Getting Started Conversational Forms with FormFlow using Microsoft Bot framework

Enum
List of Enum
Integral – sbyte, byte, short, ushort, int, uint, long, ulong
Floating point – float, double
String
DateTime
FormFlow will automatically validate type based on user input and reply the validation message.
Create a new enum field for Bus start from.
///
/// From City Enum
///

public enum FromCity
{
Bangalore,Chennai,Madurai,Trichy,Coimbatore,Tanjore,pudukkottai
}

The bot output look like below



Create a new enum field for Bus end point.

///
/// To City Enum
///

public enum ToCity
{
Bangalore, Chennai, Madurai, Trichy, Coimbatore, Tanjore, Pudukkottai
}

The bot output look like below 

Create a new enum for Bus type

///
/// Bus Type Enum
///

public enum BusType
{
AC, NonAC,Slepper, Siting
}

The output look like below

Create a new enum for gender

///
/// Gender
///

public enum Gender
{
Male,Female
}

The output look like below 

create a class for FormFlow with the [Serializable] attribute and create build Form method for show form flow

using Microsoft.Bot.Builder.FormFlow;
using Microsoft.Bot.Builder.Dialogs;
using System;

namespace FormFlowBot.FormFlow
{
[Serializable]

public class BusFormFlow
{

///
/// List of Form Flow
///

public FromCity? FromAddress;
public ToCity? ToAddress;
public DateTime? StartDate;
public BusType? BusTypes;
public Gender? SelectGender;
public string Name;
public int Age;
///
/// Build Form
///
///

public static IForm<BusFormFlow> BuildForm()
{
return new FormBuilder<BusFormFlow>()
.Message("Welcome to the BotChat Bus Booking !")
.OnCompletion(async (context, profileForm) =>
{
string message = "Your Bus booking Successfully Completed .You will get confirmation email and SMS .Thanks for using Chat Bot Bus Booking , Welcome Again !!! :)";
await context.PostAsync(message);
})
.Build();
}
}
}

Calling Form Flow :

The Messagescontroller class added in the solution and add the following MakeRootDialog from a Messagescontroller class

internal static IDialog<BusFormFlow> MakeRootDialog()
{
return Chain.From(() => FormDialog.FromForm(BusFormFlow.BuildForm));
}
Call MakeRootDialog from post method in MessagesController calss
///
/// POST: api/Messages
/// Receive a message from a user and reply to it
///

public async Task<HttpResponseMessage> Post([FromBody]Activity activity)
{
if (activity.Type == ActivityTypes.Message)
{
await Conversation.SendAsync(activity, MakeRootDialog);
}
else
{
HandleSystemMessage(activity);
}
var response = Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK);
return response;
}

Run Bot Application:

The emulator is a desktop application that lets we test and debug our bot on localhost. Now, you can click on "Run the application" in Visual studio and execute in the browser.

• Test Application on Bot Emulator
• You can follow the below steps for test your bot application.
• Open Bot Emulator.
• Copy the above localhost url and paste it in emulator e.g. - http://localHost:3979
• You can append the /api/messages in the above url; e.g. - http://localHost:3979/api/messages.
• You won't need to specify Microsoft App ID and Microsoft App Password for localhost testing, so click on "Connect".

Summary:

In this article, how to use FormFlow and how you can use them to collect information from the users. If you have any questions/ feedback/ issues, please write in the comment box.