BotBuilder-Samples/Migration/Dispatch/csharp/14.nlp-with-dispatch

NLP with Dispatch

Bot Framework v4 NLP with Dispatch bot sample

Dispatch is on the path to be deprecated and replaced with Orchestrator. This sample is the equivalent sample using Orchestrator for routing. Please refer to this documentation for more information on migrating your bot to use Orchestrator.

This bot has been created using Bot Framework, it shows how to create a bot that relies on multiple LUIS.ai and QnAMaker.ai models for natural language processing (NLP).

Use the Dispatch model in cases when:

• Your bot consists of multiple language modules (LUIS + QnA) and you need assistance in routing user's utterances to these modules in order to integrate the different modules into your bot.
• Evaluate quality of intents classification of a single LUIS model.
• Create a text classification model from text files.

Prerequisites

This sample requires prerequisites in order to run.

Overview

This bot uses the Dispatch service to route utterances as it demonstrates the use of multiple LUIS models and QnA maker services to support multiper conversational scenarios.

Install .NET Core CLI

• .NET Core SDK version 3.1

  # determine dotnet version
  dotnet --version
  

Use Dispatch with Multiple LUIS and QnA Models

To learn how to configure Dispatch with multiple LUIS models and QnA Maker services, refer to the steps found here.

To try this sample

• Clone the repository

  git clone https://github.com/microsoft/botbuilder-samples.git
  

• Run the bot from a terminal or from Visual Studio:

  A) From a terminal, navigate to samples/csharp_dotnetcore/14.nlp-with-dispatch

  # run the bot
  dotnet run
  

  B) Or from Visual Studio

  • Launch Visual Studio
  • File -> Open -> Project/Solution
  • Navigate to samples/csharp_dotnetcore/14.nlp-with-dispatch folder
  • Select NLP-With-Dispatch-Bot.csproj file
  • Press F5 to run the project

Testing the bot using Bot Framework Emulator

Bot Framework Emulator is a desktop application that allows bot developers to test and debug their bots on localhost or running remotely through a tunnel.

• Install the latest Bot Framework Emulator from here

Connect to the bot using Bot Framework Emulator

• Launch Bot Framework Emulator
• File -> Open Bot
• Enter a Bot URL of http://localhost:3978/api/messages

Interacting with the bot

Once you are comfortable with the concepts presented in this sample, you may want to configure Dispatch using a CLI tool. Dispatch CLI is a CLI tool that enables you to create a dispatch NLP model across the different LUIS applications and/ or QnA Maker Knowledge Bases you have for your bot.

Deploy the bot to Azure

To learn more about deploying a bot to Azure, see Deploy your bot to Azure for a complete list of deployment instructions.

Further reading

• Bot Framework Documentation
• Bot Basics
• Using LUIS for Language Understanding
• LUIS documentation
• Activity processing
• Azure Bot Service Introduction
• Azure Bot Service Documentation
• .NET Core CLI tools
• Azure CLI
• Azure Portal
• Language Understanding using LUIS
• Channels and Bot Connector Service