Create Non-blocking Experience flow that includes an Automation node making Async call

SmartAssist
1

Hello,
I am new to platform and I have this objective:
I want to create a non-blocking experience to user. Experience flow first gathers required information and encounters an automation node that triggers Automated dialogue passing required information. But the dialogue task itself uses a service call which might take several seconds to complete. But during this process, the user is still waiting and my objective is: instead of making the user simply wait, I want to proceed and get other information required while the Automated dialog is still running.
In other words I want to achieve Asynchronous behavior.

How can I achieve this?

Thanks in advance.

2

Pavan,
Iā€™ve encountered several scenarios where I wish my dialog flow nodes could execute in parallel (async). Unfortunately, I donā€™t believe it is possible. The work-around I found for voice calls (and chat too) was to place a message node ahead of the service call with a statement like ā€œHang on while I look for an answer. This may take me a few seconds.ā€ Based on my testing, I believe the dialog flow passes the message data to the TTS engine and goes on to the next step (service call) without waiting for the readback to end. This helps reduce the delay ā€˜feelingā€™. Itā€™s not a solution, but might help. Good luck!

1 Like
3

Dear John,

Thanks for clarifying. I have a follow-up question.
Is there any scenario where we can perform two actions in parallel in XO platform or Smartassist? Please consider any service calls or tasks or any flows, etc.
If so, can you please specify. I have not found this this information anywhere.

Thanks.

4

I do not know the specifics of your use case, so itā€™s difficult to provide contextual recommendations. I would encourage you to research the XO platform capabilities for webhooks and alert tasks. Both of these capabilities allow one process to trigger another, separate process. To the best of my knowledge, dialog flows and experience flows execute sequentially, so cannot run parallel processes. You can enable multiple bots to share information across a workspace, but the value would depend on the use case.