Overview of the article

This article will guide you through creating a custom bot that answers user conversations and guides them to report a bug or submit a screen recording.

Here's a demo of what it might look like: https://vimeo.com/793799197/ced46881b8

You can also add a Submit a bug report button to your Intercom Widget Home, so users can submit without even starting a conversation with you.

Prerequisites

In order for the Custom Action to work:

You need to install the Bugpilot script.
IMPORTANT: You need to set up user identification and send the User ID as first parameter to Bugpilot.identify.
IMPORTANT: In Bugpilot Integrations Settings, open API and make sure the Always connect Action WebSockets, is selected. It is not selected by default.

Creating a custom bot

Navigate to app.intercom.com and open your intercom workspace
In the side menu, find Operator and open it
Click Custom Bots in the left-side menu
Click on the New Custom Bot button
Decide when to trigger the bot: for this guide, we'll choose "When a customer opens the Messenger."

Create a flow as you prefer. You could guide the user, for example, through some common troubleshooting steps.

Add the Bugpilot Action

When you want to add a Bugpilot button to allow the users to start a screen recording, add a Custom Action with the following properties:

Use the following configuration:

Method: POST
URL: https://widget-api.bugpilot.io/api/v1/action
HTTP Headers:
- user-agent: Bugpilot API Client/1.0
- x-bugpilot-api-key: [BUGPILOT PRIVATE API KEY]
  - Get it from Integrations > API Access
  - Make sure Always connect Action WebSockets is selected
Request Body:
- Enter the following text, all in one line:
  { "workspaceId": "<WORKSPACE ID>", "userId": "<USER ID SELECTOR>", "action": "show-recording-ui" }
- Replace <WORKSPACE ID> with the ID of your workspace, you can obtain it from Integrations > API Access.
- Replace <USER ID SELECTOR> with the Intercom selector to dynamically obtain the User ID property:
  - Select the <USER ID SELECTOR> text and delete it.
  - Click on the button {...}, as it is shown in this image:
  - Select User ID from the dropdown that appears:
That's it! Click next and follow the instructions shown by Intercom.
Before testing it, reload your page where the Intercom widget is shown.

Example

This screenshot is an example Custom Bot we currently use at Bugpilot. This bot shows when a user starts a new conversation with us.

Advanced use cases

If you're a developer, you can check out the API Documentation; you should be able to set up a Custom Bot in a few minutes.

Prefer to set it up together?

Book a call with us

Adding a Report a Bug button to your Intercom Custom Bot