Extending the Cognitive Model

Institutions and 3rd parties can extend the Digital Assistant's cognitive model by linking the Dispatcher to one or more skill bots. A skill bot can:

• Retrieve answers from an institution's own knowledge base or other data sources

• Perform activities specifically designed for an institution based on a customized conversation framework.

Custom Skills

The Microsoft Bot Framework enables clients to extend the Digital Assistant using another bot (a skill bot). A skill bot and a skill consumer are separate bots that communicate with each other. The skill consumer is the Digital Assistant. It is also referred to as the 'root bot'.

• The Digital Assistant communicates with skill bots over HTTP using the bot framework protocol.

• The Digital Assistant can consume multiple skill bots.

• The Bot Connector service provides bot-to-bot and channel authentication.

Clients can develop custom skill bots using the following options:

• Bot Framework Composer

• Bot Framework SDK

Once the custom skill bot is developed and tested, it needs to be integrated with the Anthology Digital Assistant.

• The configuration of custom skill bots is done in the Internal Administration Portal. See Configure Tenant Skills.

• The integration requirements detailed below need to be provided.