Lex Auto Publishing Setup

Objective

This guide will help you integrate both your iX Hello and Amazon Lex accounts for seamless publishing of your custom apps built on iX Hello to the AWS-Lex console

Pre-requisites

1. An active AWS account

This integration will require a login to an active AWS account. An account can be created at https://portal.aws.amazon.com/billing/signup#/start

AWS Accounts Include 12 Months of Free Tier Access

1. An iX Hello Account

For steps to create an iX Hello account, use the following steps:

https://docs.ixhello.com/ixhc/general/ixhello-create-account

1. An app in the iX Hello account

One app in iX Hello should be created and at least one Utterance as well.

1. Access key, Secret Access key, and AWS Region To be able to connect to Amazon Lex from the iX Hello platform, one IAM user is required. That user should have the required permissions to access Lex service. The following is a JSON document which you can use to create an IAM policy and assign it to the IAM user in the AWS console.

{
	"Version": "2012-10-17",
	"Statement": [
		{
			"Sid": "ixHello",
			"Effect": "Allow",
			"Action": [],
			"Resource": []
		}
	]
}

For more information on creating IAM users and assigning policies, refer to the AWS official documentation https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/create-access-key/

You can also refer to the simplified iX Hello documentation at Aws-iam-users

All pre-requisites must be satisfied before proceeding.

Now let’s begin using iX Hello platform with Amazon Lex.

Set up connection to Amazon Lex

1. Login to the iX Hello platform, use left navigation menu and click “Integration” then select “Connect System”. In the resulting page, click “Add New Connection”.

Choose Connection: Amazon Lex

Click: Next

1. Once in “Connect System” the configuration screen below will appear. Provide connection information as shown below:

Service Instance Name: You can give any value of your choice

Consumer Key: This information is made available in prerequisites

Consumer Secret: This information is made available in prerequisites

Region: This information is made available in prerequisites

Click: Validate and Save Settings

See below additional information.

The table below explains each of the inputs shown on this screen:

Input	Information
Service Instance Name	You can give any value of your choice.
Consumer Key	This is your AWS-Access key ID
Consumer Secret	This is your AWS-Secret access key
Region	AWS Region Name. The Lex service will be used in this region. When used to publish the app, it will be published in this region.

1. Once validation is confirmed the details of integration will be saved. The integrations listing page will be shown as below.

The Lex connection is ready to use for future usage.

Create Custom App in iX Hello

1. Return to the left navigation menu, click “Apps” then “Custom Apps”. This page will display a list of the apps already created and provide an option to create a new app.

2. At this point, there should be an app created, if not create an app and add one or more required methods and utterances.

3. Creating an app is not part of the scope of this guide, The iX Hello platform supports many integrations for the app. Please refer to the specific documentation for the same.

Reference:

If you do not have an app ready, you can refer to this link to see get detailed information on how to create a custom app.

Publish to Amazon Lex

1. In the top menu tabs, select “Publish” then click “Add App Publishing”.

1. Once in “Add App Publishing” the popup screen will appear.

Input	Explanation
External App Name	This is the name of the app. You can give name of your choice.
App Type	It should be “Search”
Channel	Must be “Amazon Lex”
Channel Sub Type	Lex V2
Auto Publish	Keep it selected
Welcome Message	Should be auto populated.
Re-Prompt Message	Should be auto populated.
Help Message	Should be auto populated.
Goodbye Message	Should be auto populated.
Fall Back Message	Should be auto populated.

1. Publish to Lex” and this will initiate the publish process. The following results screen will appear as shown below.

2. The results screen has an option to go to the “Go to LexV2 App” or “Go Back to App Publishing”.

Selected App: Contact Finder Rest API (Name of the App to be published in Lex)

1. Select Amazon Lex Account, If not present then click "Add New Lex Account".

2. Afer selecting Lex Account, Click “Publish to Lex V2” and this will initiate the publish process. The following results screen will appear as shown below.

3. The results screen has an option to go to the "Test Lex Bot" or "Go to LexV2 Console" or "Go Back to App Publishing".

Test the App on Amazon Lex

1. On the app publishing results page, a Go to LexV2 Console, will appear as shown.

1. Click on it, you will be redirected to the newly created Lex bot on the AWS console.

2. On the Amazon Lex bot page, ensure “Build Completed”. If not completed then the bot will be unable to test. Once in Lex, you should land on this screen.

1. Make sure it’s displaying the correct app name at the top left and then click “Test” option at the right side and then the test bot screen will appear as shown below.

1. Start testing by writing utterance in the chat area and Lex will connect to the app configured in the iX Hello platform. At this time a relevant response will be received.

Congratulations!

You have successfully completed an app publishing to the AWS-Lex console.