engaged, and motivated throughout their journey with your organization.

Agile, resilient, and future-proof — these are three words that best describe today’s business environment. It is not enough to implement chatbots; deploying them at the right time to hasten business operations and build a competitive edge in the market is paramount.

That’s where Microsoft’s Power Virtual Agents (PVA), a low-code SaaS platform that helps build and deploy bots quickly with minimum coding experience required, comes into the scene.

This blog will explore creating intelligent chatbots using Power Virtual Agents and the Dataverse.

An integral part of Microsoft’s suite of services, Power Virtual Agents helps organizations develop and implement virtual agents and chatbots leveraging the low-code approach. This means both pro and citizen developers alike can build chatbots in a short period with little or no coding knowledge needed.

Moreover, being hosted on the Microsoft Azure Cloud environment offers the added advantage of pre-existing infrastructure. Hence, organizations needn’t invest more resources in maintaining the chatbots and can enjoy seamless integration with other services.

In short, Power Virtual Agents capitalizes on its graphical interface and minimalistic coding requirements to make bot building a breeze for all.

PVA takes entire responsibility for the functional aspect of the chatbot, so all the user has to do is provide the logic and set the virtual agent up.

Below, we describe in brief the process of creating your first chatbot using Power Virtual Agents and the Dataverse environment —

Install Power Virtual Agents in Teams by selecting and adding it from the left navigation bar.
After installing, launch the app and choose the “Start Now” button.
Choose which team would own and manage your chatbot and then “Continue.”
Choose a name and language for your virtual assistant.
Select “Create” to complete the process of creation.
Define the topic nodes. Topics define chatbot conversations and how they take place. Types of topics include “trigger” phrases (phrases and keywords that indicate the user has asked a question) and “conversation nodes” (define how the bot responds to the user’s request).

How to create a topic?

Select + New topic. Name and Save the Topic.
Enter trigger phrases for the topic, “for example, “Who can I contact for a loan query?”
In the Message node, enter information for the trigger nodes. For example, “The contact details for a loan query are Steve Robbins, sr@xyz.com.” You can add multiple conversation nodes.
Select Redirect to another topic > End of conversation to define the end of the conversation.

Click here to know more.

7. Add inputs, variables, and conditions.

Instead of defining all trigger phrase information in the message node, you can add inputs, variables, and conditions to vary the chatbot’s response based on the user’s input.

Inputs define the user’s response when the chatbot asks a question. While variables store the inputs to be used later, conditions set forth the branching logic.

To add a node between the trigger phrases and end conversation node, select the Add node plus sign and then select the “ask a question” option.
Select “Multiple choice options” and define the options for the user to select from.
Select the variable name that will be triggered when the user configures the branching logic.
To define the next appropriate response for each of the multiple choice options, create a new condition node and add a new message node for each probable response that the user may give.

8. Pull in data from Dataverse for Teams

Dataverse for Microsoft Teams is a low-code service that offers relational data storage, editable data tables, rich data types, robust governance, and one-click deployment to Teams.

You can create a Dataverse for teams table in the same team as the chatbot using Microsoft PowerApps.
In PowerApps for Teams, select Build -> See all -> New -> Table.
Create a new table, add new rows, and columns.
Add a “call an action.”
Use Power Automate flows to pull in data from the Dataverse for Teams table, Lists, or any other data source.

To know more, click here

9. Publish the Chatbot

In the Power Virtual Agents app, open the chatbot for editing.
Choose the Publish bot menu item or button.
Choose the Publish option. Select Publish to confirm in the Publish latest content confirmation window.

10. Publish the Chatbot

Once the chatbot is complete, it must be published so that users can interact with it. You can send a link to team members or add the chatbot to the Built by your colleagues section in Teams or if the chatbot is for the organization, you’ll send it to your Teams admin for approval.

If the chatbot is only for your team members, you must instruct them on how to use and share the bot by choosing one of the following:

Copy link – Provide users with a link to the chatbot.
Add to the team – Add the bot to a specific team. With this option enabled, anyone in your team will be able to find the bot in the Teams app store in the Built by your colleagues section.
Show in Teams app store – Make your bot visible in the Teams app store, with the option of showing only to teammates and shared users or to everyone in your organization.

Click here to learn about how to publish the chatbot for the entire organization.

Subscription And Licensing:

Microsoft 365 offers two editions of PVA:

PVA for Teams: A free app that only permits the creation of internal bots.
Power Virtual Agents: Requires additional subscription & supports the development of both web-based external client bots and internal Microsoft Teams bots.

How can Acuvate help?

As a Microsoft Gold Partner and provider of next-generation AI and consulting services, Acuvate leverages Microsoft’s robust suite of services, including PowerApps, Power Virtual Agents, and Power Automate, to create custom apps, AI bots, and workflows that enhance employee efficiency and support the delivery of exceptional customer experiences.

We have assisted clients from different industries and geographies in creating intelligent chatbots using PVA and Microsoft Dataverse.

To learn more about our chatbots, please schedule a personalized consultation with one of our experts.

The post Creating Intelligent Chatbots Using Power Virtual Agents & Dataverse appeared first on BotCore.

Deliver Total Experience With Microsoft Power Virtual Agents

Satheesh Kothakapu — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 12:18:02 +0000

Deliver Total Experience with Microsoft Power Virtual Agents

With multiple technologies working together to decipher the language, context, and intent to respond in an almost human manner, Conversational AI has seen staggering growth in the last few years. 70% of the world’s white-collar population has adopted it as a way of life. Today, organizations worldwide are using chatbots, among other technologies, to meet employee and customer experience needs and deliver what Gartner calls Total Experience (TX).

Microsoft Power Virtual Agents is one such intelligent no-code solution that allows businesses of all sizes to create chatbots to engage with customers and employees. This bot-builder is part of the Microsoft Power Platform that gives it access to powerful technologies, making it a compelling tool for your business.

What is Power Virtual Agent?

At its core, Microsoft Power Virtual Agents provides the building blocks for customizable AI chatbots. It allows businesses to stay connected to customers, employees, and other intended users 24×7, answer queries in real-time and improve self-service capabilities through company websites or employee platforms. Eventually, chatbots designed on Power Virtual Agents reduce the workload on CX, HR, and IT helpdesk teams.

Easy to customize for the unique needs of each business, Power Virtual Agents do not depend on high-end resources like data scientists and developers. This allows any business user, even in smaller firms, to build bots that deliver the same interactivity and experience as large brands. In addition, Power Virtual Agents is available as a standalone application on the web or as an app within Microsoft Teams, giving businesses the flexibility on where they choose to deploy it.

Power Virtual Agents vs. other bot builders – what's the difference?

With conversational AI becoming the new norm for TX, many fly-by-the-night bot builders are available. But none with the nuances and ease of use of Power Virtual Agents.

Some features that differentiate Power Virtual Agents include –

1. Ease of use and cost-effectiveness

Power Virtual Agents allows the bot to be built quickly without any high-end resources or skills. With its no-code, intuitive UI, PVA is perfect for users with little or no technical capabilities and advanced developers. In addition, the pre-built drag-and-drop features supported by Microsoft Power Automate make this no-code process easy to deploy.

2. Deep customization

Business can integrate their relevant processes with Power Virtual Agents with pre-built connectors. This allows them to quickly customize and deploy bots on your website, social media, and Microsoft Teams, among other platforms, to engage with the end-user in various contexts.

3. Simple escalation hierarchy

Power Virtual Agents addresses low-level requests, freeing up customer service resources. But it also enables the bot to flag a concern that needs live, human intervention. Ultimately, this means a quick resolution of customer or employee queries despite lean dependence on person-hours.

4. Performance monitoring

The inbuilt data-driven insights and AI-enabled analytics allow for real-time monitoring of the chatbot’s performance. This ensures continuous learning and improvement in a company’s conversational AI experience.

5. Real-time adaptation

The Microsoft Azure machine learning capabilities inherent to PVA allow the chatbots to adapt to real-time situations and deliver accurate responses. This ensures that your bot is almost human-like in its response, making the experience more personalized for the customer.

6. Round-the clock-customer support

No more waiting for opening hours! Chatbot’ agents’ can now be available for end-users in a time-zone agnostic manner. So, whether your employee wants information on healthcare insurance at 2 am during an emergency or your customer asks WISMO at midnight, you can rest assured that they will get the answers they need.

The evolution of Power Virtual Agents

As recently as May 2022, Microsoft announced many transformative new features that make Power Virtual Agents more potent than ever. According to Microsoft, the new and improved platform unifies the sophistication of Microsoft Azure Bot Framework Composer’s pro-code capabilities with the simplicity of the existing low-code platform. Simply put, Power Virtual Platform now allows professional developers and subject matter experts to work collaboratively to build a bot on the unified Microsoft Bot Building Studio. An additional feature will enable it to go from a simple bot-builder to a complete suite of interactive voice response (IVR) builder. This is made possible by incorporating an end-to-end backend support framework for telephony. It now also includes the agility of Power BI, which helps with data visualization, self-service analytics, and data protection.

This evolution is built around four main themes:

1. Unified bot building to leverage the true potential of the Microsoft stack

With the new single unified bot building studio, Power Virtual Agents now incorporates-

The advanced functionality of Bot Framework Composer with the bot-building experience of Power Virtual Agents.
Deep integration of Bot Framework Composer and Microsoft Cognitive Services, allowing professional developers and domain experts to collaborate easily in building powerful conversational bots and IVRs.

2. Advanced authoring for richer experiences

With this new feature, Power Virtual Agents now delivers –

Richer conversations with integrated multi-media response support through images and video sharing, adaptive cards, and quick response capabilities
Data storage, reuse, and transformation for professional developers. Made possible by the use of the Power FX editor to connect to the custom API via the Microsoft Power Platform connectors, elicit a response, resolve it into its parts and ultimately transform the information for use within the conversation
Reaction to events with contextual responses. For example, for a product delivery query, any system information on delivery updates will trigger the bot to respond with “Your product will reach you soon.” or “Your product is in transit in X location.”
Logic using variables, loops, and advanced conversational flows to make the interaction as close to mimicking a human interaction as possible

3. Seamless Fusion Teams collaboration

According to Gartner, 84% of companies have set up Fusion Teams, i.e., multi-disciplinary teams of technology and other experts. Power Virtual Agents now allows the collaboration of these Fusion Teams in the bot-building process, with features like multi-authoring and commenting that is similar to the MS Office experience. So, for example, your bot-building process can now have technology and psychology experts working together to deliver the most humane conversation AI experiences to your customers and employees.

4. IVR and Telephony for multichannel conversational AI support

Power Virtual Agents has progressed from a simple bot builder to an end-to-end IVR builder. Now, all businesses need is a phone number and a bot published on the back of it. And the next thing you know, your customers are engaging with your bot on the phone! This not only reduces customer service workload but also addresses delays in response times for the customer. More importantly, it makes conversational AI more inclusive, bringing elderly users into its fold who are more comfortable with phone conversations than with web- or platform-based chatbots.

How businesses are deploying Power Virtual Agents with Acuvate

With conversational AI becoming a must-have for organizations, Acuvate and Microsoft have delivered humane, sentient, and genuinely effective chatbots across the TX spectrum with Power Virtual Agents.

Some of the use-cases include –

1. Employee assistant chatbots

Using the latest features of PVA, Acuvate built Employee Assistant Chatbots to answer employees’ FAQs. This bot deployment was highly effective and helpful during the last two years of remote work and COVID concerns.

The chatbot can –

Issue COVID-related information, including insights from official sources, preventive measures and tips, COVID-19 health checks for employees, etc.
Deliver company-specific information, including advisories, news from the organization, and emergency contact details.
Act as an HR helpdesk, answering employees’ HR-related queries with minimal human intervention.

Yet another example of HR chatbots for employee experience include a turnkey project that Acuvate delivered for Neptune Energy, a large energy company that wanted to streamline its HR information seeding. With the sentient HR Handbook Bot built in a record two weeks using Power Virtual Agents, Neptune’s employees now have instant information and answers on terms and conditions, rewards and benefits, policies and procedures, and offshore employee guidance. Click here to read more about the success of Neptune’s HR Handbook Bot.

2. Customer support chatbots

No matter the size of your organization, ease of customer query resolution is always top of mind. Power Virtual Agents enables customer support automation with no-code capabilities. So, your customer support is up and running quickly and customized to deal with queries specific to the nature of your business. Simple questions like – ‘what are your working hours,’ ‘how soon can I expect my order to be delivered’ or ‘I need help to understand the refund process for the item I wish to return’ – can be easily programmed to be quickly dealt with by your chatbot. The system will flag queries beyond its scope and escalate seamlessly to a human agent wherever necessary.

3. IT helpdesk

IT-related issues can be aggravating, especially for employees working remotely. For example, imagine you are on a project deadline, and your system shuts down for unforeseeable reasons. When you call your IT Helpdesk, you are guided through all the possibilities of addressing the situation with automated IVR. If the matter is resolved, the ticket can be satisfactorily closed. If not, it can be escalated to a live helpdesk agent. This is how seamless and cost-effective Power Virtual Agents can make your IT and query resolution process.

Begin your chatbot journey with the next-gen Microsoft Power Virtual Agents

67% of consumers worldwide have interacted with a chatbot in the last 12 months, with an estimated 57-fold increase by 2025.

It is not too late to begin your conversational AI journey. Acuvate is ready to walk you through this process and help you achieve the maximum effectiveness from your Power Virtual Agents investment.

Talk to our experts today.

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