#Commands

Overview

#Commands are special keywords that a partner can make available to learners. Each command will initiate a specific Script, which can be customized by communication channel (SMS or web-chat). These keywords can be triggered at any point during a conversation (including during a Campaign).

#Commands provide your learners with additional resources and the ability to control the conversation. For example, a learner may initiate the #followup command to get an answer from a human, or might trigger a #registration command to get step-by-step guidance on a complex process. 

Informing Contacts

There are many ways to let your learners know that these #Commands are available to them.

• You can add the command to a Knowledge base answer so the learner can decide to use it whenever they ask about a specific topic. For example, add the #followup to the fallback responses, that way learners can trigger #followup whenever the bot can't assist. You can also remind learners about #followup in understandings where a contact asks to speak to a human.
• You can also mention these commands on your social media platforms or your website to get learners to engage with your bot. For example, you can have a command that captures feedback (ex: #feedback) and advertise the command outside of Mainstay, so that contacts can give you feedback.
• You can inform students of the commands available to them in your intro message (for both web-chat and SMS).
• You can also create a command that lists all available commands via a script. For example #list might trigger a script that tells learners about all the other commands available to them.

Creating / Editing #Commands

1. Navigate to the Knowledge Base section, and then the #Commands tool in the sidebar.
2. Click the Create Command button to open the Command Editor drawer.
   • Click the pencil icon to edit an existing command.
3. Provide the keyword that triggers this script.
   • Note: You can add multiple keywords that all trigger the same script.
4. Add a Description. This is not visible to learners.
5. For each channel your institution uses, you can then select the script to trigger when this keyword is received.
   • Note: You can select a different Script for each channel. For SMS contacts, you likely know who you're talking to already, but for web-chat contacts, you might need to capture email or phone number so you can follow up with the learner later.
6. Use the toggle to enable or disable the command. (You can also control this from the list.)

Reporting

1. In the top-right of the Command Editor drawer, click the download arrow.
2. This will export a CSV of all learner interactions with this #command. You can customize which default, custom, and campaign/script fields to include, as well as the name of the file.
   • 
   • Note: if there is no activity for this #command, the file will be entirely empty, regardless of which columns are selected here.
3. Make sure that your browser supports multiple downloads, since it will download different files if you use a different script for each channel.

Default Commands

Several commands are automatically available to contacts:

• #pause: This allows contacts to temporarily opt-out of receiving messages. See Opt-Out Commands.
  • #unsubscribe, #cancel, and #quit are aliases for #pause, so these keywords are also reserved.
• #stop: This opts out the contact so they no longer receive messages. However, this status is not stored at the phone carrier level (like actual STOP would be).
• #language: This allows contacts to set their language preference for all outgoing messages. See Multi-language for SMS and Multi-language for web-chat.
  • The word "language" in other languages (for example, #lingua in Spanish) also works to trigger the change language script.
• #changename: This allows contacts to set a preferred name for personalized messages. See contacts page. This can be disabled on the main Settings page:
• #scholarshipbot: This allows learners to search for scholarships they can apply for. See #scholarshipbot for details.