I am playing around with the bot framework from Microsoft and I thought why couldn’t I pipe the REST services into a bot. AND then I thought doesn’t enterprise search already do this? If it does then why not pipe the enterprise search into a bot.
I have a chat client using xamarin forms and now I want to create the bot. The end goal is to give the floor room guys the ability to chat with a client so they dont have to hold a tablet or phone or run back to their desktop.
Has anyone experimented with enterprise search in this fashion? I looked at the quick search service but I dont want to make a bunch of search BAQs if I can dont have to.
This is a fantastic idea and a goal of ours too. I want to get away from the old thinking of emailing reports and would rather put a task on somebody’s to do list with a link back to Epicor to fix the issue. The chat-bot would be great for the executive types for simple metrics, “What are today’s sales?”, “What’s our top five oldest AR items?”, “What are we late delivering?” I was thinking of using BAQs but the Enterprise Search database or a BI Cube would certainly speed up the query.
Are you a Office 365 user? The Microsoft Teams app already has the chat-bot builtin.
Separately, I loved to see a Microsoft Full-Stack area in the forum here. With Epicor embracing the Microsoft stack, it would be interesting to see what others are doing with Office 365, BI, PowerShell, etc.
And here’s another area where we are looking to integrate. Office 365 has a module called Flow. If you’re familiar with IfThisThenThat.com (IFTTT), it is basically the same. You set up an event and then start a mini-workflow called templates. They have simple ones like, “If a tweet comes in referencing our company and they have at least 100 followers, send me a notification, or email me, or put a task in Outlook”
The templates use “Connectors” to control movement. It should be possible to create an Epicor connector using the REST interface to integrate into Microsoft Flow.
We do have limited office 365 users. The chat bot client is not the issue, they are relatively easy to setup. The chat bot server with the bot framework is easy as well, I think teams bot is setup with this framework.
I just need to know what to query or where to get the bot fully functional.
I am currently using the REST interface in my architecture with very specific phrases in the activity. So for orders you have to explicitly state order and then what field to search by or update. The only issue with this attempt is training the user on what to say when but I am looking into the response back to the user to create an IVR so to speak.
@RayZ
There is a chat like functionality in the Social module but it requires a device in the hands for typing. I want to move to a Bluetooth headset and voice commands to free up shop floor employees hands. I believe the Social module uses the Enterprise Search module.
The real problem I am trying to solve is the inefficiencies of devices on a manufacture floor. A floor employee may touch the device a handful of times during productions. Historically these devices were PCs and were most of the time locked down to a specific location in the building. This was inefficient as the employee would spend time to and from the device. We then went to scanners or tablets that were bulky or fragile. The issue with these devices is the same and in some cases worse. They are not locked to a specific location so a lost device is lost time. Employees would leave these devices far from where they were working because they only needed it at the end of that task, so it was left at the last station. So I thought maybe a smart watch or Bluetooth device in the ear and a smart device in the pocket would solve this issue. The employee would have their hands free, a smaller device is needed for only https calls and more importantly feedback from the floor.
“Hey we have this workaround because this occurs, its been going on before I got here”
“oh wow that can be fixed before it gets to you”
“all fixed, took five minutes”
“wow saved us a minute each for each job”
Ok, not everything is that easy.
And then we have the @Mark_Wonsil suggestion for executives. Having a chat assistant can help answer their questions from anywhere.
Board: “What were the sales for last year?”
Exec: “Let me ask my assistant, Epicor how much did we make last year?”
Epicor Chat Client: “A whole lot”
Board: “Wow! Great job, give that developer a raise!”
Said no one ever, JK!
Using AuthBot I can persist the windows login to Epicor so the service will log that user as the one who generated the request. So the LastLogonDate would be the date in which the request was made.
@Aaron_Moreng, you nailed it, I am about to code it up and was wondering if someone got there first. Doesn’t look like it, so I am going to code this up and share it on github. I will post the link when done!
I believe there was an initiative by Six S Partners to use REST and Alexa for audio queries like these. @josecgomez was developing it with his team I believe?
