Take a tour of the watsonx Assistant user interface

After you've configured your first assistant, it's time to look further into the product. In this tutorial, take a look at an easy-to-follow guide to learn about the in-product navigation for IBM watsonx Assistant.

To see an overview, you can watch the following short video.

Prerequisites

To follow this tutorial, you need:

• Access to any watsonx Assistant instance on a Lite, Plus Trial, Plus, or Enterprise plan
• Access to any assistant

Estimated time

It should take you approximately 20 minutes to complete the tutorial.

Steps

1. After opening any instance of watsonx Assistant, you land on the Home page. Begin the user interface tour by clicking Take a tour within the Welcome banner. The purpose of the learning center has changed since the publication of this tutorial. Please begin the tour by using the button within the Welcome banner.

   

2. When the window appears, click Let's go to start the user interface tour.

   

3. The primary navigation bar runs vertically along the left side of the window. Hover over the navigation bar with your mouse to expand the bar to see each button's name. I'll return to the Home screen later. For now, click Next.

   

4. Follow the tour through to completion by clicking Next.

   

   During the tour, you learn:

   • In Build, you create conversations by adding Actions and test conversations using Preview.
   • In Deploy, you publish versions of your content and assign it to an Environment so your customers can interact with it.
   • In Improve, you analyze interactions between customers and your assistant to identify areas for improvement.
   • In Integrations, you can connect channels (like web chat or phone) and extensions (like search) to your assistant.

   • In Assistant settings, you can make configuration changes like renaming or deleting your assistant.

     Upon completion of the first part of the tour, continue by clicking Next up: Actions. Alternatively, start the Introduction to Actions tour within the Learning Center, within the Get Oriented section.

5. Click Actions in the navigation to complete the "Introduction to Actions" tour.

   

   You learn:

   • Actions is where you build the conversations that your assistant has with customers. Each action that you create represents a task to complete or a question to answer.
   • An action contains content that represents individual exchanges with a customer. You have two ways create your actions: start from scratch or choose from prebuilt templates. You also can work with a list of system actions that are included in every assistant.
   • When customers reply to your assistant, they share information about themselves and what they want. Your assistant uses variables to remember this information. You can use variables to provide a personalized and customized experience in your actions.

   • Within actions, use the preview button to test your content and see how well the assistant is handling your user's requests. This allows you to test all of your actions at the same time.

     Upon completion of this part of the tour, continue by clicking Next up: Preview. Alternatively, start the Test your Assistant using Preview tour within the Learning Center, within the Get Oriented section.

6. Click Preview in the navigation to complete the "Test your Assistant using Preview" tour.

   

   You learn:

   • In Preview, you can test your assistant before it's deployed.
   • Preview your assistant as a chatbot on a website. You can test the actions that you added by entering text in the chat window.
   • Let the rest of your organization try out the assistant by giving them this preview link by using the "Copy link to share" button.
   • The "Change background" button lets you set up a test site to see how your assistant would look.

   • The "Customize web chat" button lets you customize the colors, look, and design of the chatbot.

     Upon completion of this part of the tour, continue by clicking Next up: Publish. Alternatively, start the Publish content tour within the Learning Center, within the Get Oriented section.

7. Click Publish in the navigation to complete the "Publish content" tour.

   

   You learn:

   • Publish is where you can see the content you've created so far. (This content lives in your Draft environment; more on that later.) When ready, you can publish to create a version of your content and settings.
   • Your in-progress, unpublished changes are listed here. When your actions are ready, you can create a version of your assistant. A version represents a snapshot of content and settings at a given time.

   • Each time you publish, you create a new version, such as V1 or V2. You can also assign it to an environment. If necessary, you can revert to a previous version and make more edits.

     Upon completion of this part of the tour, continue by clicking Next up: Environments. Alternatively, start the Environments tour within the Learning Center, within the Get Oriented section.

8. Click Environments in the navigation to complete the "Environments" tour.

   

   You learn:

   • Each new assistant comes with two areas for your work: the Draft environment and a Live environment. Think of an environment as a space that contains a version of your content and settings.
   • The Draft environment provides an area that is free from customer interactions so that you can build content and your team can test your assistant.
   • A web chat channel integration has been added for you. Each assistant needs at least one channel. You can choose to deploy your assistant with an out-of-the-box channel integration such as web chat or phone.

   • You can also review the last-saved status of your drafted actions under "Last edited."

     Within the Live environment tab, you learn:

   • The Live environment shows your versions of published content and deployed channels.
   • These are the live channels where your customers can have a conversation with the assistant. Your customers only interact with published content after a Live channel is configured.

   • You can see which published version of your content is used to respond to customer questions or requests

     Upon completion of this part of the tour, continue by clicking Next up: Analyze. Alternatively, start the Improve your assistant using Analyze tour within the Learning Center, within the Get Oriented section.

9. Click Analyze in the navigation to complete the "Improve your assistant using Analyze" tour.

   

   You learn:

   • Analyze provides metrics on the interactions between your customers and the assistant.
   • Overview provides engagement metrics that are tied to your assistant. Use this page to identify key insights that you can use to improve your assistant.
   • Action completion lets you review how all of your assistant's actions are doing. You can take an in-depth look at how often your assistant completes a given action.

   • Conversations shows the history of interactions between customers and an assistant. You can use this log to improve how your assistant understands and responds to requests.

     Upon completion of this part of the tour, continue by clicking Next up: Integrations. Alternatively, start the Connect your assistants using Integrations tour within the Learning Center, within the Get Oriented section.

10. Click Integrations in the navigation to complete the "Connect your assistants using Integrations" tour.

    

    You learn:

    • Integrations provides options for how your assistant interacts with your customers.
    • Each assistant needs at least one channel. You can choose to deploy your assistant with an out-of-the-box channel integration such as web chat or phone.
    • A web chat channel integration has been added for you by default.
    • Extensions are add-ons to help solve specific problems. For example, you can set up your assistant to search for existing help content. You can also set up a custom extension that lets you connect your assistant with other databases and third-party tools. Extensions are not required for an assistant, but they are recommended.
    • You can also find more channel integrations like Facebook Messenger, Microsoft Teams, and Slack.

    Upon completion of this part of the tour, continue by clicking Next up: Assistant settings. Alternatively, start the Modify preferences in Assistant settings tour within the Learning Center, within the Get Oriented section.

11. Click Assistant settings in the navigation to complete the "Modify preferences in Assistant settings" tour.

    

    You learn:

    • Make changes to your assistant's configuration in Assistant settings.
    • In Details, you can rename your assistant or update its description.
    • If necessary, you can delete your assistant here.

    Upon completion of this part of the tour, continue by clicking Next up: More resources. Alternatively, start the Resources for every step in the journey tour within the Learning Center, within the Get Oriented section.

12. Click Learning center in the top navigation to complete the "Resources for every step in the journey" tour.

    

    You learn:

    • The Learning center provides tours, guides, and documentation that you can access from anywhere in the assistant.
    • In the first tab, you can replay tours like these. In the second tab, you can access getting started guides and product documentation. There's even recommendations of top content that we think will be helpful to you.

    Upon completion of the tour, you will find yourself on the Home screen. Let's take a look at what is shown here.

13. The watsonx Assistant home screen first appears with several checklists to help you get started with your first assistant and conversation. Click each item on the checklist to go to the area of the product that addresses the action item. Finally, when you complete enough of these checklist items, a new checklist of intermediate tasks appears, along with other helpful information pertaining to your assistant.

    

Summary

Now you know where to find all of the buttons and levers within the watsonx Assistant. The next tutorial covers how to get started building conversations.

Any questions? Reach out to Alexander Dfouni.