Handling interruptions is an important aspect of a robust bot. Users won't always follow your defined conversation flow, step by step. They may try to ask a question in the middle of the process, or simply want to cancel it instead of completing it. This article describes some common ways to handle user interruptions in your bot.
The sample used in this article models a flight booking bot that uses dialogs to get flight information from the user. At any time during the conversation with the bot, the user can issue help or cancel commands to cause an interruption. There are two types of interruptions handled:
To use dialogs, install the Microsoft.Bot.Builder.Dialogs NuGet package.
Dialogs\CancelAndHelpDialog.cs
Implement the CancelAndHelpDialog class to handle user interruptions. The cancelable dialogs, BookingDialog and DateResolverDialog derive from this class.
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In the CancelAndHelpDialog class, the OnContinueDialogAsync method calls the InterruptAsync method to check if the user has interrupted the normal flow. If the flow is interrupted, base class methods are called; otherwise, the return value from the InterruptAsync is returned.
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If the user types "help", the InterruptAsync method sends a message and then calls DialogTurnResult (DialogTurnStatus.Waiting) to indicate that the dialog on top is waiting for a response from the user. In this way, the conversation flow is interrupted for a turn only, and the next turn continues from where the conversation left off.
If the user types "cancel", it calls CancelAllDialogsAsync on its inner dialog context, which clears its dialog stack and causes it to exit with a canceled status and no result value. To the MainDialog (shown later on), it will appear that the booking dialog ended and returned null, similar to when the user chooses not to confirm their booking.
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To use dialogs, install the botbuilder-dialogs npm package.
dialogs/cancelAndHelpDialog.js
Implement the CancelAndHelpDialog class to handle user interruptions. The cancelable dialogs, BookingDialog and DateResolverDialog extend this class.
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In the CancelAndHelpDialog class, the onContinueDialog method calls the interrupt method to check if the user has interrupted the normal flow. If the flow is interrupted, base class methods are called; otherwise, the return value from the interrupt is returned.
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If the user types "help", the interrupt method sends a message and then returns a { status: DialogTurnStatus.waiting } object to indicate that the dialog on top is waiting for a response from the user. In this way, the conversation flow is interrupted for a turn only, and the next turn continues from where the conversation left off.
If the user types "cancel", it calls cancelAllDialogs on its inner dialog context, which clears its dialog stack and causes it to exit with a canceled status and no result value. To the MainDialog (shown later on), it will appear that the booking dialog ended and returned null, similar to when the user chooses not to confirm their booking.
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CancelAndHelpDialog.java
Implement the CancelAndHelpDialog class to handle user interruptions. The cancelable dialogs, BookingDialog and DateResolverDialog derive from this class.
Warning
It looks like the sample you are looking for has moved! Rest assured we are working on resolving this.
In the CancelAndHelpDialog class, the onContinueDialog method calls the interrupt method to check if the user has interrupted the normal flow. If the flow is interrupted, base class methods are called; otherwise, the return value from the interrupt is returned.
Warning
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If the user types "help", the interrupt method sends a message and then calls DialogTurnResult(DialogTurnStatus.WAITING) to indicate that the dialog on top is waiting for a response from the user. In this way, the conversation flow is interrupted for a turn only, and the next turn continues from where the conversation left off.
If the user types "cancel", it calls cancelAllDialogs on its inner dialog context, which clears its dialog stack and causes it to exit with a canceled status and no result value. To the MainDialog (shown later on), it will appear that the booking dialog ended and returned null, similar to when the user chooses not to confirm their booking.
Warning
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To use dialogs, install the botbuilder-dialogs package and make sure that the sample requirements.txt file contains the proper reference such as botbuilder-dialogs>=4.5.0.
For more information, about installing the packages, see the samples repository README file.
Note
Running pip install botbuilder-dialogs will also install botbuilder-core, botbuilder-connector, and botbuilder-schema.
dialogs/cancel-and-help-dialog.py
Implement the CancelAndHelpDialog class to handle user interruptions. The cancelable dialogs, BookingDialog and DateResolverDialog derive from this class.
Warning
It looks like the sample you are looking for has moved! Rest assured we are working on resolving this.
In the CancelAndHelpDialog class, the on_continue_dialog method calls the interrupt method to check if the user has interrupted the normal flow. If the flow is interrupted, base class methods are called; otherwise, the return value from the interrupt is returned.
Warning
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If the user types "help" or "?", the interrupt method sends a message and then calls DialogTurnResult(DialogTurnStatus.Waiting) to indicate that the dialog on top of the stack is waiting for a response from the user. In this way, the conversation flow is interrupted for a turn only, and the next turn continues from where the conversation left off.
If the user types "cancel" or "quit", it calls cancel_all_dialogs() on its inner dialog context, which clears its dialog stack and causes it to exit with a canceled status and no result value. To the MainDialog, shown later, it will appear that the booking dialog ended and returned null, similar to when the user chooses not to confirm their booking.
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Once the interrupt handling class is implemented, review what happens when this bot receives a new message from the user.
Dialogs\MainDialog.cs
As the new message activity arrives, the bot runs the MainDialog. The MainDialog prompts the user for what it can help with. And then it starts the BookingDialog in the MainDialog.ActStepAsync method, with a call to BeginDialogAsync as shown below.
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Next, in the FinalStepAsync method of the MainDialog class, the booking dialog ended and the booking is considered to be complete or canceled.
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The code in BookingDialog isn't shown here as it's not directly related to interruption handling. It's used to prompt users for booking details. You can find that code in Dialogs\BookingDialogs.cs.
dialogs/mainDialog.js
As the new message activity arrives, the bot runs the MainDialog. The MainDialog prompts the user for what it can help with. And then it starts the bookingDialog in the MainDialog.actStep method, with a call to beginDialog as shown below.
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Next, in the finalStep method of the MainDialog class, the booking dialog ended and the booking is considered to be complete or canceled.
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The code in BookingDialog isn't shown here as it's not directly related to interruption handling. It's used to prompt users for booking details. You can find that code in dialogs/bookingDialogs.js.
MainDialog.java
As the new message activity arrives, the bot runs the MainDialog. The MainDialog prompts the user for what it can help with. And then, it starts the BookingDialog in the MainDialog.actStep method, with a call to beginDialog as shown below.
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Next, in the finalStep method of the MainDialog class, the booking dialog ended and the booking is considered to be complete or canceled.
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The code in BookingDialog isn't shown here as it's not directly related to interruption handling. It's used to prompt users for booking details. You can find that code in BookingDialogs.java.
dialogs/main_dialog.py
As the new message activity arrives, the bot runs the MainDialog. The MainDialog prompts the user for what it can help with. And then it starts the bookingDialog in the act_step method, with a call to begin_dialog as shown below.
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Next, in the final_step method of the MainDialog class, the booking dialog ended and the booking is considered to be complete or canceled.
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The adapter's error handler handles any exceptions that weren't caught in the bot.
AdapterWithErrorHandler.cs
In the sample, the adapter's OnTurnError handler receives any exceptions thrown by your bot's turn logic. If there's an exception thrown, the handler deletes the conversation state for the current conversation to prevent the bot from getting stuck in an error loop caused by being in a bad state.
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index.js
In the sample, the adapter's onTurnError handler receives any exceptions thrown by your bot's turn logic. If there's an exception thrown, the handler deletes the conversation state for the current conversation to prevent the bot from getting stuck in an error loop caused by being in a bad state.
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By registering an AdapterWithErrorHandler with the Spring framework in Application.java for the BotFrameworkHttpAdapter in this sample, the adapter's onTurnError handler receives any exceptions thrown by your bot's turn logic. If there's an exception thrown, the handler deletes the conversation state for the current conversation to prevent the bot from getting stuck in an error loop caused by being in a bad state. In the Java SDK, the AdapterWithErrorHandler is implemented as part of the SDK and is included in the com.microsoft.bot.integration package. See the Java SDK source code for details on the implementation of this adapter.
adapter_with_error_handler.py
In the sample, the adapter's on_error handler receives any exceptions thrown by your bot's turn logic. If there's an exception thrown, the handler deletes the conversation state for the current conversation to prevent the bot from getting stuck in an error loop caused by being in a bad state.
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Startup.cs
Finally, in Startup.cs, the bot is created as a transient, and on every turn, a new instance of the bot is created.
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For reference, here are the class definitions that are used in the call to create the bot above.
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index.js
Finally, in index.js, the bot is created.
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For reference, here are the class definitions that are used in the call to create the bot above.
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Application.java
Finally, in Application.java, the bot is created.
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For reference, here are the class definitions that are used in the call to create the bot above.
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app.py
Finally, in app.py, the bot is created.
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For reference, here are the class definitions that are used in the call to create the bot.
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