Final steps to launch

Meet your users where they are 

Deciding where your bot will live is an important pre-launch step. Think about the user persona(s) you created in Module 2 and remind yourself of the following questions: Who is using the bot? What do they want and/or need?

Consider where to house your bot so that target users can quickly and easily find it. Think back to the process map you drafted in Module 2 when asked, “Where does my bot fit into existing processes?” The things that must happen leading up to the need for the bot are key indicators of where the bot should live. Depending on the purpose of the bot, it may need to:

• Appear publicly in a Google search.
• Be sent directly to the user.
• Be easily accessible within the user’s intranet or other systems.

For example, the creators of this divorce advice bot hosted it in Reddit, because that was where people already went to find legal information about divorce. This bot was able to meet the needs of the user and meet them exactly where they were already searching for information on the topic. 

Once you’ve decided on the best home for your bot, you will know whether you need a shareable link to your bot, or if it needs to be embedded in a webpage. Links are necessary when you want to share your bot via email, QR code, or through a newsletter or other publication. The embed feature is necessary to host the bot on a website, an intranet, or any other landing page including those behind a paywall. Both of these options can be found on the launch page. 

Integrate the bot into your workflows

Once you know where your bot will live and how users will get there, consider how it will sit in existing workflows. What happens at the end of your bot? What is the output, how does your user or another stakeholder receive the output, and what happens next?

For example, if your bot automates a document, consider who should get the document and how. If the user should get the document, will they download it from the bot, receive it by email, or both? If someone else should receive the document, will they receive it by email, or access it in the activity tab? (Instructions for how to do this in the activity tab are here.) 

You did a lot of this thinking already in Module 2, when you learned about process mapping and planning your bot. Now is the time to go back to your process map and/or your plan, and check that you have actually set up the processes needed to integrate your bot into your workflow. 

Are the notifications, if you’re using them, set up? Are the appropriate processes in place? Do all your users and stakeholders know where and how to access the information they need from the bot? Make sure all of this is set up and clear before you launch your bot.

Once you’ve decided where your bot will live, how your users will get there and confirmed how they will interact with the bot and the output, head to the next session to learn how to actually launch your bot.