Connect guides to your Virtual Agent flows

PrerequisitesClick to expand

After you publish a guide in AI Studio, you can connect it to an Architect bot flow or digital bot flow that is enabled with Virtual Agent using the Call Guide action.

Publish a guide in AI Studio

Click Admin.
Under AI Studio, click Guides.
Open an existing guide or create a new one.
Add the required instructions and click Publish. For more information about writing and publishing a guide, see Write and publish guides.
(Optional) In the right-pane, click Go to Architect to open Architect in a new tab. By default, Architect opens with the Dependency Search tab displaying any flows that are already connected to the guide which you selected in AI Studio.
(Optional) To go to the Architect home page, click Architect.

Add a Call Guide action to a bot flow or digital bot flow in Architect

Use the Call Guide action in a bot flow or digital bot flow that is enabled with Virtual Agent to execute a guide. You can solely use a guide or mix and match the guide with conventional flow-based elements as necessary to implement a hybrid workflow. For more information about AI Guides, see About AI Guides.

Note: The AI Studio category and the Call Guide action are available only when you enable Virtual Agent.

Add a Call Guide action to a bot flow or digital bot flowClick to expand

To access the Call Guide action, follow these steps:

From the Architect home page, click or hover over the Flows menu and select a bot flow or digital bot flow.
Create a new flow or select an existing one. The flow's configuration page opens. Note: The flow must have Virtual Agent enabled.
From the Toolbox, expand the AI Studio category and drag a Call Guide action to the desired location in the flow.
In the Name box type a meaningful name for the action. This name becomes the name of the Call Guide action in the task workflow.
From the Guide list, choose a published guide.
Continue building the task per your flow design, including the Call Guide's Success, Failure, and Timeout paths.

Configure the Call Guide actionClick to expand

Field	Description
Name	Type a distinctive name for the Call Guide data action. The label you enter here becomes the action's name displayed in the flow structure.
Guide	Select the name of the AI guide that the flow must invoke. Click Open Guides in New Tab to open the guide in AI Studio. Notes: Only published guides are available for selection. If the selected AI guide contains one or more variables in the instructions, you must define those variables in the flow before calling the guide.
Version	The flow always executes the latest published version of the guide.

Field

Description

Name

Type a distinctive name for the Call Guide data action. The label you enter here becomes the action's name displayed in the flow structure.

Guide

Select the name of the AI guide that the flow must invoke.

Click Open Guides in New Tab to open the guide in AI Studio.

Notes:

Only published guides are available for selection.
If the selected AI guide contains one or more variables in the instructions, you must define those variables in the flow before calling the guide.

Version

The flow always executes the latest published version of the guide.

Define success, failure, and timeout pathsClick to expand

Name	Description
Success	This path indicates that the action successfully executed the AI guide. Drag the appropriate action below the Success path to follow the route you want the interaction to take.
Failure	This path indicates that there was an error executing the action. Drag the appropriate action below the Failure path to follow the route you want the interaction to take.
Timeout	This path indicates that the action has exceeded the specified amount of time to execute the action. Drag the appropriate action below the Timeout path to follow the route you want the interaction to take. Note: Actions use either the default timeout or the flow author's specified timeout. If the action times out, the flow follows the route specified below the Timeout path. This feature ensures that the end user does not wait too long for the path to continue. It is recommended that you set the timeout duration to less than 30 seconds.

Name

Description

Success

This path indicates that the action successfully executed the AI guide.

Drag the appropriate action below the Success path to follow the route you want the interaction to take.

Failure

This path indicates that there was an error executing the action.

Drag the appropriate action below the Failure path to follow the route you want the interaction to take.

Timeout

This path indicates that the action has exceeded the specified amount of time to execute the action.

Drag the appropriate action below the Timeout path to follow the route you want the interaction to take.

Note: Actions use either the default timeout or the flow author's specified timeout. If the action times out, the flow follows the route specified below the Timeout path. This feature ensures that the end user does not wait too long for the path to continue. It is recommended that you set the timeout duration to less than 30 seconds.

Additional Virtual Agent configuration

You can set the default language and maximum number of retries for no match and no input scenarios within the bot flow configuration.

User input settings

You can configure the following user input settings for the bot flow when connecting to a guide:

Maximum number of No Matches
Maximum number of No Input Retries
No Input Timeout
No Input Maximum Retries Exceeded Handling

For more information about setting these retry limits and timeouts, see Set up user input for a bot flow.

Notes:

The No Match Apology, No Input Apology, and End of Bot Chat Message settings are not supported by AI Guides. Guides handle these messages dynamically.
Unlike the Ask actions, the Call Guide action does not prepend the global No Match or No Input prompts if the bot receives a No Match or No Input event.

Event handling settings

If you enable agent escalation for the Virtual Agent flow, the system does not use the handover and confirmation prompts. Instead, the Virtual Agent generates an escalation prompt. For more information about agent escalation in digital bot flows, see Agent escalation in voice and digital bot flows.

Additionally, if Handling is set to Jump to Reusable Task, no prompt is output to the user before jumping to the task. The Virtual Agent proceeds to executing the task.

Choose supported languages

At runtime, Virtual Agent inherits the supported language configuration from the Architect flow. For more information about configuring supported languages in a bot flow, see Choose supported languages.

Note: While there is no restriction on the languages in which you can write guides, the performance of the guides may vary across languages. Genesys encourages testing with languages relevant to your use cases.

Dependency Search

You can use Architect’s Dependency Search tab to search for flows that have dependency on a guide.

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