Getting Started

How to use the Maisie Chatbot Builder

In this tutorial we’ll show you how to use the Maisie Chatbot Editor & Builder so you can edit and create new Convo Flows and Convo Modules to use in your Website Bots.

Please note that this tutorial requires an understanding of our key terminology so please read our Glossary first if you haven’t done so already.

Maisie has been designed with flexibility in mind so you can configure your chatbot to use different Convo Flows on different pages of your website. You can also configure different Convo Flows on each page for different types of visitors and set different rules and triggers for when a Notification or Convo Flow is activated.

For this tutorial we’ll be editing the All Pages Convo Flow. This is one of the default Convo Flow templates that was installed automatically when you created your Maisie account.

To edit this Convo Flow navigate to the Convo Flows main screen and click the pencil (edit) icon.

This will open the Editor screen for this Convo Flow. On the left side of this screen is the title of the Convo Flow and underneath that sits the editor with two tabs: Convo and Settings. On the right side above the preview window you have three tabs: one for the Convo Flow, one for the Mobile Notifications design and another for the Desktop Notifications design.

Notifications

A Notification comprises a Message and Quick Replies that are displayed after someone lands on your website.

A Message is simply the initial text you wish to use to welcome visitors and alert them that there is assistance available, such as "How may I be of assistance?".

A Quick Reply is a clickable button beneath the Message, such as "Get product ideas", that informs your website visitors that there are a number of things that Maisie can do to assist them and that it is a lot more than just a live chat.

From your Convo Flow editor screen, click the Mobile Notification tab on the right (above the preview window).

You will see a mobile device with your current mobile notification message and quick replies.

Scroll down and hover over the message and click the edit (pencil) icon if you'd like to make changes.  

This will open up the text editor on the left of your screen so you can make changes to the message text. Click the Save button once you've made your text changes.

Note that this will also change the text shown at the start of the Convo Flow. Conversely, if you change the first message in your Convo Flow it will update the notification message.

You can also change which notification quick replies will display on different devices. For example, on mobile devices you might like to hide a couple of Quick Replies to reduce the space it takes up on the screen.

To do this, scroll down and hover over the notification Quick Replies then click the pencil (edit) icon.

This will open up the Quick Replies in the editor on the left of screen.

Simply uncheck any of the Quick Replies you don't wish to display on mobile. You can do the same for Desktop if you wish.

Once you're happy, click the OK button at the bottom to save your changes.

Finally, click the Publish button in the top right of the screen to publish these changes to your website.

Convo Flows

When a website visitor clicks the notification message / Quick Replies (or the Maisie icon) the Chat Window will launch.

To view and edit the Convo Flows that display on the Chat Window click the Convo Flow tab.

Quick Replies

You can edit the text in each Quick Reply by hovering over the Quick Replies you wish to edit and selecting the edit icon on the right.

This will open the Quick Reply editor on the left. Click inside the text box that you wish to edit and make changes to the text.

You can change the order in which the Quick Replies are displayed. Click inside the text box for the Quick Reply you wish to move then click the up or down arrow on the bottom right to change its position.

You can add new Quick Replies by clicking the + icon on the bottom right.

You can also delete any Quick Replies by clicking the trash can icon on the bottom right. Please note that this will also delete all messages that follow the Quick Reply in that branch of the Convo Flow. If you wish to keep the messages that follow a Quick Reply, it’s usually better to change the Quick Reply text rather than delete the Quick Reply.

You will notice that the text on the Quick Reply in the Chat Window preview on the right will update dynamically as you change the text in the text box on the left. Click the OK button when you’ve finished to save your changes.

Convo Flow Branches for Quick Replies

For each Quick Reply you need to ensure there are messages or a Convo Module which follows it. Otherwise your website visitors won’t receive a response from the bot when they click that Quick Reply!

To add a series of messages or a Convo Module into a Quick Reply conversation branch, first click the Quick Reply you want to add to then click the + plus icon.

After clicking the + icon, choose a convo element on the left and click it to add it under your selected Quick Reply.

Now you can see the message element has been added beneath the Quick Reply and on the right you can enter the text you want for the message. Click the Save button to save the new message.

We can also insert a Convo Module beneath the new message I added. Simply hover over the newly added message on the right and click the plus icon.

As I want to offer a discount, I will click the Discount Convo Module to add it beneath my message.

In the preview window on the right you can see the Discount Convo Module has been added into the Convo Flow.

We can edit any of the text or delete a message in the Discount Convo Module we just inserted into this Convo Flow. Any changes we make in the Convo Flow will not change the actual Convo Module. This allows us to make tweaks to the Convo Module if we want to use it in different Convo Flows.

Once we're happy with our changes we can publish the changes to our website by clicking the Publish button on the top right of the screen.

Alternatively, if we're not ready to publish, we can save it as a draft by clicking the Save Draft button, entering a name into the popup window and clicking the Save button..

To load previous draft Convo Flow for editing or publishing, simply click the dropdown "List of convo drafts" and click on the version you'd like to use and it will be loaded for you.

Convo Flow Settings

Each Convo Flow has settings that you can view by clicking the Setting tab. You can adjust some of these settings and other settings are locked to the relevant pages and visitor types at the time they were created.

Once you’re done click click the Publish button to publish this Convo Flow to your website or click the Save Draft button to save your changes without publishing them to your website.