This pattern involves invoking an automation by use the Control Room APIs, from a “ChatBot” application.  The automation will execute on one or more unattended runners/devices.

Use this pattern any time you need to provide a conversational interface where users will receive answers by executing automation.

EXPERT TIP: With conversational AI/automation solutions, responsiveness is critical to provide a great user experience - not many people want to wait a significant amount of time to get an answer from a chatbot!  Consider use of ‘API Tasks’ to quickly retrieve results from an automation that can be supplied as a response to a chatbot question.

Development Framework: Any Automation360 Development Framework can be used.

Solution Design (SDD): A sample SDD is attached.  

Administration: You’ll need a role defined that can generate an API key, as well as role for the ‘runner’ that will execute the automation.  Several Control Room APIs are used to securely connect to the Control Room, and execute an automation.  One or more ‘custom roles’ could be created for this purpose - see samples at the following link.

How to Use: Here is a great video describing how to execute an automation via Control Room APIs. 

Troubleshooting Execution:

The following references API response codes.