This page provides an overview of how to select deployment channels.
Overview of Deployment Channels
As of now, there are 3 options for deploying your OCS chatbot, with more options coming soon. These 3 options are:
- OCS Web
- Telegram
To select a deployment channel, simply navigate to the home page of your chatbot (experiment), select the "+" button and choose the channel you'd like to use. Note that "web" is automatically offered and so does not need to be selected. (You can test this by navigating to the top right-hand menu and select "public session" to interact with your bot as if you were a user without access to OCS).
OCS Web
WhatsApp is an ideal channel to use
Telegram
Among multiple advantages, deploying on Telegram is a fairly simple process that does not require approvals (as above for WhatsApp). Additionally, as of this writing, Telegram is free to use, and thus makes for an ideal tool for iteration. One drawback of Telegram is that it is not as widely used as WhatsApp, and therefore might not be an ideal channel if you are hoping to scale organically to many users, especially in LMICs.
In order to deploy your OCS bot on Telegram, first it is necessary to create a chatbot on the Telegram app itself. Review the following steps to do so:
- On Telegram, search for "BotFather".
- Once found, send a message to "BotFather" and follow the steps outlined to create a new Telegram channel.
- Give this channel a name as if it were your chatbot- for example if your chatbot persona is called Bob and your chatbot is called "Coach Bob", you can label your Telegram channel "Coach Bob".
- Once your channel is created, save the "token" provided.
- On Open Chat Studio, select Telegram as an option and add this token.
- Final step: Test your chatbot by talking to it on Telegram.
Facebook (coming soon)
Although Facebook is visible as an option, please note this feature is not yet functional.