Action Builder: How to Get the Most out of Workflow Builder with API calls

Table of contents

What is Action Builder?

Why should I use Action Builder?

How to use Action Builder

Introduction

As a self-service product, it's important to give users the necessary tools to customize Solve Widget for their specific customers and industry space. At Forethought, we ensure flexibility in workflow creation by using Action Builder, a supplemental feature that gives static workflows more dimension.

What is Action Builder?

While Workflow Builder is used to create step-by-step workflows per intent, Action Builder allows users to utilize Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to retrieve information from another service or program. This will create an action that saves the responses as context variables, which can be used for any intent within Workflow Builder. These context variables drive the force for creating unique workflows, such as "Check Order Status", "Find nearby Locations", etc.

Why should I use Action Builder?

Actions provide an opportunity to deflect commonly asked questions that are a quick look up on the agent's end. While keeping data secure through an API, customers can access this information quickly without needing to navigate through the customer support process.

How to Use Action Builder

*Note: APIs must return a valid response (200) in order to save them as an Action. Also, Action Builder currently only supports Authentication via Bearer Token.

Prerequisites:

Have this API information ready before you begin:

• The API Endpoint, also known as the Request URL
• The parameters (usually a key-value pair)
• Any header arguments
• If needed, the Bearer Token for Authorization
• The REST API Method (GET, POST, PUT, or DELETE)
• The fields from the response that you want to save as context variables

This section will walk through a simple Action, which uses customer input to retrieve a response.

1. Before setting up an Action, you'll need to create context variables for the customer's input and the fields you want to save from the response.
   • On the Forethought Dashboard, navigate to the Configuration tab on the left sidebar.
   • Select Context Variables, then click + Add Context.
   • Once you've entered in the display names for each context variable, click Save at the top right corner.
     
     
2.  On the left sidebar, navigate to the Action Builder tab, and click the + Action button in the top left corner to begin creating an action. 
   
   
3. In the Endpoint section, enter the API information, then click Continue to view the Response on the right side.
   
   •  Context variables can be used as values for the input parameters. Type "$" into the textbox to select one from the list.
4. Enter in test values for context variables if prompted.
   
   
5. For the Output Parameters section, click on one of the Response fields to save the value as a context variable, then click Continue.
   
   
6. Enter a title and quick description for the action, then click Save Action.
   
   
7. That's it. You're finished! 🎉 The action should now be available via the lightning bolt icon when building workflows in Workflow Builder.