

You cannot write a bot service without setting it up with a question and answer section. You may not even have to create this section from scratch since some of them will already exist in your FAQ section or the other documents. You can make it even easier on yourself by using the Microsoft Cognitive Services QnA Maker to bootstrap your bot.

Bootstrap Your Bot

What is a Bot?

You have likely been using bots for several years so it is more likely that you do not know what it is than never to have used one. Still, if this term is new to you, you may be wondering what it is exactly. A bot is a type of application that performs automated tasks for you. Some examples of bots are setting alarms on your phone, ordering pizza through an app, searching online, and even checking the weather online or on your phone.

What is the Microsoft Cognitive Services QnA Maker?

This web-based service offered by Microsoft is free and easy-to-use. It can train AI to respond to any questions in a way that is conversational. As an added benefit, it can even act as an additional FAQ to be used in your bot code. When you are determining the source of your knowledge base, you can extract data in the form of questions and answers and create your own knowledge base in a matter of minutes.

Steps to Use the QnA Maker

There are three steps to use the QnA Maker: extraction, training, and publishing.


When you extract content you are essentially creating your knowledge base. All you have to do is point by the tool to your existing content and ingest the QnA content. It can also automatically extract data from your documents and your FAQ urls. you can easily edit, remove, and add data as well so you can train the knowledge base.


The next step is training your knowledge base. It may likely be the most important component. It lets you evaluate how correct your responses are and you can retrain them if they are incorrect. You do this by either chatting with your knowledge base and adding to an existing answer if needed or by replaying live chat blogs. Once you are happy with your scope of responses, you can publish the knowledge base as your API endpoint.


Before you publish everything, you should preview the changes and data to see how it impacts the knowledge base. To do this, you will download the diff file. After you determine if you are satisfied, you will click on Publish. Once published, it will be exposed as an HTTP endpoint and it will take in a question and respond accordingly.

You can integrate this into the Azure Bot Service as a Question and Answer template. This is a good example of how Microsoft is doing more and more to develop technology for business owners. For more information on the system and how you can use it for your business in Manhattan, be sure to contact Krantz Secure Technologies by reaching out via (212) 286-0325 or by emailing them at

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