Integrate Dialogflow Bot in ReactJS Websites

Last Updated on February 19, 2023

React JS is a popular web framework for creating user interfaces. The Facebook-owned framework is becoming hugely popular among developers. The reason being – Great documentation, developer friendliness and it is faster than most of the similar frameworks such as Angular.

In this post, we will be going through step by step procedure of integrating Dialogflow bot in React JS websites.

Prerequisites

To get started, you would need a Dialogflow bot or working knowledge of Dialogflow and React JS. To integrate the chatbots with React JS, you will need a Kommunicate account. All the aforementioned tools have free to try out. Additionally, Node should be installed in your system.

Steps to integrate Dialogflow bot in React JS websites

I am going to explain how I connected Dialogflow and React JS with the help of Kommunicate.

Note: To keep it very simple and straight this tutorial explains with really basic and plain code development. Also to mention, this project can be found on my Github.

🚀  Suggested Read:  How to add Chatbot to Express Js

Step 1: Create your Dialogflow bot

To get started, you can easily create a chatbot in Dialogflow. It is a very intuitive yet powerful chatbot building tool. Here’s a sample available to help you get started with your Dialogflow bot. To go further, you can create your own Intents & Entities.

Step 2: Integrate Dialogflow chatbot with Kommunicate

To integrate your Dialogflow bot in Kommunicate, log in to your Kommunicate dashboard and navigate to the Bot section. If you do not have an account, you can create one here. Locate the Dialogflow section and click on Integrate Bot.

Now, navigate to your Dialogflow console and download the service account key file. Here are the steps to locate the file:

1. Open Dialogflow agent settings (gear icon on the left panel)
2. Click on the google cloud link which is mentioned in the google project bar
3. In the Google, cloud page navigate to the Credentials section by clicking on API’s & services
4. Under the Credentials section find the service account and click on edit for Dialogflow integrations
5. At the bottom of the screen click on ADD key button and create a key option, JSON key will be downloaded
6. Now upload the Key file.

To integrate Dialogflow CX into Kommunicate follow the same instructions to download the JSON key and mention the Agent Id in the kommunicate dashboard

To get the Agent Id: Go to Dialogflow CX console >> Select the Project >> In the Agent you have created ‘Copy the agent name to the clipboard will be in the format mentioned below,  where the Agent Id is 54b0c663-2c01-4a09-a482-277ff39c0b05

In the bot profile section, you will be able to give your bot a name. This name will be visible to the users whenever they interact with the bot. Process further and fill the details.

In the last step, you will be asked to enable or disable the chatbot to human handoff. If enabled, the conversation will be passed on to a human in case the chatbot is not able to answer the question.

Complete the setup and then you can check and test your newly created bot in two places:

1. Dashboard →Bot Integration → Manage Bots: You can check all your integrated bots here
2. Dashboard → Bot Integration: Your Dialogflow icon should be green with the number of bots are you have successfully integrated. You will also have the option of testing your newly created bot here. (See image below)

Step 3: Create a React app

Create a new React app (my-app) by using the command:

npx create-react-app my-app

Step 4: Now, navigate to the my-app folder

cd my-app

Step 5: Create new file chat.js inside src folder

Once you create the chat.js, add the below code in componentDidMount. The below code will launch a chat widget on your website with the integrated Dialogflow bot. Make sure to replace <YOUR_APP_ID> with your Kommunicate application ID.

You can get this code in the install section of Kommunicate as well.

    (function(d, m){
        var kommunicateSettings = 
            {"appId":"kommunicate-support","popupWidget":true,"automaticChatOpenOnNavigation":true};
        var s = document.createElement("script"); s.type = "text/javascript"; s.async = true;
        s.src = "https://widget.kommunicate.io/v2/kommunicate.app";
        var h = document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]; h.appendChild(s);
        window.kommunicate = m; m._globals = kommunicateSettings;
    })(document, window.kommunicate || {});

Here’s a screenshot of my code editor for the same:

Step 6: Import KommunicateChat component in App.js

Import the KommunicateChat component in your App.js file. Here’s the screenshot of my code editor:

Step 7: Start your app locally

Use the following command to start your newly created website with the installed Dialogflow bot.

    npm start

Voila! How simple was that? In these few simple steps, you could integrate Dialogflow bot in React JS websites. This is how the chat widget looks on a website:

Wrapping Up

It is fairly simple to have a rich text enable chat widget with Dialogflow bot in your React JS websites. You can further customize the chat widget to match your website colors and theme.

Here is the quick video

Suggested Read: How to Add Chatbot in Vue.js Apps

Suggested Read: Integrate Dialogflow Chatbot with Angular JS

---

At Kommunicate, we are envisioning a world-beating customer support solution to empower the new era of customer support. We would love to have you on board to have a first-hand experience of Kommunicate. You can signup here and start delighting your customers right away.