How to Activate a Staging Chatbot?

Question

Before publishing my chatbot, I’m afraid of potential errors that could affect the actual bot running on my Facebook page or LINE account. How can I know if my chatbot perform as usual before I publish it?

Answer

You can create another Facebook page or LINE official account and connect it to your chatbot for testing. After making sure that everything works as intended, you can then reconnect the bot back to your actual Facebook page or LINE account.

Also, if you want to test out a LINE bot’s broadcast function, you can create a channel on LINE Developers and select Messaging API -> Developer trial. A maximum number of 50 people are allowed to receive broadcasted messages from the Developer trail, but you are not allowed to upgrade to the premium plan. Although you can’t broadcast with the Free plan, you can upgrade to a premium plan when needed.

When using a bot for testing, please be aware:

1. LINE official accounts cannot have one-on-one conversations with customers after chatbots are connected.

In other words, after activating the Messenger API from LINE official, you are no longer able to use the one-on-one conversation with your customers, and you also cannot use parts of the app interfaces. You can use a staging chatbot to evaluate what kind of bot is suitable for you. (LINE official accounts 2.0 are planning on solving parts of this problem.

2. Messenger Chatbots Tagging Policy

You can use a staging chatbot to further understand the tagging policy Facebook has on Messenger chatbots and the effects the “24 + 1 policy” has on the contents of your broadcast.

• Please select “Promotion Excluded” if the broadcast gives only non-promotional content such as notices for changing address or events. Also, please read “Facebook Message Tags Policy” to select the proper tag for your broadcast.

• Please select “Promotion Included” if the content contains promotion. For example, notifications for daily on-sale products, discounts, or auctions would be under that category. Marking a promotional broadcast with a non-promotional tag may result in a ban on your account.

• Promotional content may only be sent to people who interacted with the chatbot within the past 24 hours. People who haven’t interacted with the bot for 24 hours can only receive the “first component” of the promotional message.