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JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Welcome to a "Assistant on Air"
where we have conversations about building
for Google Assistant.
I'm Jessica.
And I'm here with Tony.
And we'll be your hosts today.
We are Developer Relations Engineers for Google Assistant.
And today, we're going to be answering
some of the frequently asked questions
we've gotten from the Conversational Action Sunset.
Thanks, Tony, for being here with me.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Glad to be here
and I'm glad we can clear up some of the confusion
and just make sure everybody's on the same page.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Right and so a lot
of these questions we got from out in the community.
People have tweeted at us.
Or they've sent messages.
Or they send a message to someone else who sent it to us.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Exactly.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: So we've got a lot of questions
that we want just to spend some time and answer them.
Great, so we're going to just be doing a--
I'll ask questions.
You'll answer.
And we'll just tackle right through them.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Sounds like a plan.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Great, so the first question we have
is, can I create new Conversational Actions?
And can I update, download, delete,
and/or deploy my existing Conversational Actions.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Yeah, so that is not
changing until June 2023, which was the sunset announcement
date.
So until that time, developers can still
create new actions, which is great, especially
if anybody had any workshops planned or lessons
planned around that.
So that is not going away until next June.
And then, you can also still download, access,
delete your actions, anything like that until that date.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Fantastic, can I still
build Conversational Actions with Dialog Flow?
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Yeah, so there are no changes coming
for Dialog Flow.
That's a separate team.
They've got their own development paths.
So change is coming on that.
So you can still continue building, editing, deploying
conversational actions with Dialog Flow
until the sunset date.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Great, fantastic,
next question that we have is, do I have to delete my action
or do any cleanup once the deprecation or the sunset
happens in June 2023?
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Once the deprecation happens,
Google is handling all of that.
So there's nothing for developers
to have to worry about.
You don't need to delete anything.
You don't need to clear anything out
of the Console or anything like that.
We'll be handling that for developers.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Fantastic, so next of natural question
is, what happens to that content that I built
using Conversational Actions.
So is there any way that I can access this?
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Yeah, so we have--
again, the project is going to be available and accessible
through the Actions console until next June.
And in the interim until then, you
can still download your project using the Actions SDK.
And if anybody needs any directions on how to do that,
we actually have an entire page in our documentation
on that process.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: So next question
that I have is, how will users be informed about this sunset?
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: So that was something
that was very important to us.
We wanted to make sure that it was clear to users
that this was a change that Google was making specifically.
We wanted to support our developers in that
and let that know.
So we will be informing users as they query your Actions.
As we get closer to the sunset, the Assistant
will respond with a notification that these
are going to be sunset.
And then once the actual deprecation happens,
there will be a separate notification
for users when they try and trigger
your Actions, to let them know that Google has changed this.
And it has been sunset.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: OK, fantastic, so as a developer,
I don't have to worry about sending out
messages and letting people know what to do.
Google will be handling that.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Yeah, the one thing
that you would want to keep in mind as a developer
is if you decide to change into another development path
or try and deploy a new form of your Conversational Action.
If there are changes to the invocations on that,
that's what you would need to inform your users of.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: OK, so if I make any changes,
I should let folks know.
But, overall--
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Yeah.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Google, great.
So a question that I've actually seen quite often
is, when it comes to Interactive Canvas and games--
because right now, that is one of the most popular experiences
with Interactive Canvas, is using games,
that's under the Conversational Action umbrella.
So does that mean that Conversational Actions are also
being sunsetted?
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Yeah, so Interactive Canvas Actions
will be sunset, because those are unfortunately part of this.
And for those user journeys, we would recommend, actually,
developers move towards App Actions,
because then they can leverage the entire Android
ecosystem and the screen environments
in there to build out that same game experience.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Yeah and that
makes sense because-- actually, because Android has such
a rich ecosystem within games.
That's its own kind of genre--
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Exactly.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: --as well.
So that makes a lot of sense, great.
Another question I've seen quite often
is, what's the differences between Conversational Actions
and App Actions, because people are moving
from that to our App Actions?
And I would love, Tony, for you to play along with me.
So I'm going to have you be Conversational Actions.
And I will be App Actions.
And so, let's go some of the key things
that people should be mindful of.
And we'll just go one by one.
So for App Actions, what happens with App Actions or the way
users interact with it is that a user says a query.
And then that query will be matched to a built in Intent.
Parameters will be passed.
And the Android application will open
to that section in the Android application,
along with any of the parameters.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Yeah, so instead of the single shot
or one shot action with App Actions,
Conversational Actions are much more of a back and forth.
So the user would engage, make a query to the Assistant,
the Assistant would ask more follow up questions
to get all of those parameters and build out the response
to the user.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Yeah, and then,
when it comes to building App Actions,
you'll be using Android.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: And with Conversational Actions,
that has all been developed on Dialog Flow or the Actions
Builder or the Actions SDK, so a little bit of a change there.
And then, that also includes other conversational management
tools that folks may have been using.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: And then, when
it comes to language support, App Actions currently
supports mainly English.
That's the primary language that we've started with.
There is a subset BIIs that supports Spanish, Portuguese,
and Indonesian as well.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: And with Conversational Actions,
there was actually support for 20 different languages.
So that is something that is a big difference.
So it might be a little bit of a change for developers
if they have their Actions supported
in a lot of different locales.
But we are working on updating them.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Yeah, I remember when I first
started off with Conversational Actions,
we didn't have all of these languages.
And so, what I'm envisioning is almost
like we're going to start rolling out the languages
as we're going along.
I know something else that--
when it was early on when I joined four years ago,
we were throwing out lots of languages.
And they weren't always the best.
And so, I know we didn't make an active--
we were proactive of, no, let's take--
let's have these languages roll out more slowly.
But we want them to be good, because the last thing you want
is to have an experience that's not great, because then users
won't try it again.
So I know that's something that we were really mindful of.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Yeah, and that's one of the areas
that we're really focusing on is that quality
of that user engagement.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: So yeah, definitely.
OK, so this is the last question we're going to go over.
And it's a meaty one.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Yeah.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: And this has to do
with understanding the user journeys for App Actions.
And so, what is some of the benefits that a user will get
and then, also, a developer would get within App Actions.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: So it is, as you said,
definitely a meaty question.
But App Actions fundamentally allows
users to launch Android apps to the point or the shortcut
into the app to whatever they're trying to accomplish.
So first thing we would have, as you mentioned earlier,
the user makes the query.
The app would be opened with the supportive parameters that
were identified with the built in Intent.
And those would map to the equivalent of prebuilt types
or entities in the Conversational Action world.
And then, for the use case of the example of somebody trying
to order a pizza, hey, G, order a pizza on my example app,
the app would open to a started order where the user can then
customize their pizza order.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Right, I like
to think of that as, it makes it--
you don't have to go deep into the Android app
to get to what you want.
So it kind of shortcuts you.
It fast forwards you into that spot,
so you can start getting things done.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Exactly and, then, we also
have dynamic shortcuts, which allows
the users to jump into that shortcut at customized spots.
So if you had a note-taking app, for example,
you, as the developer, could push the name of the notes
to the users.
So if I had different lists of my to do lists for at home,
my to do lists for work, my chores list, whatever
I wanted to call those different notes,
then you could actually use those given names
as the developer and push those directly to me as the user.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: How great would that
be from a developer point of view
too, where you want to think about all the user journeys,
and try to figure out all the use cases,
and really be able to just push these things dynamically?
And then, of course, from the user's point of view,
you get to have that completely customized experience.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Right and, then, we also
have another big feature that's a really good benefit
is the in-app promo, SDK.
So that allows developers to provide users
an option once they've gone through that user journey
one time.
So again, if we go back to the ordering of pizza
and you have your custom pizza order--
some folks like more cheese.
Some folks like pepperoni or any of those--
not strange toppings but toppings
that they would put on there.
They have their preferences.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Preferences.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Yeah, exactly,
so once you go through that experience once,
then you could actually--
your app can actually suggest to the user
that they can have a shortcut for, hey, order my usual pizza.
And that would actually be an option that they can do.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Yeah, so it creates like a custom Assistant
shortcut.
And that way, the user can just say, hey, G,
order my regular pizza, versus having to go, start pizza order
and then have to have the whole journey.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Exactly and then we actually-- there's
another couple of other features that the Assistant offers
to developers as well, where they don't actually have
to do any development work.
These are just features that are automatically offered to users.
So it helps streamline that as well.
And the first of those is we have app install suggestions.
So this is for the use case of, if a user wants to do--
wants to accomplish something, they ask the Assistant.
The Assistant is smart enough to know what
capabilities your apps support.
And so, even if the user doesn't have your app installed
on their phone, the Assistant will actually
pull up your app's Google Play store page
and encourage the user to install it on their device.
So that way, they can then complete their user journey.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Right, oh, my gosh, I
could see this being really beneficial for-- especially
for folks who are not as tech savvy.
I know I have friends and family that just go in
to the Play store, finding the application
and then downloading it.
It's tedious.
So that's really nice that you can be able to shortcut that
and just, hey, see this query.
And it will-- if you don't have the application,
you can download it right there.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Exactly.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Click it a button.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: And then related to that,
we also have brand list queries which, for users who--
you get into the flow of things.
You don't necessarily identify specific apps
that you're trying to complete an Action.
Or you just like I said, you're not necessarily
thinking about how do I exactly say this query?
So you could just say, hey, order my usual pizza.
You don't even have to identify the app.
And, again, the Assistant is smart enough
to know what capabilities your app supports.
So then, it can automatically direct the user to your app
to complete that journey, so as long as it's already
installed on their device.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Yeah, I actually
use that a lot when I do my walks.
I just say, hey, G, start my walk.
And I don't have to say open up that particular application
or reference it, because I only have one application.
And it has that built in Intent supported.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: So it shortcuts
that user journey for you.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Right exactly, it
makes it really nice and easy.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Exactly.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Fantastic, well, thank you so much, Tony,
for hanging out with us and for answering
all of these questions that developers had.
I really appreciate it.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Yeah and glad we could answer some of these.
Obviously, we-- we're still taking more questions.
So if you have more or you thought of anything new,
please continue to send them our way.
And I'll be glad to answer them.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Yeah, definitely, thank you so much.
We hope that you enjoyed today's episode.
And if you have any suggestions for future episodes,
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And don't forget to sign up for our newsletter I've
been Jessica, chat with you next time.
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