The pattern: design the conversation on paper, build Dialogs in Bot Builder, train Intents with sample utterances, wire up Actions, test, activate. Plan two to four weeks for a non-trivial bot rollout.
- Enable Einstein Bots
Setup, Einstein Bots, Settings. Toggle Enable Einstein Bots on. Accept the terms; the feature activates. New Bot button appears.
- Create a new bot
Click New Bot. Pick Enhanced Bot Builder (modern) or Classic. Configure name, language, channels, and the initial welcome dialog. The bot is created with a starter set of dialogs (Welcome, End Conversation, Transfer to Agent).
- Build dialogs and intents
Add a Dialog for each conversation topic. Configure the Dialog''s Intent with sample utterances ("track my order," "where is my package," "order status"). Connect Dialogs with transition rules. Use the Test panel to simulate conversations as you build.
- Add Actions and Flow integration
Inside each Dialog, add Actions: Send Message, Ask a Question, Call a Flow. For back-end lookups (order status, customer data), call a Salesforce Flow that queries the right records. Return values are bot variables, available to subsequent Dialogs.
- Test and activate
Use the Bot Builder Test panel to walk through every conversation path. Check fallback dialogs and agent handoffs. Activate the bot version. Deploy to one channel first, monitor for a release cycle, then expand to other channels.
Enhanced Bot Builder (modern, recommended) or Classic. Pick at bot creation; you cannot switch later without rebuilding.
English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Japanese, and more. Enhanced Bot Builder supports multi-language; Classic requires separate bots per language.
Web Chat, Messaging, WhatsApp Business, Facebook Messenger, Apple Business Chat. Configure channel-specific dialog overrides for the channels with custom quirks.
Confidence score below which the bot asks for clarification. Default 60%. Raise for high-stakes use cases (account changes); lower for low-stakes (FAQ).
- Bot Builder Classic and Enhanced Bot Builder are separate products. You pick at bot creation; switching later means rebuilding.
- NLP improvements depend on training utterances. A bot with 5 utterances per Intent will misclassify constantly; aim for 20-50 utterances per Intent before activation.
- Multi-channel bots require channel-specific Dialog variations. WhatsApp, SMS, and Web Chat differ in button support, message length, and media handling.
- Bot Versioning is per-bot. Channel deployments use the active version; deactivating a version mid-conversation can leave running conversations in limbo.
- Flow Actions inside a bot run synchronously. Slow flows make the bot feel laggy; bulkify any record queries and avoid long-running Apex.