Webhook configuration

To add the webhook details, complete the following steps:

1. From the navigation panel, click Environments and open the environment where you want to configure the webhook.

2. Click the icon to open the environment settings.

3. Set the Post-message webhook switch to Enabled.

4. In the Synchronous event, select from one of the following options:

   • Continue processing user input without webhook update if there is an error.

   • Return an error to the client if the webhook call fails.

   For more information, see Configuring webhook error handling for postprocessing.

5. In the URL field, add the URL for the external application to which you want to send HTTP POST request callouts.

   For example, maybe you store your assistant's responses in a separate content management system. When the assistant understands the input, the processed action returns a unique ID that corresponds to a response in your CMS. To call a service that retrieves a response from your CMS for a given unique ID, specify the URL for your service instance. For example, https://example.com/get_answer.

   You must specify a URL that uses the SSL protocol, so specify a URL that begins with https.

6. To configure the authentication for post-message webhooks, click Edit authentication. For detailed instructions, see Defining the authentication method for pre-message and post-message webhooks.

7. In the Timeout field, specify the time duration (in seconds) that you want the assistant to wait for a response from the webhook before it returns an error. The timeout duration cannot be shorter than 1 second or longer than 30 seconds.

8. In the Headers section, click Add header + to add any headers that you want to pass to the service, one at a time.

   If the external application that you call returns a response, it might be able to send a response in different formats. The webhook requires that the response is formatted in JSON. The following table illustrates how to add a header to indicate that you want the resulting value to be returned is in JSON format.

   Header example

   Header name	Header value
   Content-Type	application/json

9. After you save the header value, the string is replaced by asterisks and can't be viewed again.

10. Your webhook details are saved automatically.

Configuring webhook error handling for postprocessing

You can decide whether an error returns in the postprocessing step if the webhook call fails. You have two options:

• Continue processing user input without webhook update if there is an error: The assistant ignores the errors and processes the message without the webhook result. If postprocessing is useful but not essential, consider this option.

• Return an error to the client if the webhook call fails: If postprocessing is critical after the assistant sends a response, select this option.

When you enable Return an error to the client if the webhook call fails, everything stops until the postprocessing step is completed successfully.

Regularly test the external process to identify potential failures. If necessary, adjust this setting to prevent disruptions in the response processing.

Testing the webhook

Do extensive testing of your webhook before you enable it for an assistant that is used in a production environment.

The webhook is triggered only when your assistant processes a message and a response is ready to be returned to the channel.

Troubleshooting the webhook

The following error codes can help you track down the cause of issues you might encounter. If you have a web chat integration, for example, you know that your webhook has an issue if every test message you submit returns a message such as There is an error with the message you just sent, but feel free to ask me something else. If this message is displayed, use a REST API tool, such as cURL, to send a test /message API request, so you can see the error code and the full message that is returned.

Example request body

It is useful to know the format of the request post-message webhook body so that your external code can process it.

The payload contains the response body that your assistant returns for the version 2 of the /message, stateful and stateless, API call. The event name message_processed indicates that the post-message webhook generates the request. For more information about the message request body, see the API reference.

The following sample shows how a simple request body is formatted:

{
 "event": {
    "name": "message_processed"
},
"options": {},
"payload": {
    "output": {
        "intents": [
            {
                "intent": "General_Greetings",
                "confidence": 1
            }
        ],
        "entities": [],
        "generic": [
            {
                "response_type": "text",
                "text": "Hello. Good evening"
            }
        ]
    },
    "user_id": "test user",
    "context": {
        "global": {
            "system": {
                "user_id": "test user",
                "turn_count": 11
            },
            "session_id": "sxxx"
        },
        "skills": {
            "actions skill": {
                "user_defined": {
                    "var": "anthony"
                },
                "system": {
                    "state": "nnn"
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Example 1

This example shows how to add y'all to the end of each response from the assistant.

In the post-message webhook configuration page, the following values are specified:

• URL: https://your-webhook-url/
• Header name: Content-Type
• Header value: application/json

The post-message webhook calls an IBM Cloud Functions web action name add_southern_charm.

The node.js code in the add_southern_charm web action looks as follows:

function main(params) {
  console.log(JSON.stringify(params))
  if (params.payload.output.generic[0].text !== '') {
      //Get the length of the input text
        var length = params.payload.output.generic[0].text.length;
        //create a substring that removes the last character from the input string, which is typically punctuation.
        var revision = params.payload.output.generic[0].text.substring(0,length-1);
        const response = {
            body : {
                payload : {
                    output : {
                        generic : [
                              {
                                  //Replace the input text with your shortened revision and append y'all to it.
                                "response_type": "text",
                                "text": revision + ', ' + 'y\'all.'
                              }
                        ],
                    },
                },
            },
        };
        return response;
  }
  else {
    return { 
        body : params
    }
  }
}

Example 2

This example shows how to translate a message response back to the customer's language. It works only if you perform the steps in Example 2 to define a pre-message webhook that translates the original message into English.

Define a sequence of web actions in IBM Cloud Functions. The first action in the sequence checks for the language of the original incoming text, which you stored in a context variable named original_input in the pre-message webhook code. The second action in the sequence translates the dialog response text from English into the original language that was used by the customer.

In the post-message webhook configuration page, the following values are specified:

• URL: https://your-webhook-url/
• Header name: Content-Type
• Header value: application/json

The node.js code for the first web action in your sequence looks as follows:

let rp = require("request-promise");

function main(params) {
console.log(JSON.stringify(params))

if (params.payload.output.generic[0].text !== '') {
const options = { method: 'POST',
  url: 'https://api.us-south.language-translator.watson.cloud.ibm.com/instances/572b37be-09f4-4704-b693-3bc63869nnnn/v3/identify?version=2018-05-01',
  auth: {
           'username': 'apikey',
           'password': 'nnnn'
       },
  headers: {
    "Content-Type":"text/plain"
},
  body: [
          params.payload.context.skills['actions skill'].user_defined.original_input
  ],
  json: true,
};
     return rp(options)
    .then(res => {
      //Set the language property of the incoming message to the language that was identified by Watson Language Translator. 
        params.payload.context.skills['actions skill'].user_defined['language'] = res.languages[0].language;
        console.log(JSON.stringify(params))
        return params;
})
}
else {
    params.payload.context.skills['actions skill'].user_defined['language'] = 'none';
    return param
}
};

The second web action in the sequence looks as follows:

let rp = require("request-promise");

function main(params) {
  console.log(JSON.stringify(params))
    if ((params.payload.context.skills["actions skill"].user_defined.language !== 'en') && (params.payload.context.skills["actions skill"].user_defined.language !== 'none')) {
    const options = { method: 'POST',
    url: 'https://api.us-south.language-translator.watson.cloud.ibm.com/instances/572b37be-09f4-4704-b693-3bc63869nnnn/v3/translate?version=2018-05-01',
    auth: {
            'username': 'apikey',
            'password': 'nnn'
        },
    body: { 
        text: [ 
            params.payload.output.generic[0].text
            ],
            target: params.payload.context.skills["actions skill"].user_defined.language
    },
    json: true 
    };
      return rp(options)
      .then(res => {
          params.payload.context.skills["actions skill"].user_defined["original_output"] = params.payload.output.generic[0].text;
          params.payload.output.generic[0].text = res.translations[0].translation;
          return {
            body : params
          }
  })
  }
  return { 
    body : params
  }
};

Removing the webhook

If you do not want to process message responses with a webhook, complete the following steps:

1. In your assistant, go to Environments and open the environment where you want to remove the webhook.

2. Click the icon to open the environment settings.

3. On the Environment settings page, click Post-message webhook.

4. Do one of the following steps:

• To stop calling a webhook to process every incoming message, set the Post-message webhook switch to Disabled.

• To change the webhook that you want to call, click Delete webhook.