How to add a Chatbot to iOS

In this article, we will be sharing steps to building an iOS chatbot with Kompose. We will teach you everything you need to build a sample chatbot using Kompose for an iOS app.

Step by Step Guide to Building iOS Chatbot with Kommunicate
Step 1: Setup an account in Kommunicate
If you do not have an account in Kommunicate, you can create one for free.

Next, log in to your Kommunicate dashboard and navigate to the Bot Integration section. Locate the Kompose section and click on Integrate Bot.

If you want to build a bot from scratch, select a blank template and go to the Set up your bot section. Select the name of your bot, your bot’s Avatar, and your bot’s default language and click “Save and Proceed.”

You are now done creating your bot. Now comes the interesting part – training the bot for a query it does not understand. This is done by clicking the “Enable bot to human transfer” feature. Enable this feature and click “Finish Bot Setup.”

From the next page, you can choose if this bot will handle all the incoming conversations. Click on “Let this bot handle all the conversations,” and you are good to go.

Newly created bot here: Dashboard →Bot Integration → Manage Bots.

Step 2: Create welcome messages & answers for your chatbot
Go to the ‘Kompose – Bot Builder’ section and select the bot you created.

First, set the welcome message for your chatbot. The welcome message is the first message that the chatbot sends to the user who initiates a chat.

Click the “Welcome Message” section. In the “Enter Welcome message – Bot’s Message” box, provide the message your chatbot should be shown to the users when they open the chat, and then save the welcome intent.

After creating the welcome message, the next step is to feed answers/intents. These answers/intents can be the common questions about your product and service.

The answers section is where you’ve to add all the user’s messages and the chatbot responses.

Go to the “Answer” section, click +Add, then give an ‘Intent name.’

In the Configure user’s message section – you need to mention the phrases that you expect from the users that will trigger.

Kommunicate create welcome messages
Configure the bot’s reply section – you need to mention the responses (Text or Rich messages) the chatbot will deliver to the users for the particular message. You can add any number of answers and follow-up responses for the chatbot.

Phase 2: Add the created chatbot to your IOS Project using Cocoapods
Step 1: Setup Cocoapods:

Since we are going to add the Kommunicate SDK using cocoapods, this step is necessary for it. If you already have cocoapods in your system, then you can skip the step. If not, follow the link & install cocoapods

https://guides.cocoapods.org/using/getting-started.html

Step 2: Create a iOS app :

You can create an app (my-app) from X code.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/creating-an-xcode-project-for-an-app.

Now project will look like this:

Step 3 : Create Podfile :

Now Close the Xcode and navigate to the my-app folder in the terminal & create a new podfile by using the below command.

touch Podfile
After executing the command, a podfile will be added to your my-app folder.

Step 4: Install Kommunicate SDK to the app:

Now open that Podfile & add the below lines to the podfile

source ‘https://cdn.cocoapods.org/’

use_frameworks!
platform :ios, ‘12.0‘

target ‘my-app my-app’ do
pod ‘Kommunicate’ , ‘~> 6.6.0‘
end
After adding those lines, save it. Go to the my-app folder in the terminal & install the Kommuncate pod by using this command

pod install
Now you can see the Kommunicate SDK is being installed.

Congratulations!! You have successfully added Kommunicate SDK into your app.

Step 5: Add Kommunicate Code to the app:

Now open your project using the below command in the terminal.

open my-app.xcworkspace // replace project with your project name
Your project structure will be like this & you can also see the Kommunicate pod under the pods section.

Now go to the Appdelegate.swift file, and import Kommunicate first.

import Kommunicate
Add the below line inside the didFinishlaunchingWithOptions method.

Kommunicate.setup(applicationId: “18ae6ce9d4f469f95c9c095fb5b0bda44”) // replace your appid
You can get your app ID from Kommunicate Dashboard Install

Section(https://dashboard.kommunicate.io/settings/install)

Now your Appdelegate.swift file will look like this:

Next, we need to add a button which, when clicked, would open a conversation & a method to open Kommunicate when the user taps on the button.

Add these codes to create a button in your screen

let button = UIButton(frame: CGRect(x: 100,y: 100,width: 200,height: 60))
button.setTitle(“Launch Conversation”,for: .normal)
button.setTitleColor(.systemBlue,for: .normal)
button.addTarget(self,action: #selector(buttonAction),for: .touchUpInside)
self.view.addSubview(button)
Create a function for button action like this

@objc
func buttonAction() {
openConversation()
}
Next import Kommunicate using import Kommunicate and create a method for opening the conversation when tapped on the button.

func openConversation() {
let userId = Kommunicate.randomId()
let applicationId = “18ae6ce9d4f469f95c9c095fb5b0bda44”

    let kmUser = KMUser()
    kmUser.userId = userId
    kmUser.applicationId = applicationId

    Kommunicate.registerUser(kmUser, completion: {
      response, error in

        guard error == nil else {
            return
        }
        print(“Login Success”)
        Kommunicate.createAndShowConversation(from: self) { error in
            if error == nil {
                print(“Failed to launch the conversation”)
            }
            print(“Successfully launched the conversation”)
        }
    })
}

That’s it. You have successfully completed the setup.Now Launch the app & click the button.

You can see the Kommunicate Chat Widget.

Finally, the ViewController Class looks like this:

import UIKit
import Kommunicate

class ViewController: UIViewController {

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()

    let button = UIButton(frame: CGRect(x: 100,y: 100,width: 200,height: 60))
    button.setTitle(“Launch Conversation”,for: .normal)            
    button.setTitleColor(.systemBlue,for: .normal)                                    
    button.addTarget(self,action: #selector(buttonAction),for: .touchUpInside)                                                        
    self.view.addSubview(button)
}

@objc
func buttonAction() {
    openConversation()
}
func openConversation() {
    let userId = Kommunicate.randomId()
    let applicationId = “18ae6ce9d4f469f95c9c095fb5b0bda44”

    let kmUser = KMUser()
    kmUser.userId = userId
    kmUser.applicationId = applicationId

    Kommunicate.registerUser(kmUser, completion: {
      response, error in

        guard error == nil else {
            return
        }
        print(“Login Success”)
        Kommunicate.createAndShowConversation(from: self) { error in
            if error == nil {
                print(“Failed to launch the conversation”)
            }
            print(“Successfully launched the conversation”)
        }
    })
}

}