Messenger

The BotSharp Facebook integration allows you to easily create a Facebook Messenger bot with natural language understanding, based on the BotSharp technology.

Setting Up Facebook

In order to set up the Facebook integration for your agent, you’ll need the following:

  • A Facebook account

  • A Facebook page to add your agent to

When a user visits your page and sends you a message, they’ll be talking to your agent.

Create a Facebook App

  1. Log into the Facebook Developer Console.

  2. Click on My Apps in the upper right hand corner.

  3. Click on Add a New App and enter a display name and contact email.

  4. Click Create App ID.

  5. On the next page, click the Set up button for the Messenger option.

  6. Under the Token Generation section, choose one of your Facebook pages (Create a new page if not exist).

This will generate a Page Access Token. Keep this token handy, as you’ll need to enter it in BotSharp.

Setting Up BotSharp

  1. Click on the Integrations option in the left menu and switch on Facebook Messenger. In the dialog that opens, enter the following information:

    • Verify Token - This can be any string and is solely for your purposes

    • Page Access Token - Enter the token generated in the Facebook Developer Console

  2. Or edit agents.json under App_DataDbInitializerAgents, update Page Access Token and Verify Token.

  3. Click the Start button.

Webhook Configuration

To configure your agent’s webhook, return to the Facebook Developer Console:

  1. Click the Setup Webhooks button under the Webhooks section and enter the following information:

    • Callback URL - This is the URL provided on the Facebook Messenger integration page

    • Verify Token - This is the token you created

    • Check the messages and messaging_postbacks options under Subscription Fields

  2. Click the Verify and Save button.

Testing

In order to make your agent available for testing, you’ll need to make your app public:

  1. Click on App Review in the left menu of the Facebook Developer Console.

  2. Click on the switch under Make APP_NAME public? You’ll be prompted to choose a category for your app.

  3. Choose Apps for Messenger from the list

  4. Click the Confirm button.

You will also need to set a username for your page. This is the username users will chat with when using your agent. To set the username, click the Create Page @Username link under your page’s profile picture and title.