Answers

This section outlines how to create and manage bot answers in ViaSay, including text bubbles, web links, images, quick replies, and automatic transitions.

Text Bubbles

Text bubbles are the primary messages sent by the bot. They support emojis and variables for dynamic content.

Web Links

Web links are displayed as buttons and support http(s), mailto, SMS, and tel formats. You can add up to 3 buttons per answer. Note that adding a web link disables the option to insert an image.

Images

Images can be added via external URLs or variables. Only one image can be added per answer, and doing so disables web link buttons. On the user side, images appear after all text bubbles and can be enlarged in a pop-up.

GIFs

To add a GIF to the Flow Builder:

• Click on Add an image.
• Paste the GIF link into the Source URL field.
• Add a description in the Alt text field to ensure accessibility.
• Click Confirm to save your configuration.

📌

ATTENTION! This feature is also available on the Advanced Builder.

To add a GIF in the Advanced Builder:

• Create a template.
• Go to Image.
• Select Predefined Image from the dropdown menu.
• Insert the GIF link into the designated field.
• Click on Preview to preview your configuration

Images, videos and places in the text

With Enable Markdown turned on in the Advanced section of an Answer step (see Formatting text in the Answer step), a message can include media written in Markdown. The web widget shows them like this, in your messages, in AI answers and in live-chat agent messages:

• Image, written ![Description](URL of the image): the image appears in the bubble. Click it to see it full page, then press Esc or the close button to come back to the chat. An image that can't be loaded is replaced by an Image unavailable card.
• Video: put a YouTube link, or the link of an MP4 or WebM file, alone in its paragraph (a blank line before and after). The widget shows a card with a thumbnail, the text of the link as its title (or Watch on YouTube if the link is a bare URL) and the source. Clicking it plays the video full page, without leaving your website. The YouTube player is only loaded on click: before that, the card only shows the thumbnail.
• Place: put a Google Maps or Apple Plans link alone in its paragraph. The widget shows a card with a map illustration, the text of the link as its name and a Directions button that opens the map in a new tab.

The labels on these cards (Watch on YouTube, Directions, Image unavailable…) follow the language of the widget. A YouTube video blocked by your website shows a Player blocked card with a link to YouTube; a video that no longer exists becomes a simple link.

📘

Note

a link in the middle of a sentence, or with other text on the same line, stays an ordinary link. These cards are specific to the web widget. If your website uses a content security policy, it must allow https://www.youtube-nocookie.com in frame-src and https://i.ytimg.com in img-src for YouTube cards and videos to work, and the host of the file in media-src for MP4 or WebM videos.

📘

WhatsApp

On WhatsApp, Markdown is converted to WhatsApp's own formatting: *bold*, _italic_, ~strikethrough~, • for list items, and links written as "text: URL". Titles become bold. Markdown signs are simply removed on buttons.

Quick Replies

Quick replies provide users with options to navigate through the conversation. Each quick reply must link to a subsequent step to be functional.

Quick replies are optional: an Answer step without quick replies connects to the next step with an automatic transition (see below).

Automatic Transitions

When an Answer step has no quick replies, it can connect directly to the next step with an automatic transition: the bot sends its messages and immediately continues, without waiting for the user to click.

• Creating one: add the next step directly from the Answer step on the canvas. When the step has no quick replies, the connection is an automatic transition.
• Removing the last quick reply: if it points to a step, the link is converted into an automatic transition and the following steps are preserved. A confirmation appears: Quick reply removed, the next step now follows automatically.
• Adding a quick reply: the automatic transition is converted back into a quick reply pointing to the same step.
• One mode at a time: an Answer step either offers quick replies or continues automatically — never both.

📘

Several answers in a row

With automatic transitions, a single user message can trigger a whole sequence of steps — for example confirm the request, call an API, then share the result in a second Answer step.

Advanced Settings

• Go Back Button: Allows users to return to a previous step.
• Satisfaction Rating (CSAT): Enables tracking of customer satisfaction, viewable in the Analytics section.
• Deflection Tags: Categorize conversations into action or information deflection, helping to measure how well the bot resolves queries without human intervention.
• Handover Tag: Flags an answer that hands the conversation over to an agent outside of a Live Chat Handover or Ticket Handover step (see below).

Handover tag

Turn on Mark as handover tag when an Answer step hands the conversation over to a human agent without going through a handover step: for example, after an API call to your helpdesk. Analytics then counts this conversation in your handover rate.

• In this rate, a conversation is counted only once, even if it goes through several handover types.
• On an Answer step, the Handover tag and the Deflection tag are exclusive: turning one on turns the other off.
• The setting is off by default and applies from the next time you publish the use case.
• It is also available in the User Input step.

Status

This section provides insights into the accuracy of your configuration. Any errors, such as missing mandatory parameters, will be displayed here for your attention.