December 8, 2016 at 20:45Why do not write bots for Skype
Some time ago, I promised the "specialists" of the Skype / Microsoft support service to publish this article. And promises, as you know, must be kept.
Six months ago, I wrote a bot for Skype (the creation of the bot itself was not without difficulties due to incomplete Microsoft documentation, see my article on this).
I now will not even say that the bot for some unknown reason stopped working, and only resumed work after writing to Microsoft.
Let's talk about the publication of the bot, including Publish it to Directory.
In a previous article, I wrote:
I requested the publication of the bot in mid-April. The answer (denial of publication) was received on April 22 (follow the dates). He read as follows:
I will not translate everything completely and cite my answer in its entirety. In short, I was asked to translate into English a phrase that was intended only for Russian users (she said "send me <hi> if you want to speak Russian"), they asked me to write Privacy and TOS (for the bot!), Referred to the requirements of the guideline , which does not exist, and was asked to check the team, whose support in the bot was not announced anywhere.
On April 28, confirmation came that the bot was published.
On May 12, I realized that the publication of the bot requested through the personal account is not a publication of the bot in the Directory, it is a change in the status of the bot so that more than 100 people can use it. I requested the publication of the bot in Directory (by letter). The answer was received only on June 20 (after several reminders from my side):
In response, they write that they decided not to publish my bot. Without specifying a reason. June 21, I requested a reason. The answer is silence. After being reminded, the answer came July 26th:
Those. “We decided not to publish the bot in Directory, but we can’t tell why. Continue to work on the bot and maybe we will publish it. ” Ingenious? It seems to me that yes. Bot developers are encouraged to guess Microsoft's wishes.
Do you still want to develop bots for Skype? If so, read on.
In November, my bot suddenly began to receive new messages about the format of which he did not know. Entering your personal account on November 29(the link to it is already redirecting to a new office), I found out that Microsoft has released a new version of the API for bots - version 3 (the previous one was the first, where the second went, it is unknown), and from November 30 they stop supporting bots launched through the old personal cabinet. That is, firstly, they broke the API of the first version. Secondly, they launched a new version of the API (without sending a single letter about this). And thirdly, they simply turned off the old bots, notifying about it only by a message in your account (Read More link, by the way, in this notification led to an incorrect document). "Old" bots now need to be registered again - they now have new id, goodbye to old users!
Do you need similar surprises from Microsoft?
Six months ago, I wrote a bot for Skype (the creation of the bot itself was not without difficulties due to incomplete Microsoft documentation, see my article on this).
I now will not even say that the bot for some unknown reason stopped working, and only resumed work after writing to Microsoft.
Let's talk about the publication of the bot, including Publish it to Directory.
In a previous article, I wrote:
How long the publication process takes is not clear, this is not in the documentation. My bot has not yet been published. At the official forum, my question on this topic is bypassed (although Microsoft employees answer my other questions).
I requested the publication of the bot in mid-April. The answer (denial of publication) was received on April 22 (follow the dates). He read as follows:
1. Line of Greeting and Help Command option is in Russian and not localized to English
2. Privacy Policy and Terms of Use descriptions are clustered into one paragraph and not easy to follow. Please fix this.
3. No appropriate Welcome Greeting
Skype Guideline: 1
4. Not all described bot help functions work as expected including the Session command option, which is not understood by the bot
I will not translate everything completely and cite my answer in its entirety. In short, I was asked to translate into English a phrase that was intended only for Russian users (she said "send me <hi> if you want to speak Russian"), they asked me to write Privacy and TOS (for the bot!), Referred to the requirements of the guideline , which does not exist, and was asked to check the team, whose support in the bot was not announced anywhere.
On April 28, confirmation came that the bot was published.
On May 12, I realized that the publication of the bot requested through the personal account is not a publication of the bot in the Directory, it is a change in the status of the bot so that more than 100 people can use it. I requested the publication of the bot in Directory (by letter). The answer was received only on June 20 (after several reminders from my side):
We have decided that your bot will not be published in the bot directory at this time. However, we have already approved your bot to be granted a join link, which you can use for your personal promotion to users from your website.
In response, they write that they decided not to publish my bot. Without specifying a reason. June 21, I requested a reason. The answer is silence. After being reminded, the answer came July 26th:
We take a greater level of consideration when it comes to approving bots into the bot directory. We cannot release the criteria we use to determine this as it is internal. Based on our previous assessment of your bot, we collaboratively agreed that this bot in its current form would be best approved as a join link.
Please continue to work on your bot and make improvements so that we may re-review your bot in the future for additional consideration.
Those. “We decided not to publish the bot in Directory, but we can’t tell why. Continue to work on the bot and maybe we will publish it. ” Ingenious? It seems to me that yes. Bot developers are encouraged to guess Microsoft's wishes.
Do you still want to develop bots for Skype? If so, read on.
In November, my bot suddenly began to receive new messages about the format of which he did not know. Entering your personal account on November 29(the link to it is already redirecting to a new office), I found out that Microsoft has released a new version of the API for bots - version 3 (the previous one was the first, where the second went, it is unknown), and from November 30 they stop supporting bots launched through the old personal cabinet. That is, firstly, they broke the API of the first version. Secondly, they launched a new version of the API (without sending a single letter about this). And thirdly, they simply turned off the old bots, notifying about it only by a message in your account (Read More link, by the way, in this notification led to an incorrect document). "Old" bots now need to be registered again - they now have new id, goodbye to old users!
Do you need similar surprises from Microsoft?