Developing Skills integrating with 3rd party systems

Owned by sneha.tripathi
Last updated: Feb 02, 2021
4 min read

Luma Virtual Agent can integrate with various applications within your organization or external system to fulfill the end-user requests. For example, Luma VA can connect with your ITSM system to log and manage tickets, retrieve Knowledge Articles for Knowledge Management systems, Reset password in Active Directory, get payroll information, apply for leaves in HR portals, or Book travel tickets.

Integrations in Luma VA allow your bot to integrate with external applications to retrieve data or perform actions in the target system. Web services (APIs) are used to create these integrations, which can then be used in skills to action user requests in the required target systems.

Integrations can be configured with Applications that support SOAP or REST protocols.

The following are the key steps in configuring a skill with integration to a 3rd party application:

Configure Integration

Follow the steps to create an integration to the target system:

  1. Create an Application.

    1. Navigate to Tenant menu → Integration.

    2. Click on Create App.

    3. Add the Application Name and Integration type supported by the target system.

    4. Click Create.

  2. Add an Instance of the application.

    1. Select the Application created and navigate to the Instances tab.

    2. Click on Create Instance.

    3. Add instance details Name and Description.

    4. Click Next to Instance Configuration details.

    5. Define the instance WebService URL and authorization credentials.

    6. Add Global Path Parameter, Global Query Parameter, and Global Headers as required to connect to the application.

    7. Click Create.

  3. Configure the Operation. An operation defines the task that should be performed on the target system using the Web Service.

    1. Select the Application created and navigate to the Operations tab.

    2. Click on Create Operation.

    3. In the Operation details section, add Operation Name, URI, and Method.

    4. Click Next to add Request configuration details.

    5. Add Path Parameter, Query Parameter, and Headers parameters as required to execute the Operation. If the Operation must inherit the Global parameters defined at the instance level {step2(f)}, select the respective Ignore Parameters checkboxes.

    6. Add the Outbound Payload.

    7. Click Next and navigate to Response Configuration.

    8. Add Inbound Mapping to store and transform the data received as a response in Local, Global, and Custom user attributes. These values are used in the Skill to execute rule sets, branching skill, other Operations, or display bot responses.

    9. Configure the following rules:

      1. Error Handling rules to define the bot response and actions in case operation execution results in an error.

      2. No Data rules to define the bot response and actions if no data is received from the target system.

      3. Success Handling to define the bot behavior when the operation is successfully executed.

    10. Click on Create.

Your Integration is now ready and can be used in building a Skill in Luma Bot builder.

Build a skill with Integration

  1. Navigate to Bot menu → Skill Builder.

  2. Click on the Create Skill.

  3. On the Skill details screen, add Skill details such as Name, Category, and Description.

  4. Add KPI Metrics information, indicating how the skill adds value to the organization.

  5. Click Next. On the Invocation Type, select “User Phrase“ and add the User Phrase that can be used to trigger the skill.

  6. Select Command, if you want the skill to be triggered directly with a quick command. This by-passes NLP processing to identify the skill. Skill corresponding to the command is directly executed.

  7. Click Next to add Conversation Flow,

  8. Build the Conversation Flow by adding User prompts, Integrations, Condition Rules, Messages and Suggest Skills as required.

  9. Click Save to finish building the skill.

  10. The next step is to add permission to the skill. Click on Permission and the Users or Groups who should be able to execute the Skill.

  11. Do a Build and Publish to make the skill available in Virtual Agent.

  12. Once the skill is Published, Go to the Test Widget to test the skill. Click on Debug Logs and execute the skill to view the runtime Skill execution logs.

Your skill is now ready to use. Go to Conversation History to view the list of conversations where the end-user requests the skill.

Here are a few examples of Skills with Integration to 3rd Party Application:

  • Building a skill to log an Incident in ISM: Build a skill in Luma Virtual Agent that connects to an ITSM system such as Intelligent Service Management to create an incident for an issue.

  • Creating a Skill for AD User Password Reset: Build a skill that uses the Serviceaide’s OOTB Azure Web Service call to reset end-user AD Password.

  • Creating a Skill to request VPN access: Configure a skill in Luma Bot Builder that collects the required information like University ID, email id, contact numbers and calls the send-grid API that sends an email to the concerned team to process the VPN access request.

  • Attachment Support OCR: Configure a skill in the Bot to reimburse the bills. The skill accepts the invoice as an attachment and extracts all the required information like invoice id, amount, and invoice date using OCR REST API. The invoice details are sent to ISM to create a service request.

  • Create Issue in JIRA Service Management(ITSM)- Handle all ticket types: Configure a Skill to Create Issue in JIRA Service Management(ITSM) and handle all ticket types available for your organization.

  • Custom User Registration Skill: Build a skill in Luma Bot builder that authenticates the user using the OTP verification process and then triggers the OOTB User Registration Skill.