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Who am I?

  • Web Platform Engineer and Manager @ucsf_library (PHP, Javascript)
  • Technical lead for the Ilios Project open source curriculum management system for health science education.
  • UCTech Slack Ambassador
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Our Story

  • Ilios is a 20 year old project which started as an MS Access Database
  • Built by UCSF, but available for free (and supported)
  • Installed at medical, dental, pharmacy, nursing, around the world including UCI and maybe soon UCSD
  • Been through several revisions since then, but in 2014 we decided to rewrite it

Handling Complicated Tasks with a Chatbot

Jon Johnson

jrjohnson
jrjohnson_
jrjohnson-ucsf

Jon's avatar

UCTech Slack: https://uctech.slack.com

Plain Text and Slides At:

https://www.jrjohnson.dev/talks/2019-07-chatbots.html

Who am I?

  • Web Platform Engineer and Manager @ucsf_library (PHP, Javascript)
  • Technical lead for the Ilios Project open source curriculum management system for health science education.
  • UCTech Slack Ambassador

Our Story

  • Ilios is a 20 year old project which started as an MS Access Database
  • Built by UCSF, but available for free (and supported)
  • Installed at medical, dental, pharmacy, nursing, around the world including UCI and maybe soon UCSD
  • Been through several revisions since then, but in 2014 we decided to rewrite it

@greeterbot

Your First UCTech Friend

https://github.com/stopfstedt/uctech-greeter

  • If you want to get your feet wet with bots we could always use help with greeterbot
  • If you don't remember what it does just say greet me to that app in Slack

@Zorgbort

@Zorgbort

Or whatever stupid name you want to give your bot

https://github.com/ucsf-ckm/zorgbort

  • The Ilios project bot
  • Mainly what I'll be talking about today

Automate Everything

Automation Brings Speed

  • Jason is always 'Dialing it in'
  • This is a task which may never be completely done, but like CI setup it's always worth getting right
  • Good, reliable, automation truly pays off over the long term

Automation Brings Speed

and sometimes money!

  • Jason is always 'Dialing it in'
  • This is a task which may never be completely done, but like CI setup it's always worth getting right
  • Good, reliable, automation truly pays off over the long term
  • UCSF was able to offer paid hosting support to Stanford (and soon OHSU and USF)
  • We were able to do this because we made the administrative costs very low for each instance

Our Automation Goal

Our Automation Goal

Human

Our Automation Goal

Human

Robots

Tag Code

  1. Tag Code as v65.4.3
  2. Go To Lunch
  3. v65.4.3 is now in Production
  4. Repeat

Where we are now

zorgbort screenshot

zorgbort screenshot

zorgbort screenshot

zorgbort screenshot

zorgbort screenshot

zorgbort screenshot

zorgbort screenshot

Zorgbort is just the fancy UI

Zorgbort is just the fancy UI

The hard part is building automated processes

Zorgbort is just the fancy UI

The hard part is building automated processes

But knowing a UI can be built can make the automation process simpler

  • Our first iteration was entirely conversational
  • You would say release the frontend and Zorg would answer back with questions
  • It wasn't as pretty, but it mostly got the job done.

  • We use git tags to drive our process
  • Once something is tagged in github it kicks off automation
  • Tagging things is easy
  • Discovering tags is easy

No one cares about your problems Jon

Show us how to build bots!

  • I'm going to be focusing on Slackbots
  • There are all kinds of other chatbot options
  • Whatever your team is most familiar with should work
  • The bot is just a UI on top of a process
  • We're using the slack conversation API, there is a newer Blocks API that you should check out.

Easy to deploy lots of places

Botkit (and many other) frameworks

Cuz javascript is the BEST!

Home is where the bot lives

  • Your bot will probably be portable so you can go with whatever makes you happy
  • Lots of options for free bot hosts, or at the very least super cheap

  • Some of the biggest names in hosting will host your app
  • But probably anything you trust will do
  • So what are the minimum requirements

Slackbot anatomy

Slackbot anatomy

... first of all they're called apps now

Slackbot anatomy

... first of all they're called apps now


Don't call us, we'll call you

Subscribe to the event types you need

Governed by OAuth permission scopes

Bot users served here

Everything is eventual

https://api.slack.com/

Don't call us, we'll call you

POST

{
  "token": "XXYYZZ",
  "team_id": "TXXXXXXXX",
  "api_app_id": "AXXXXXXXXX",
  "event": {
          "type": "name_of_event",
          "event_ts": "1234567890.123456",
          "user": "UXXXXXXX1",
          ...
  },
  "type": "event_callback",
  "authed_users": [
          "UXXXXXXX1",
          "UXXXXXXX2"
  ],
  "event_id": "Ev08MFMKH6",
  "event_time": 1234567890
}

Everything is eventual

POST /api/chat.postMessage

{
  "channel":"C061EG9SL",
  "text":"I hope the tour went well, Mr. Wonka.",
  "attachments":[
     {
        "text":"Who wins the lifetime supply of chocolate?",
        "fallback":"You could be telling the computer exactly what it can do with a lifetime supply of chocolate.",
        "color":"#3AA3E3",
        "attachment_type":"default",
        "callback_id":"select_simple_1234",
        "actions":[
           {
              "name":"winners_list",
              "text":"Who should win?",
              "type":"select",
              "data_source":"users"
           }
        ]
     }
  ]
}

Botkit

Our Hero

const Botkit = require('botkit');
const hal = new Botkit();
hal.hears('Open the pod bay doors', async (bot, message) => {
  await bot.reply(message, "I'm Sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.");
});

Intelligent Conversation

const Botkit = require('botkit');
const Skynet = require('skynet');
const controller = new Botkit();
controller.hears(async (bot, message) => {
  const reply = Skynet.process(message.text);
  await bot.reply(message, reply);
});
  • Services like AWS Lex can be used to make your bot easier to talk to
  • If the bot is just a UI you could attach other UIs to the same structure

Don't trust the #&$%!s at SlackHQ

Don't trust the Developers at SlackHQ

Don't trust the Developers at SlackHQ

Slack should be a thin layer on top of functionality

Don't trust the Developers at SlackHQ

Slack should be a thin layer on top of functionality

Because the slack API will change

Don't trust the Developers at SlackHQ

Slack should be a thin layer on top of functionality

Because the slack API will change

Not without warning

  • They're paid to invent new things
  • they do this a lot
  • so your bot will probably be old fast, that's ok.

@Zorgbort

module.exports = bot => {
  bot.hears(['start release', 'release'], ['direct_message', 'direct_mention', 'mention'], startRelease);
  bot.on('interactive_message_callback', chooseReleaseType);
  bot.on('interactive_message_callback', confirmRelease);
  bot.on('interactive_message_callback', doRelease);
};

https://github.com/ucsf-ckm/zorgbort

  • Bot listens for different types of events or keywords and then passes execution off to another function.

@Zorgbort

chooseReleaseType

const startRelease = async (bot, message) => {
  bot.reply(message, createActionReply(':cool: I just need to know:', releaseProject, [
    {
      name: 'project',
      text: 'Which Project?',
      type: 'select',
      options: [
        {
          text: 'Ilios Frontend',
          value: 'frontend',
        },
        {
          text: 'Ember Simple Charts',
          value: 'simple-charts',
        },
      ]
    },
  ]));
};

https://github.com/ucsf-ckm/zorgbort

  • Some of those functions send messages back for clarification / authentication

@Zorgbort

releaseAndTag

const releaseAndTag = async (owner, repo, releaseType, namer) => {
  const { nextVersion, currentVersion } = await incrementPackageVersion(dir, releaseType);
  await commitAndTag(dir, version, releaseName);
  const release = await Github.repos.createRelease({
    owner,
    repo,
    tag_name: version,
    name: releaseName,
    body: releaseNotes,
    draft: false,
    prerelease: false,
  });
  return {
    version,
    releaseName,
    releaseUrl: release.data.html_url
  };
};

https://github.com/ucsf-ckm/zorgbort

  • But the real meat is done without the bot at all, this makes it easier to switch out the conversational parts and to test the non-bot stuff.

Start the Conversation

Start the Conversation

Send Alerts

Start the Conversation

Send Alerts

Start a Virtual Standup

Start the Conversation

Send Alerts

Start a Virtual Standup

Remind Yourself to Drink More Water

Start the Conversation

Send Alerts

Start a Virtual Standup

Remind Yourself to Drink More Water

await bot.startConversationInChannel(SLACK_CHANNEL_ID);
await bot.say('The Server is On Fire!!! :fire:');
await bot.say('Everybody Blame Jon');
await bot.say("PS: don't tell Jon!");

Security

🙈

Depends on the specific threat

Slack requires token auth and SSL

You may need to validate users yourself

Authorize Users

if (validUsers.includes(user)) {
  try {
    return await releaseAndTag(owner, repo, releaseType, namer);
  } catch (e) {
    bot.reply(message, `Error: ${e.message} (stack trace in logs)`);
    console.error(e);
}
  • Slack UserIds are persistent
  • Only as good as slack's account security

Testing locally

$ npm start
> zorgbort@1.0.0 start
> node zorgbort.js
Initializing Botkit v0.7.4
info: ** Using simple storage. Saving data to .data/db/
info: ** Starting webserver on port 3000
info: ** Serving webhook endpoints for Slash commands and outgoing webhooks at: http://0.0.0.0:3000/slack/receive
info: ** Serving login URL: http://0.0.0.0:8899/login
info: ** Serving oauth return endpoint: http://0.0.0.0:3000/oauth

Testing locally

$ npm start
> zorgbort@1.0.0 start
> node zorgbort.js
Initializing Botkit v0.7.4
info: ** Using simple storage. Saving data to .data/db/
info: ** Starting webserver on port 3000
info: ** Serving webhook endpoints for Slash commands and outgoing webhooks at: http://0.0.0.0:3000/slack/receive
info: ** Serving login URL: http://0.0.0.0:8899/login
info: ** Serving oauth return endpoint: http://0.0.0.0:3000/oauth

So how to we hookup slack to port 3000?

$ npm install -g localtunnel
$ lt --port 3000 -s zorgbort-stage
your url is: https://zorgbort-stage.localtunnel.me

Screenshot of Slack's Interactive setup process

  • The localtunnel NPM module is mad sweet
  • Slack let's you pick any URL to send things to, create a test-bot app and a real one.

Let's Review

Let's Review

Bots Are Cool

Let's Review

Bots Are Cool

But They're Really Just Window Dressing

Discussion / Questions?

jrjohnson
jrjohnson_
jrjohnson-ucsf

Jon's avatar

UCTech Slack: https://uctech.slack.com

Slides at:

https://www.jrjohnson.dev/talks/2019-07-chatbots

Thanks

  • UCTech for the invitation
  • UCSF Library
  • My Team

    This is the first time I've given this talk so please ask me

    at least three questions so I know what needs improvement!

Our Story

  • Ilios is a 20 year old project which started as an MS Access Database
  • Built by UCSF, but available for free (and supported)
  • Installed at medical, dental, pharmacy, nursing, around the world including UCI and maybe soon UCSD
  • Been through several revisions since then, but in 2014 we decided to rewrite it
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