Test your agent

Use the Test your agent panel to walk through your agent conversations as a user. It's a good way to make sure your topics are working and that conversations flow as you expect.

Preview a conversation

1. If the Test your agent panel is hidden, open it by selecting Test at the top of any page.

   

2. In the field at the bottom of the Test your agent pane, enter some text. If the text is similar to a trigger phrase for a topic, that topic begins.

3. Select the agent response in the Test your agent pane. This takes you to the topic and the node that sent the response. Nodes that have fired have a colored checkmark and a colored bottom border.

   

   As you continue the conversation within the active topic, notice that each node that fires is marked with the checkbox and bottom border, and centered on the canvas.

4. If you would like to follow the whole conversation automatically, as it moves from topic to topic, select the three dots at the top of the test panel and turn on Track between topics.

   

5. Continue the conversation until you're satisfied that it flows as intended.

You can update a topic at any time while interacting with the test agent. Simply save your topic to apply changes and continue the conversation with your agent.

Your conversation is not automatically cleared when you save a topic. If at any point you want to clear the conversation from your test agent and start over, select the Reset icon.

Test variable values

You can observe the values of your variables as you test your agent.

1. Select Variables on the secondary toolbar to open the Variables panel.

   

2. Switch to the Test tab and expand the desired variable categories.

   As you proceed with your test conversation, you can monitor the value of the variables in use.

   

3. To inspect variable properties, select the desired variable. The Variable properties panel appears.

   

For more information about using the Variables panel to test slot filling, see Use entities and slot filling in agents.

Save conversation snapshots

While you're testing your agent, you can capture the content of the conversation, and diagnostics data, and save it as a file. You can then analyze the data to troubleshoot issues, such as the agent not responding in the way you expect.

1. At the top of the Test your agent pane, select the More icon (…), then select Save snapshot.

   

   A message appears, notifying you that the snapshot file might include sensitive information.

2. Select Save to save the agent content and conversational diagnostics in a .zip archive named botContent.zip.

   The botContent.zip archive contains two files:

   • dialog.json contains conversational diagnostics, including detailed descriptions of errors.
   • botContent.yml contains the agent's topics and other content, including entities and variables.

Manage connections

If your agent requires user connections, to manage the connections used by your test chat, select the More icon (…) at the top of the test panel, then select Manage connections.

Test a topic in the Test bot panel

Use the Test bot panel to walk through your bot conversations as the user. It's a good way to make sure your topics are working and that conversations flow as you expect.

1. If the Test bot panel is hidden, select Test your bot at the bottom of the left side panel to open it.

   

2. Select the Reset icon at the top of the Test bot panel to clear previous conversations.

   Resetting makes it easier to follow the flow of the current topic without getting confused by previous conversations.

   

3. At the Type your message prompt, enter one of the topic's trigger phrases.

Track through the topic's conversation path

The trigger phrase starts the conversation. The Test bot panel displays the bot's response and the user response choices you specified.

1. Continue the conversation, testing that it flows as intended when you designed in the topic.

2. You can return to a topic's authoring canvas at any time to revise the conversation path. The Test bot panel automatically refreshes when you save changes to a topic.

Save conversation snapshots

While you're testing your bot, you can capture the content of the conversation, and diagnostics data, and save this as a file. You can then analyze the data to troubleshoot issues, such as the bot not responding in the way you expect.

1. At the top of the Test bot panel, select the More icon (⋮), then select Save snapshot.

   

   A message appears, notifying you that the snapshot file might include sensitive information.

2. Select Save to save the bot content and conversational diagnostics in a .zip archive named DSAT.zip.

   The DSAT.zip archive contains two files:

   • dialog.json contains conversational diagnostics, including detailed descriptions of errors.
   • botContent.json contains the bot's topics and other content, including entities and variables.

Test a topic in the Test bot panel

1. If the Test bot panel is hidden, open it by selecting Test your chatbot in the navigation menu.

   

2. It's a good idea to select Reset at the top of the Test bot panel to clear previous conversations. Clearing previous conversations makes it easier to see the flow of the topic you want to see without getting confused by previous conversations.

   

3. At the Type your message prompt at the bottom of the Test bot panel, enter a trigger phrase for the topic.

   The trigger phrase starts the topic's conversation, and the Test bot panel displays the bot responses and user response choices you specified.

4. Continue the conversation, testing that it flows in the intended as designed in the topic.

5. Select a response in the Test bot panel, which will take you to the response in the conversation editor for that topic. The authoring canvas displays highlighted nodes in green.

   

You can return to the authoring canvas for the topic at any time to revise it's conversation path. The test panel automatically refreshes itself when you save changes to a topic.

Track through the topic's conversation path

As you fine-tune your bot, it can be useful to enable tracking between topics so you can follow through the conversation path step by step.

1. If the Test bot panel is hidden, open it by selecting Test your chatbot in the navigation menu.

   

2. At the top of the Test bot panel, turn on Track between topics.

   

3. Enter a trigger phrase for the topic you want to check, and then continue testing the conversation.

4. As you move through the conversation in the Test bot panel, the authoring canvas highlights the current place in the conversation path. The authoring canvas displays highlighted nodes in green.

5. To navigate to an earlier place in the conversation path in the authoring canvas, select it in the Test bot panel.

If the conversation path in the Test your bot panel moves from one topic to another topic, the authoring canvas refreshes and moves between topics to the appropriate highlighted nodes.