ADAM CHAN: Hello, this is Adam, your friendly business
communications developer relations engineer.
In this video, I explain how to launch your Business Messages
agents so customers can find them on Google
Search and Google Maps.
This process is what we call verification and launch.
The verification process is our way
of making sure that you represent a brand
and that your agent's information is correct.
And the launch process is where you
can take a verified agent and locations
and make them discoverable to users on the internet.
We'll discuss the basics, which include foundational building
blocks of Business Messages and the different types of entry
point groups.
Then we'll dive into the necessary setup
by looking at a bird's eye view of the full process
from development to verification and all the way to launch.
We'll also look at how to prepare for verification,
and to wrap up the video we'll learn
how to request verification on agents and locations,
and then launch them onto Google Search and Google Maps.
Business Messages conversations are made up
of three key entities.
The brand, the agent, and the location
are entities that you create and configure
either through the Business Communications
API or the Business Communications Developer
Console.
They are what make up the agent's appearance
and control certain behaviors.
Let me show you really quickly how
you can create these entities using the Business
Communications Developer Console.
In the Business Communications Developer Console,
we'll create a brand and an agent
together by clicking on Create Agent.
We want to ensure the agent type is set correctly
to the product we are working with, in this case,
Business Messages.
The partner account is the account that's
tied to your GCP project.
In brand, we can specify the brand you're working with,
I'll put Growing Tree Bank, and the agent name
will be Banking Agent.
Once you click on Create Agent, the Developer Console
begins making requests to the Business Communications API
to create the brand entity and the agent entity.
Once complete, we'll be able to click on the card
and see the agent overview.
In this overview, you'll be able to see the brand identifier
and the agent identifier among other things
to create a location you can click
on Locations in the left-hand nav menu, then Add.
We are presented with an input field and a map.
In the input field, we'll specify
a place like the Googleplex or whatever
dedicated place you want to create a location entity for.
And once we click Add, this will create a location entity.
With these entities created, you can configure
where they will be launched.
Let's come back to the types of entry points
and elaborate on this further.
There are plenty of different entry points
and we are constantly adding new ones.
For the set that you can see on screen,
we have three primary groups of entry points
which you can launch agents to.
Location-based entry points, which
are tied to physical places in the real world,
non-local entry points are tied to a customer
support or other search intent, and brand-managed entry points
are those which you can place anywhere,
these could be in a QR code, embedded in an app,
or on a website.
I'll talk about what's needed to launch these entry
points in a moment.
Something important to note is that when you launch
on an entry point group you cannot choose which entry point
within that group you want to launch on.
Additionally, if a brand does not
have a search listing through a certain entry
point like sitelinks, launching your Business Messages agents
or locations will not create that entry point
for that brand.
Let's talk about the bird's eye view
from development to verification and launch
before we get into the thick of it.
You first need to create and configure
your Business Messages brands, agents, and locations.
Then you deploy a web service.
This web service exposes a URL and point we call your webhook.
Set your webhook using the Business Communications
API or the Business Communications Developer
Console.
When users send your agents messages,
we send to those messages to your webhook as web requests
and you use the Business Messages API
to send messages back to users.
Check out my other video called sending your first message,
where I walk you through the process end-to-end to having
your first conversation with an echo bot.
After you've worked on your webhook logic
and you're happy with what it is capable of
and the user journeys it supports,
then you're ready to make your conversations discoverable
on Google Search and Google Maps.
To enable those chat entry points in Search and Maps
for your customers, you need to follow this two-step process.
Step one is verifying your agent and verifying locations
if applicable for the business.
And step two is actually launching
the agent and locations.
Before you go ahead and verify your agent, make sure
they are configured correctly.
The agent configuration determines a lot
of the behavior that your users interact with and see
so it's crucial to make sure it is correct
before you verify the agent.
If you take a look at our reference documentation,
you can see a large number of attributes
that can be configured.
I won't go through all fields ad nauseam here but to name a few,
your agent configuration allows you
to take advantage of features like automated responses
through the Dialogflow association,
users can authenticate through the conversation over OAuth
using authorization config, you can customize surveys
using the survey config.
Most importantly, the entry point configs
determine where your agents will be launched to.
Ensure you configure all fields of your agent the way
you want it to behave before you request verification.
Some of these fields will become non-editable
but you will still be able to edit
the conversational settings, custom agent ID, primary agent
interaction, additional agent interactions, and the phone
number.
You can learn more about other features in our developer
documentation.
Let's dive deeper into how agent verification works.
There are two different types of verification,
manual verification, and automated verification.
Let's start with the manual verification process first.
You can request verification using the Business
Communications API or the Business Communications
Developer Console.
Remember, ensure your agent is configured correctly
before you request verification.
It makes launching smoother if your agent is
configured the way you need it to be before you verify it.
When you initiate the verification request
you provide contact info from someone at the brand
and your own contact details.
This puts your agent into a verification pending state.
The request initiates and sends two emails
which require your brand contact's attention.
The brand contact must reply saying
they grant you the right to send messages on their behalf.
And they must also send a security key
that we've sent them in a separate email.
Once the brand contact has completed this,
our support team proceeds with the rest of the verification
process and modifies your agent state to verify.
Congrats, with locations you've already
created that are associated with your agent you can now begin
verifying those locations.
Similar to verifying an agent, you
can initiate a request to verify a location via the Business
Communications API or the Business Communications
Developer Console.
We check that the associated agent is verified
and that the place ID for the location
matches up with the exact business.
If you added more than one location for the agent,
we verify all associated locations.
So you really only need to send us a single location
verification request.
Once our support team validates the locations,
the locations are updated and the states
are visible by looking in the Business Communications
Developer Console or fetching the location
entities using the Business Communications API.
You can then proceed with launching them.
This seems like a lengthy process
that might not be suitable for situations
where you have thousands of locations.
Fortunately, we do have an automated verification process
that you can take advantage of to streamline your launches.
Our automated verification process
leverages Google My Business listing verifications
as a means to auto verify the agents and locations
in Business Messages.
It requires a little bit of setup
but once you get the flow down right,
you can auto verify hundreds and thousands
of locations and agents with ease and swiftness.
To implement automated onboarding for Business
Messages you must initiate an OAuth login flow
with the Google My Business listing owner or manager.
Once they log in, they're notified
that your application is requesting
to scopes of access--
access to their Google My Business listing data,
and access to the Business Communications API.
Once the listing owner or manager
authorizes your application, you receive an auth code
that you can exchange for an access token.
On the Business Messages agents you've already created,
you can take this access token to verify them using the API
to request verification.
Additionally, you can use the data
available on Google My Business to add all location
data relevant to the agent and use the access token to verify
those locations as well.
This process will immediately verify the agents and locations
you request verification on.
And just like the manual verification process,
once your agents and locations are verified
you can proceed to launching them.
Before we get off the topic of verification,
let's chat a little bit about the common pitfalls
we've seen when partners are verifying agents.
When you launch on a Google entry point
you must support live agents.
Your agent configuration must include at least one entry
point configuration.
Ensure the brand contact email matches the brand domain.
Ensure that the logo or a similar logo
is discoverable within the brand's website.
Test agents are rejected from launch,
make sure to verify only agents you
intend to use in production.
Have your agent configured correctly
before requesting verification.
Again, some fields will become non-editable
and you'll need to reach out to our support team
if you want to change them.
You can use the pre-verification checklist on the developer
website to help catch any issues before you verify.
The launch process is simple, you
initiate a launch request using the Business Communications API
or through the Business Communications Developer
Console.
You can launch agents and locations separately.
Earlier in this video, we looked at where
agents can be launched to.
Let's shift focus now and understand the launch process
for each entry point group.
If you want to launch on a brand-managed entry point,
you need to create a Business Messages agent,
ensure it has an entry point configuration,
and then initiate a verification request on the agent.
Once in a verified state, you can
place the URL entry point anywhere a brand desires
or convert the URL into a QR code
and place it onto a physical location as well.
To launch the agent on non-local entry points ensure you
have non-local set on the entry point config of the agent
and then you launch that agent.
You can use the same agent used for brand-managed entry points.
For launching the agent on the location entry point,
ensure the agent has location set on the entry point config.
And then assuming all your locations are already created,
then initiate a verification request on a single location.
Our support team will look at the request
and if they see multiple locations associated
with the agent, our support team will try to verify all of them.
Once the agents and locations are verified,
you can launch them separately.
Within a few hours, you should be
able to find the search listing showing the Chat button
on specified entry points.
Remember that even if you launch all entry points,
not all entry points may be available
if the business doesn't already have them.
Make sure to use the pre-launch checklist on the developer
website to help catch any issues before you launch.
In conclusion, the whole process of getting your agents
onto Google Search and Google Maps are as follows--
create your agent, configure your agent,
create locations for each brick and mortar place,
verify your agent, verify your locations, launch your agents,
and then launch your locations.
Now that you have this information,
verify and launch as many agents and locations
as your heart desires.
Thank you for watching this video.
Make sure to check out some of the other resources,
such as the Developer website, the Marketing Toolkit,
and the Product website.
Make sure to catch us at our biweekly office hours.
Thank you again and see you soon.