Champaign-Urbana Transit Chatbot

A facebook chatbot for use with the CUMTD developer API built with Flask. Gives incoming bus departures for a given bus stop searched by the user.

Setup

The provided procfile is used for deployment using Heroku. These instructions assume that you use Heroku for deployment and that a new app is already created for your bot through Heroku. Note that Heroku still requires you to enter a valid credit card to use their free Heroku redis addon.

Requirements

• Python 3
• Redis or a Redis addon through your platform

Installation Instructions

Clone the repository inside your current directory:

$ git clone https://github.com/alex-wuu/cumtd-chatbot.git cumtd-chatbot
$ cd cumtd-chatbot

Install virtualenv if you don't have it:

$ pip install virtualenv

Create your virtual environment with virtualenv if desired. venv can be changed to the virtual environment name of your choice:

$ virtualenv venv

Activate your virtual environment:

$ source venv/bin/activate

Install package dependencies with pip:

$ pip install -r app/requirements.txt

Add environment variables. This can be done through your platform, e.g. Heroku, or through an additional config file. If you use a config file, then it needs to be imported in server.py.

• PAGE_ACCESS_TOKEN is the page access token generated from your app's Facebook developers page. See the Deployment section for more information.
• VERIFICATION_TOKEN is the "Verify Token" entered when a webhook is set up through your app's Facebook developers page. See the Deployment section for more information.
• CUMTD_KEY is your API key from CUMTD.
• FB_URL is used as a starting point for requests with the Facebook graph API, e.g. https://graph.facebook.com/v2.11/me/messages.
• BASE_URL is used as a starting point for requests with the CUMTD API with the format https://developer.cumtd.com/api/{version}/{format}/{method}?key={api_key}.
• REDIS_URL is your Redis URL.
• CUSTOM_STOPS string containing user defined custom stops in a dictionary format. This is used to account for common bus stop acronyms/nicknames that aren't caught by the CUMTD API.

Set up your Redis. The Heroku redis addon was used for creating the app.

Deployment

If you're using Heroku, then you can add a remote to the local repository with the following command and your app's name:

$ heroku git:remote -a YOUR_HEROKU_APP_NAME

Deploy the app with:

$ git subtree push --prefix app heroku master

Or if you move all the files from the app subdirectory to the root directory, then you can deploy this way:

$ git add .
$ git commit -m "Moved files from subdirectory root directory"
$ git push heroku master

Your bot's URL is shown as the "Web URL" from your Heroku app's info:

$ heroku apps:info

Create a new Facebook app for the chatbot through the developers page. Click on the "My Apps" button and add a new app. Go to your new app's page, then click "Messenger" on the left side to get to the messenger platform. Add a webhook and set the callback URL to the chatbot's URL supplied by Heroku, and check the "messages" and "messaging_postbacks" boxes. The "Verify Token" you set corresponds to the VERIFICATION_TOKEN environment variable. Create a page for your bot so a "Page Access Token" can be generated, which corresponds to the PAGE_ACCESS_TOKEN environment variable. Enable NLP under the "Built-in NLP" section.

Take note of the Facebook graph API version, e.g. v2.11, you are using by going to "Webhooks" page on the left side.

Add a Get Started button to your bot by setting the get_started Messenger Profile property. Your command will look like this:

curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{
  "get_started":{
    "payload":"get_started"
  },
  "greeting":[{
    "locale":"default",
    "text":"Gives bus stop departures in the Champaign-Urbana area. Data provided by CUMTD."
  }]
}' "https://graph.facebook.com/{version}/me/messenger_profile?access_token={PAGE_ACCESS_TOKEN}"

Go to the Facebook page you created for your chatbot and say hi or send a bus stop!