Using Variables in Recipe

Analytics drives the world, especially in the field of marketing. You want actionable data that you can chew through and with that in mind, the Verloop.io team has given you the ability to create and track ‘variables’.

Variables are used to capture and save useful information during a conversation. You can use these variables in any recipe to store user responses and other state-related information. Finally, you can also export these details once the conversation is finished. This means this feature act as a saviour whenever any data point during the conversation needs to be recorded.

The flexibility of this usage makes it one of the most useable features.

There are two types of variables:

a) System: These are by default system-generated variables. Any default recipe already has these attached.

b) User: These are the variables, created by the user. 

With every block you create, your bot has the ability to save the user’s answer as a variable. Creating a new variable is easy.

Looking for specific information? Click the link below to jump directly to that section 

Using Variables in Recipe

How to create new variables?

How to use a variable in a Question block?

How to call on a variable during the recipe flow?

How to integrate a variable in a Buttons/Slider block?

How is using variables useful?

How to create new variables?

1. Navigate to Settings > Chat > Variables

1. Click on Create new variable in the top right corner

1.  Give your variable a name and choose the type of content you want to get stored. You can select from one of the following
   1. Text
   2. Integer
   3. Positive Integer
   4. Percentage
   5. Email
   6. Phone
   7. Name
   8. Pincode
   9. Location 

1. After you’ve added all the details, click on the Save button. Your variable will be added to the list.  

How to use a variable in a Question block?

1. Navigate to Bot Recipes > open a recipe > go to a Question block

1. Check the box for Save user response to a variable 
2. You can choose a variable under which you want the answer for the particular block to be saved

How to call on a variable during the recipe flow?

Say you’ve asked a customer for his name using the above step. You’d maybe want to personalize a salutation or a question by addressing the customer by their name. Verloop allows you to do this by calling on variables during recipe flows.

To do this, 

1. Identify the variable you’d like to call (variables are case-sensitive). For this example, we’ll take the variable ‘name’.
2. To call the variable ‘name’ in a sentence, simply place the variable between flower brackets, as such – ‘{{ }}’.
3. Calling on the variable will look like ‘{{name}}’ and the text will be highlighted blue to denote a variable in action.

How to integrate a variable in a Buttons/Slider block?

1. Navigate to a Button block
2. Click on the Edit icon

1. Under the Update Variable section, click on Set Variable

1. Choose the variable you want to use and assign it a value. 

1. Click on the Save button 

How is using variables useful?

There are two places wherein you can get the output.

a) Report: at the extreme right of the master report, there would be columns with header names as variables, and the response of a user to the block/outreach to which a particular variable has been attached is displayed here.  This data can then be used to derive insight from the user’s response.

b) RHS: Variables and the recorded data under it can also be seen at the RHS. This would help an agent to see all the data at a glance. This allows an agent to handle the chat in a better way.