Articulate v0.31 Release

Postscripts, Free Text Slots, Rich Responses and more.

It’s been a while, but Articulate has some fantastic new features. Version 0.31 is the latest release; get it here. Let’s break down the new features:

Postscripts

Postscripts are simple chunks of code that execute after a webhook. They are useful for many things:

• Reformatting a webhook response to make it easier to work within Handlebars
• Performing aggregations or more advanced conditional statements that handlebars allow
• Modifying the state of the conversation

Of those, the most exciting one is the last one. For example, our pre-built Github category uses it. When the user requests, “What was the latest issue?” the agent and makes a webhook to fetch that information and reply to the user. But with postscripts, we can also add the issue ID for that issue into the context. So now, follow on requests like, “label it as a bug,” have all the meaning they need (There’s an example in the below screenshot).

Free Text Slots

Free text slots allow you to take input from the user no matter what the user types. Again using the Github Pre-Built category, it is possible to create an issue. In that case, prompting the user for the body of the issue is where free text slots is most useful.

Free text slots are dangerous from a conversation standpoint. Once prompted, no matter how the user replies, the agent interprets the reply as an answer to that prompt. Below is an example of how this can cause the conversation to go wrong.

Rich Response Types

Articulate now has built in support for rich resonse types like images, cards, audio clips, and buttons. Not only are they implemented in the Articulate UI, but if you connect a compatible platform like Facebook messenger or Slack we will automagically translate them into the formats needed for those platforms.

Log Viewer

Now in the review section of the UI, you may also review all of the logs coming from Docker. Especially in a cloud deployment, this can be useful if you don’t have shell access.

Sayings Filter

The ability to filter and search sayings is now better than ever. You can filter to a single category, actions, or free-text search.

Welcome Messages

Several platforms that Articulate supports offer welcome messages. We’re laying the groundwork for support in this release by allowing a default welcome action to be specified. Then when creating a new connection, you will be prompted if you want to use that default welcome action.

There’s more to come!

Subscribe below to keep up to date on Articulate releases and blog posts. If you have any troubles or questions with these features or Articulate in general then create an issue or join us on Discord.