How to add Get Started button in the typing bar using bot builder sdk for node.js - node.js

Question

I am using bot builder sdk for node.js to create a chatbot. Also connected it to facebook channel. I am using the following code to greet the user:
var bot = new builder.UniversalBot(connector, [
(session, result, next) => {
let text = '';
switch(session.message.address.channelId) {
case 'facebook':
text = 'Hi ' + session.message.user.name + ' !';
break;
default:
text = 'Hi !';
}
session.sendTyping();
session.say(text);
next();
},
(session, say) => {
}
]);
The above code works fine, but I want to add "Get Started" button in the typing bar to invoke the above code. Note that this button appears only once. Please find image of the typing bar below:
Is there a way to achieve this using bot builder sdk for node.js ?
Thanks

Answer 1

Although one can certainly add a button to start any activity with the bot, but that will limit the bots potential to only one customizable channel, i.e. WebChat.
I think there are better 2 alternative ways to get the desired functionality which will work across many channels.
First
I would suggest to add a conversation update event. Code goes in the botbuilder's middleware. Here is a sample code from the docs.
bot.on('conversationUpdate', function (message) {
if (message.membersAdded && message.membersAdded.length > 0) {
// Say hello
var txt = "Send me a Hi";
var reply = new builder.Message()
.address(message.address)
.text(txt);
bot.send(reply);
});
What this will do is make the bot send a message Send me a Hi to the user, if it determines this is a first time visitor. This will give the visitor enough cue to send the bot Hi by typing it. Although he can enter whatever he wants, but this will result in the invocation of the 1st dialog configured which in this case is the will be the dialog which you have posted in question.
Second
You can mark some dialog to be invoked automatically if your bot has never encountered this visitor. Here is the sample code...
var bot = new builder.UniversalBot(connector);
bot.dialog('firstRun', function (session) {
session.userData.firstRun = true;
session.send("Hello...").endDialog();
}).triggerAction({
onFindAction: function (context, callback) {
// Only trigger if we've never seen user before
if (!context.userData.firstRun) {
// Return a score of 1.1 to ensure the first run dialog wins
callback(null, 1.1);
} else {
callback(null, 0.0);
}
}
});
Here we have split the bot creation and dialog registration in 2 steps. And while registering the firstRun dialog, we have provided it the triggerAction that if the visitor is new, then trigger this dialog.
Both of these approaches do not use adding some extra buttons and it is up to the bot either to educate him on sending some message which in turn will start the 1st dialog or directly start some dialog.
For more info on conversationEvent you can refer to this page

Answer 2

I tried the above options, but they didn't seem to be working for facebook messenger. But I found a solution to add the Get Started button into the typing bar of the messenger. For that we need to use the Facebook Graph API and not the bot builder sdk.
https://graph.facebook.com/v2.6/me/messenger_profile?access_token=<PAGE_ACCESS_TOKEN>
{
"get_started":{
"payload":"Get Started"
}
}
The above API call will add the button for you to get the conversation started.
Thanks all for the help!!