Ramilchat

#Wit Facebook Chatbot for international students

For years, in-person meetings and phone calls were the dominant means of communication in society and business. Nowadays, with the rise of the internet, a multitude of new options became available (email, social media, mobile apps or filling out a form on a website and waiting for a follow-up). However, recently, the rise of real-time messaging has led to a fundamental shift in how people prefer to communicate with one another.

Chatbots are staring to become more and more popular, even more now that they can study, and answer questions in a shorter time. Our group is composed by international students, and we want to use this technology to support future international students in FH Joanneum, because we understand all difficulties living in a different country with different traditions. We conducted a survey between international students and we found that the biggest difficulties are:

1. Timetable changes;
2. Administrative questions;
3. Contacts of international office;
4. Working hours of Mensa;
5. Working hours of international office;
6. Additional information for incoming students;
7. Upcoming events;
8. How to find Moodle and Official website of FH Joanneum;
9. Currency of EUR;
10. Weather changes;
11. Etc.;

Our main goal is to create a chatbot to make it easier for new students to adapt in a new environment. Therefore, we decided to implement most of the features mentioned above as well as simple conversation with users.

In the future, the chatbot can be developed, trained, educated in a way that it will be able to answer almost every question of the student (not only incoming ones) and notify all students of FH Joanneum about:

1. Exam dates;
2. Deadlines;
3. Grades;
4. And other academic issues;

A Python bot, that contains a Flask server designed to be deployed on Heroku. The application uses a bot made using the Python API from Wit.ai and the Facebook Messenger API.

Initial Installation

BEFORE STARTING CREATING THE CHATBOT WATCH THIS VIDEO TUTORIAL !!!

Fork this repository and clone.

git clone https://github.com/{your_id}/Wit-Facebook.git
cd Ramilchat

For local development make sure you install the development requirements:

pip install -r requirements.txt
pip install -e .

Configuration

Setup your wit.ai App Setup your Facebook Page This code assumes the above have been set up and trained according to the quickstart guide by Facebook.

You can find information on how to set up the above in the Guide by Facebook.

Launch Server in Heruku

Install the Heroku CLI Download and install the Heroku CLI.

If you haven't already, log in to your Heroku account and follow the prompts to create a new SSH public key.

$ heroku login

Clone the repository Use Git to clone ramilchat's source code to your local machine.

$ heroku git:clone -a ramilchat
$ cd ramilchat

Deploy your changes Make some changes to the code you just cloned and deploy them to Heroku using Git.

$ git add .
$ git commit -am "make it better"
$ git push heroku master

Further Configuration

Setup your Facebook Webhook callback to the heroku app you deployed. Set the following in your HEroku Config Variables:

WIT_TOKEN = "your wit.ai token"
FB_PAGE_TOKEN = "your facebook page token"
FB_VERIFY_TOKEN = "your webhook verification token"

Finally go to the Facebook page you made and chat to the bot!

Results of the ChatBot:

Hi

Hi! How can I help you?

How are you?

Hi! I am fine! What about you? 🙂

I am also fine 🙂

That's GOOD!!!

What do you like?

I like chatting.

When is the next class mbs?

11.07.2018 (Mittwoch) at 09:00 - 16:00 in K.WS46A.216 HS216

Next class of mbs?

11.07.2018 (Mittwoch) at 09:00 - 16:00 in K.WS46A.216 HS216

I love Projarb1 course

I see. That's GOOD!

Next class of kwbdjwbdiwhd

Sorry! I can not find this course...

The weather on Kapfenberg today

The temperature is: +13C. Feels like +13°C. overcast, no significant precipitation

What is the weather tomorrow on Wien

The temperature is: +15C. Feels like +15°C. overcast, no precipitation

1 usd in kzt

1 USD in KZT = 339.662

100 usd in eur

100 usd in EUR = 85.7396

How can I find a doctor

Visit https://www.docfinder.at . There you can find the nearest doctor. I hope you feel better soon!

The next event in Kapfenberg

The next event is SOMMERFEST: 28th of June!

Arnold Schwarzenegger

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Schwarzenegger

What is the distance between Earth and Moon

https://www.google.com/search?q=the+distance+between+Earth+and+Moon http://www.answers.com/Q/the_distance_between_Earth_and_Moon

Working hours of mensa

Monday to Thursday: 7:30-16:00; Friday: 7:30 - 19:00; Saturday: 9:30-13:30; Lunch menus: Monday to Friday: 11:00-15:00;

What should I do before leaving

1. De-register your residence
2. De-register for health insurance
3. Close bank account
4. Make sure all payments are done, hand in keys etc. For more information contact: international@fh-joanneum.at

Tell me a scientific fact

The Name Uranus is Over 2,500 Years Old

Tell me a joke

Q: Is Google a he or a she? A: A she, no doubt, because it won‘t let you finish your sentence without suggesting other ideas.