Sometimes you have a conversation that the chatbot user is likely to interrupt with questions. For example, a loan application conversation may have complex steps where the chatbot user needs to ask questions of your chatbot to understand how to complete the steps successfully. You don't want the chatbot user to have to restart their application every time they ask a question, so you make the loan application conversation resumable.
When a conversation is resumable, your chatbot user can ask questions and temporarily jump to a passage in another conversation without losing their place in the original conversation. When they've finished their questions, they can be directed back to where they were with a Resuming Quick Reply.
If you have configured actions for a conversation or passage that is resumable, those actions are triggered again when the chatbot user returns to the conversation or passage.
Both conversations and passages can be made resumable:
- A resumable conversation allows the chatbot user to jump to a passage in a different conversation and back again without losing their place. The resumability applies to all passages in the conversation but is only triggered if the chatbot user jumps to a different conversation.
- A resumable passage allows the chatbot user to jump from a passage flow (a sequence of directly connected passages) to another passage in either the same conversation or a different conversation and back to the same passage in the passage flow. The resumability only applies to the specified passages and still activates if the chatbot user jumps to a passage in the same conversation.
When deciding whether to use resumability at a conversation level or passage level, consider:
- Whether it will feel more natural for the chatbot user to jump out and back again from any passage in the conversation (conversation-level), or only specific passages in a sequence (passage-level)
- Whether the chatbot user will only jump to passages in a different conversation (conversation-level) or may need to jump to passages within the same conversation (passage-level).
Expiry times
By default, the chatbot displays Resuming Quick Replies for the conversation or passage for up to 60 minutes after the conversation or passage was triggered. The timer starts when the chatbot user jumps out of the resumable conversation or passage. After this period, the resumable conversation or passage is considered 'expired', and the Resuming Quick Replies for that passage or conversation are hidden until the chatbot user triggers the resumable passage or conversation again.
You can configure a custom expiry time for specific resumable conversations and passages to control how long their Resuming Quick Replies should be displayed.
If the chatbot user triggers more than one resumable conversation or passage, the chatbot only displays a Resuming Quick Reply for the most recently triggered resumable conversation and passage that hasn't expired. The chatbot can display a Resuming Quick Reply for both a resumable conversation and a resumable passage in the same message.
Make a conversation or passage resumable
To make a conversation or passage resumable:
- Configure Resumability for that conversation, or configure resumability for the passage.
- Add Resuming Quick Replies to all the passages that your chatbot user is likely to reach.