Outbound questions are questions that you want to answer in a specific way if the chatbot user sends them immediately after a particular passage. In our loan application example, we had:
- A passage in the FAQ conversation that provides the chatbot user with a list of your fees, and has the global inbound question "what are the fees".
- A passage in the loan application conversation that provides the chatbot user with the fees for a loan application, and has the conversation inbound question "what are the fees".
As part of the loan application process, chatbot users are asked if they want to add an insurance option. The passage that asks about the insurance option has an outbound question "what are the fees", which starts a passage explaining the fees for the insurance option.
Now, when the chatbot asks the chatbot user if they want to add the insurance option and the chatbot user replies "what are the fees", the chatbot starts the insurance option fees passage configured by the outbound question instead of the loan application fees passage's conversation question.
Outbound questions are defined in a passage's Outbound Questions screen.
Outbound and inbound are linked
Every outbound question also appears as an inbound question in the passage that the outbound question starts so that you can easily see all the questions that might start a passage.
In our example, the insurance option passage has an outbound question of "what are the fees?" that starts the insurance fees passage. The same "what are the fees" question appears as an inbound question in the insurance fees passage. It's the same question, so any changes you made to one would also affect the other.
You can create:
