Glossary of terms

This is a glossary of core terms relevant to working with flows.

Assistant

The interface that guides users through troubleshooting and other workflows. It is generally embedded in a product's support site in a similar manner to support chat bubbles or widgets. Opening it allows a user to start a conversation and seek a resolution for any support request they have. The questions, solutions, and other content presented by the assistant are determined by a flow.

Assistant builder

The UI used to build, edit, and maintain flows. This is used by Mavenoid admins and Mavenoid's internal flow editors.

To get started with the assistant builder, see Tutorial - Create a flow for live support or Tutorial - Create a flow for troubleshooting.

Card

The basic interactive unit of the assistant. Each card gives the user information and prompts for a response, with the information and the available responses determined by the underlying flow. Often a single card in the assistant maps directly to a single node in the flow, but this is not always the case.

Connector

The small circles on the sides of a node in a flow. Nodes are connected together by clicking and dragging a connector from one node to a connector on another node. Connectors on the left side of a node are input connectors while ones on the right side are output connectors; the assistant will move through a flow from left to right following the connections.

Because it must always be clear what the next node is, an output connector can only be connected to a single input connector. However, multiple output connectors can connect to the same input connector, which allows you to return to earlier points in a flow.

Escalation

When a flow is unable to resolve a user's issue and the conversation moves to an external support system.

See Understand escalation for more.

Flow

A representation of troubleshooting and other workflows used to support products. The flow defines what questions, solutions, and other content the assistant will provide to end users.

Flow component

A reusable flow or portion of a flow that can be included in other flows. For example, your overall flow may start by asking the user what kind of support request they have, and if they say they have a product problem, direct them to an embedded component for troubleshooting.

See Understand flow components for more.

Flow feedback

Suggestions on how to improve a specific flow. Feedback can be provided by flow editors within the assistant builder by support agents within the agent dashboard. Feedback can be viewed and managed within the assistant builder.

See Understand flow feedback for more.

Form data

Form data is data associated with a conversation. It can be set and used several different ways to enable advanced behavior within a flow.

See Understand form data for more.

Free text search

Free text search allows users to enter a natural-language description of their problem or goal into the assistant. This description is then used to search the flow to provide useful suggestions to the user without them needing to navigate the entire flow first. An exact text match is not required; the search is automatically expanded using synonyms and other common related terms.

See Understand search for more.

Markup

Mavenoid's markup language is a way to reference dynamic values in your flows. This allows you to use and display information that varies between users and conversations and which can't be known in advance.

See Understand markup for more.

Mavenoid admin

An owner or administrator of a Mavenoid integration. These users interact with Mavenoid to configure an assistant, configure integrations with email or ticketing systems, build or verify flows, and so on.

Node

The general term for the individual elements of a flow.

See Understand the types of nodes for details on the specific types of nodes.

PII

An acronym for Personally Identifiable Information. In working with form data, certain fields can be marked as PII. This will prevent the data from being stored in Mavenoid's servers or sent out in external tickets or transcripts; it will only be stored in the user client and used within the flow.

See Understand form data for more.

Related terms

In the context of free text search, related terms are alternate formulations that allow the relevant parts of a flow to be returned without requiring an exact text match.

See Understand search - Related terms for more.

Search shortcuts

In the context of free text search, search shortcuts are links that take the user directly to commonly-needed information without requiring them to perform a search first.

See Understand search - Search shortcuts for more.