All enhancements - 14 (September - December)

AskHR in Slack

We've changed how we deploy the AskHR bot to your Slack workspace. The new setup makes it easier to manage the AskHR Slack app. Now, you can set things up directly through Slack. You can find important information like the API key in Applaud, which makes it easier to update. If you want to learn more about our AI bot, you can see our knowledge base article, AI assistant overview.

User sign-in from external apps for chatbot

We've added authentication support to the Applaud chatbot integration with external applications like Slack and Microsoft Teams. So, users who interact with the Applaud chatbot within these platforms must authenticate using credentials specific to the external application.

This change ensures secure access and a seamless experience, allowing users to interact with the chatbot while maintaining compliance with the authentication standards of these external platforms.

Custom AskHR Slack application

We've made the AskHR Slack app customizable so you can personalize the app to match your branding and operational needs, and you can manage the app in your Slack workspace.

Customization options

When configuring your custom Slack app, you can change:

• Logo: Keep your HR bot on brand.
• App name: Keep AskHR or create your bot name.
• Welcome message: Add helpful information for your users.

See our knowledge base article, Configuring a custom Slack application.

Tab structure

To enhance usability, we've added three distinct tabs for managing the app in Slack:

• Home: Admins manage the application connection with the Applaud URL and API Key. Users manage their user account connection authentication.
• Messages: All users can chat with the HR bot after a successful connection.
• About: Options to customize details, screenshots, and videos about AskHR.

Admin and user-specific functionality

We have introduced advanced user management features. Administrators can directly connect the app to their organization's Applaud tenant within Slack using their URL and API key.

Administrators can suspend or disconnect users to maintain security, which terminates their user session automatically. Additionally, user tokens are stored securely and refreshed as needed to ensure uninterrupted access while maintaining data privacy. Read more about customizing your new Slack bot in our knowledge base article, Configuring a custom Slack application.

Company name and brand name

Companies can undergo rebranding occasionally to align with changing market trends or business strategies. You can now implement the name change in a single central location rather than requiring extensive modifications to remove the old branding from various places. This streamlined approach simplifies rebranding, ensuring consistency and efficiency across all platforms.

Company name

We changed the Organization Name to the Company Name for clarity and consistency, which helps users identify businesses and improves navigation.

Applaud Brand name

We've changed the Theme name to the Applaud Brand name to emphasize branding. You can now use spaces in the field, allowing names like "My HR" or "People Portal." These updates improve how you represent your brand on the platform. See our knowledge base article, Create a new brand.

AI bot prompts

To personalize bot prompts to fit your brand identity, we added two new tokens:

• Applaud Brand Name
• Company name

In the "What do you want this bot to do?" box of the AI bot settings, you can select these tokens to automatically fill in the value from {applaudBrandName} and {companyName}, which updates based on the active brand's settings. If "Applaud" is the only active brand, it will be the default.

Any changes you make to the Applaud Brand Name automatically update the related bot prompts without extra adjustments. See our knowledge base article, Add a new chatbot.

Generate text workflow action

We've enhanced the Generate text workflow action by introducing the two new tokens:

• Applaud Brand name
• Company name

When adding a new Generate text workflow action, you can select these tokens from the list. The Applaud Brand name token dynamically uses the {applaudBrandName} value from the active brand's settings, with a fallback to the Applaud brand if you don't select one.

Similarly, the Company name token uses the {companyName} value from the brand settings. If you change either value in the brand settings, the workflow reflects the changes automatically without requiring manual updates, ensuring seamless personalization and consistency.

See our knowledge base article, Add a Generate text workflow action.

Link a task to an external link

We have added a new property to the standard Task model so you can add an external link to a custom task:

• Task External Href

Users with the Experience Designer role can use this property across various workflows for custom task actions.

Workflow Actions

You can use the Create Model Instance workflow action to set the external link value:

You can also use the Retrieve information workflow action to retrieve the Task External Href property:

When retrieving data from the Task model, you can select this property in subsequent workflow actions, such as Set Property and If/Then branches workflow actions:

• Retrieved Task.Task External Href

Advanced filter based on selected form field values

We have introduced an additional filtering layer for form field values based on the selections made in other fields.

• Field - {field name}

When you add an advanced filter to a foreign key field, you can now choose a previous field in the form to filter the options of the current field based on the value selected in that prior field.

For example, suppose you have a field to select a country and another field to choose a department. You can apply an advanced filter to the department list so that when you select a country, only the departments within that country will be displayed for you to choose from.

For more information about editing field settings, see our knowledge base article, Edit field - select-single.

User chatbot feedback

We have enhanced the conversation management experience for AI assistants like AskHR, emphasizing improving feedback visibility, filtering options, and actionable insights.

We've introduced a new Feedback page for each chatbot, allowing you to view a list of conversations where users have submitted feedback.

You can quickly identify which conversations received positive or negative ratings through colored chips next to each conversation. Also, you can just filter the list to show only positive or negative feedback.

You can select a conversation to view the transcript, the corresponding feedback (positive or negative), and any comments the user provides.

You can access the bot's Feedback page when managing it or from the Chatbot analytics page by selecting it from the Most Used Bots list.

Product admin user role

To enhance user management and streamline access to features, we've introduced a new user role:

• Product admin

This role is now available alongside standard roles like Experience Designer and Identity Manager. It can access these pages:

• Brands
• Settings
• Chatbots
• Analytics pages

To add this role to a user, see our knowledge base article, Assign or revoke a role.

Video uploads

We've added support so you can now upload videos in the Rich text content block. For your safety and to ensure virus protection, the maximum file size for uploads is 20MB. Please make sure your videos meet this requirement before you try to upload.

You can continue to add links to videos using the add video link button. See our knowledge base article, Add a rich text block.