Release Notes - v2.35 - April 2023

• Version: 2.35
• Release date: 18th April 2023

New Features and Enhancements

Expert Assist - Tags

Within Expert Assist, questions have always been associated with tags because this is what linked questions to their experts, but now all of this tag information has been made available within the workspace and the associated flow actions, providing more information for each question. The tag information is also used to filter and sort the questions in the workspace, making it easier for users to find questions they may be able to answer, or browse knowledge within a specific category (tag).

Expert Assist - Selecting an Answer

Knowledge seekers now have the ability to choose a specific answer as 'the answer', making it easier for other users with the same question to find the answer they need. This is achieved within the workspace and the selected answer will be highlighted within the list of suggestions provided. This has also enabled a new filter in the workspace, allowing users to view questions with an answer, or questions with no selected answer.

Expert Assist - Providing Answers Through Flow

To assist flow developers integrating Expert Assist into assistants and flows, there is a new action called Create Open Question Answer. This action takes an answer and allows a flow developer to add it to a specific open question. Therefore, users now have the ability to provide answers through both the assistant and the workspace.

New Flow Action

• Create Open Question Answer - Ability to add an answer to an already raised open question.

Journey and Drop-Out Analytics

New flow actions have been created, enabling the flow developer to track a user's journey with specific measurement points and a defined journey end. By tracking a user's journey, it means a flow developer can review where users leave the conversation and identify potential issues with the flow, questions asked, or information presented to the user.

New Flow Actions

• Journey Start - Define the start of a journey so that it can be measured and drop-offs identified; those users that did not reach the corresponding Journey End action.
• Journey Step - Define a specific step or measurement point within a defined journey.
• Journey End - Define the end of a journey so that it can be measured for success.

Knowledge Management Improvements

Following customer feedback, a number of improvements have been made within knowledge. Examples include:

• Knowledge administration
  • Show linked assistants against each topic.
  • Allow an administrator to link, or unlink, assistants from the main topic page.
  • Add a new search option on the topic page.
  • Highlight and scroll to new topics after initial creation.
• Assistant and topic administration
  • Allow searching on available topics when linking an assistant to a topic.
  • Add an 'add topic' option from the assistant QnA skill.
• Query tool
  • Allow querying at both the tenant knowledge and assistant levels. Having an assistant query option means administrators are able to test the knowledge specific to an assistant, ignoring topics not relevant.

New Flow Global Variables

Two new global variables have been added to flow:

• Channel ID - This is a string value that enables the flow developer to identify and act upon the channel in use by the assistant, currently: "webchat" and "msteams". This means channel specific content can be delivered to the user.
• Activity - This is an object containing data about the conversation between a user and the assistant. There are a large number of properties available within this object, with more information available on the Microsoft website: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/microsoft.bot.schema.activity?view=botbuilder-dotnet-stable#properties

Ability to Reset Measurement and Journey Analytics

Following customer feedback, administrators now have the ability to reset their measurement data, which enables the removal of test / development data before assistants are published. This is linked to the new Journey Analytics update because this data can also be reset. The reset option is available via the More menu option on the main assistant page.

Minor Updates / Bug Fixes

• If an empty message is sent to Proactive flow it is now ignored by the assistant, previously it re-prompted the last asked question.
• Make sure all menus within flow remain accessible on small screens. Examples of this were variables and functions within the Assign Variables flow action.
• Update assistants published before May 2021 so that they support Adaptive Cards version 1.5.