Cliq Bots - Let your bot welcome it's subscribers via the welcome handler

Cliq Bots - Let your bot welcome it's subscribers via the welcome handler

In this post, we're going to shed light on how important it is for a bot to greet subscribers with a welcome message. We'll also be looking at how to configure a simple yet effective welcome handler! 

A welcome message is the first and the most important action / interaction performed by your bot. But why is it so important? 
  • A message that explains the user what the bot does will provide them with a concrete understanding of how the bot can help them. 
  • Including a call to action, such an instant button in the message will show the user how easy it is to interact with the bot.
Working of the bot welcome handler 

The bot welcome handler will be triggered to send a message when a user subscribes to a bot. Another interesting fact is that, the handler can also send a message to a user if they unsubscribe and subscribe to the bot again! There are a list of attributes passed when a welcome handler is triggered. Take a look at them in our welcome handler help page. 

Sample Scenario

Let us try to build a conference bot with a welcome message explaining the user on what the bot does and a call to action. Assuming the conference has a hackathon event where participants are encouraged to build applications. The welcome handler should serve the following purposes : 

  • The welcome message will explain all the necessary details- about the verticals available, how to get started with their application, so on and so forth. 
  • A call to action for the user to select their choice of vertical under which they can submit the application. 
  • Each entry from the user will be added to the creator form to maintain a record.
Sample Welcome Handler Code

  1. response = Map();
  2. response = {"text":" Hey *" + user.get("first_name") + "* !​ \n Welcome to ZylCal Developers Conference -2017 and thank you for subscribing! I'm here to help you with the following : \n ​​  Session Timings \n ​  Session Overview \n ​​  Feedback \n ​​  ZylCal Hackathon \n Click on any of the buttons know more about the respective topics! [+Sessions](invoke.function|conference|li.jung@zylker.com|session-1)  [+Hackathon](invoke.function|conference|li.jung@zylker.com|hack-2)"};
  3. return response;

Sample Functions Execution Code

  1. response = Map();
  2. message = Map();
  3. button_name = target.get("name");
  4. key = arguments.get("key");
  5. // details = zoho.creator.getRecords("<app_creator_name>","<application_name>","<form_name>","<condition>",1,1,"<insert_connection_name> ", <user_access>);

  7. details = zoho.creator.getRecords("lijungdeveloper","test","Sessions_Report","ID1 == 100",1,1," <insert_connection_name> ",true);
  8. if(key.matches("session-1"))
  9. {
  10. overview = details.toMap().get("Session_Overview");
  11. feedback = details.toMap().get("Feedback");
  12. response = {"text":" Please refer the session information (Details, Timings) from here! \n Session Overview: " + overview + " \n Feedback: " + feedback,"bot":{"name":"ZylCal Conf Bot","image":" <insert_bot_image_url> "}};
  13. }
  14. else if(key.matches("hack-2"))
  15. {
  16. response = {"text":"The hackathon event involves developing applications under any of these categories. Select any category to register with your name and email ID. \n [+Productivity](invoke.function|conference|li.jung@zylker.com|101)  [+IT-Admin](invoke.function|conference|li.jung@zylker.com|102) [+Entertainment](invoke.function|conference|li.jung@zylker.com|103)","bot":{"name":"ZylCal Conf Bot","image":" <insert_bot_image_url> "}};
  17. }
  18. else if(key.matches("101"))
  19. {
  20. dataMap = {"Resp":target.get("name"),"zuid":user.get("email")};
  21. record = zoho.creator.createRecord("lijungdeveloper","test","Hackathon",dataMap,"zohocreator2",true);
  22. response = {"text":"Awesome! Your name has been registered under the *" + target.get("name") + "* category! All the best. :grinning:","bot":{"name":"ZylCal Conf Bot","image":" <insert_bot_image_url> "}};
  23. }
  24. else if(key.matches("102"))
  25. {
  26. dataMap = {"Resp":target.get("name"),"zuid":user.get("email")};
  27. record = zoho.creator.createRecord("lijungdeveloper","test","Hackathon",dataMap,"zohocreator2",true);
  28. response = {"text":"Awesome! Your name has been registered under the *" + target.get("name") + "* category! All the best. :grinning:","bot":{"name":"ZylCal Conf Bot","image":" <insert_bot_image_url> "}};
  29. }
  30. else if(key.matches("103"))
  31. {
  32. dataMap = {"Resp":target.get("name"),"zuid":user.get("email")};
  33. record = zoho.creator.createRecord("lijungdeveloper","test","Hackathon",dataMap,"zohocreator2",true);
  34. response = {"text":"Awesome! Your name has been registered under the *" + target.get("name") + "* category! All the best. :grinning:","bot":{"name":"ZylCal Conf Bot","image":" <insert_bot_image_url> "}};
  35. }
  36. else
  37. {
  38. response = {"text":"I can only help you with these right now! To know any other information please contact support@zylcal.com"};
  39. }
  40. post = zoho.cliq.postToChat(chat.get("id"),response);
  41. return message;


The slide show below will give a better understanding of the sample execution!




The welcome handler sets an opening tone to the bot and also establishes a connection between the user and the bot. Try using this sample code snippet and let us know what you think! Comments and suggestions are welcome. 


Few useful links:




Best,
Manasa
Cliq

    Access your files securely from anywhere






                    Zoho Campaigns Resources




                          Zoho Developer Community



                              Bootcamp
                              Community
                              Pricing
                              Webinars
                              What's New
                              Integrations
                              Contact Support
                              Contact Sales
                                Zoho Survey Resources
                                  Features
                                  Survey Templates
                                  Integrations
                                  Community
                                  iOS Mobile Surveys
                                  Pricing
                                  Android Mobile Surveys
                                  Insurvey Blogs
                                  Insight Blogs
                                  Tips & Tricks





                                              Latest Feature Updates

                                                • Desk Community Learning Series


                                                • Digest


                                                • Functions


                                                • Meetups


                                                • Kbase


                                                • Resources


                                                • Glossary


                                                • Desk Marketplace


                                                • MVP Corner


                                                • Word of the Day


                                                • Ask the Experts




                                                    Zoho SalesIQ Resources

                                                          • Sticky Posts

                                                          • Customer payment alerts in Zoho Cliq

                                                            For businesses that depend on cash flow, payment updates are essential for operational decision-making and go beyond simple accounting entries. The sales team needs to be notified when invoices are cleared so that upcoming orders can be released. In contrast,

                                                          • Automating Employee Birthday Notifications in Zoho Cliq

                                                            Have you ever missed a birthday and felt like the office Grinch? Fear not, the Cliq Developer Platform has got your back! With Zoho Cliq's Schedulers, you can be the office party-cipant who never forgets a single cake, balloon, or awkward rendition of

                                                          • Accelerate Github code reviews with Zoho Cliq Platform's link handlers

                                                            Code reviews are critical, and they can get buried in conversations or lost when using multiple tools. With the Cliq Platform's link handlers, let's transform shared Github pull request links into interactive, real-time code reviews on channels. Share

                                                          • App Spotlight : PagerDuty for Zoho Cliq

                                                            App Spotlight brings you hand-picked apps to enhance the power of your Zoho apps and tools. Visit the Zoho Marketplace to explore all of our apps, integrations, and extensions. In today's fast-paced world, seizing every moment is essential for operational

                                                          • Automate your status with Cliq Schedulers

                                                            Imagine enjoying your favorite homemade meal during a peaceful lunch break, when suddenly there's a PING! A notification pops up and ruins your moment of zen. Even worse, you might be in a vital product development sprint, only to be derailed by a "quick


                                                          Manage your brands on social media
                                                          Access Zoho Social

                                                            Zoho Pagesense Resources


                                                                Zoho TeamInbox Resources

                                                                  Zoho DataPrep Resources


                                                                    Zoho CRM Plus Resources

                                                                      Zoho Books Resources


                                                                        Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                                                                          Zoho Projects Resources


                                                                            Zoho Sprints Resources


                                                                              Qntrl Resources


                                                                                Zoho Creator Resources



                                                                                    Zoho CRM Resources

                                                                                    • CRM Community Learning Series

                                                                                      CRM Community Learning Series


                                                                                    • Kaizen

                                                                                      Kaizen

                                                                                    • Functions

                                                                                      Functions

                                                                                    • Meetups

                                                                                      Meetups

                                                                                    • Kbase

                                                                                      Kbase

                                                                                    • Resources

                                                                                      Resources

                                                                                    • Digest

                                                                                      Digest

                                                                                    • CRM Marketplace

                                                                                      CRM Marketplace

                                                                                    • MVP Corner

                                                                                      MVP Corner







                                                                                        Design. Discuss. Deliver.

                                                                                        Create visually engaging stories with Zoho Show.

                                                                                        Get Started Now


                                                                                          Zoho Show Resources

                                                                                            Zoho Writer

                                                                                            Get Started. Write Away!

                                                                                            Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                                                                                              Zoho CRM コンテンツ






                                                                                                Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


                                                                                                    ご検討中の方




                                                                                                          • Recent Topics

                                                                                                          • Zoho Desk Android and iOS app update: Agent detail overview

                                                                                                            Hello everyone! We’ve introduced agent detail overview on the Zoho Desk Android and iOS app update. With this feature, you can get a complete view of agent’s tickets, response times, logged hours (for both tickets and activities), customer happiness ratings

                                                                                                          • Blog Widget: Show recent blog posts on my homepage

                                                                                                            Hey there I am using the Zoho Sites Blog feature. On my homepage, on the bottom I'd like to have a featured content section where I show some of my blog posts (selected, most recent, filtered by category and so on...). It would be nice to have a blog

                                                                                                          • How to iterate through excel data using zoho rpa

                                                                                                            I wanted to iterate or loop through excel data ( datatable). How can i do that

                                                                                                          • Zoho Commerce

                                                                                                            Hi, I have zoho one and use Zoho Books. I am very interested in Zoho Commerce , especially with how all is integrated but have a question. I do not want my store to show prices for customers that are not log in. Is there a way to hide the prices if not

                                                                                                          • Mass (Pull back) (Close WOs) (Close APs)

                                                                                                            Hi develop team. Just idea because Zoho FSM is great but its too manual. we have a lot of task to do every day and the system needs to have more features to automatic our tasks. I need to close several WOs, APs and Pull Back per day. Please we need mass

                                                                                                          • Customising Zohidesk portal default widgets

                                                                                                            Hello, I'm wondering how could I customise the default widgets such as "popular topics", "popular articles" using CSS or to make the tiles at the bottom match the ones that I made in the picture attached. I have made some custom widgets and edited them

                                                                                                          • If there’s a batch at the end, the ‘mark as inactive’ function doesn’t work.

                                                                                                            when my batch has a date to batch end and I "mark as inactive" he batch does not obey the status and reactivates the batch.

                                                                                                          • Seamless multilingual messaging and tone control in Zia IM Composer

                                                                                                            Hello everyone! Managing customer conversations across multiple languages can be time-consuming. Using Zia in the Instant Messaging (IM) Composer helps you overcome this by providing tools to translate content, adjust your tone, and refine your messages

                                                                                                          • Advanced Deluge help needed with custom function and COQL limits

                                                                                                            I have a scheduled function that takes a snapshot of specific metrics and saves them to a custom module. However I'm struggling with the limits of COQL. I attach my full code, but an example of the issues I'm having is that it's erroring with a 'Limit

                                                                                                          • Tip of the Week - Conditional Formatting Chart

                                                                                                            Conditional formatting allows you to highlight your data series based on a pattern or a trend in your data. This makes it easy for you to identify when your data reaches certain values or when it deviates from the trend.  Zoho Analytics allows you to

                                                                                                          • Zoho Learn - AI Translate

                                                                                                            Hi Learn team, I had a situation today where I was providing training to a client team and I had written articles into their Zoho Learn to support their learning. I realised that one of the team members was a non-native English speaker and they were struggling

                                                                                                          • Payroll In Canada

                                                                                                            Hi, When can we expect to have payroll in Canada with books 

                                                                                                          • Power of Automation :: Auto-Sync Custom Date Field Between Related Tasks via Blueprint Transition

                                                                                                            Hello Everyone, A custom function is a software code that can be used to automate a process and this allows you to automate a notification, call a webhook, or perform logic immediately after a workflow rule is triggered. This feature helps to automate

                                                                                                          • Introducing auto-upgrade in Zoho LandingPage

                                                                                                            Hi everyone, We’re excited to share an upcoming update to help you get the most out of your landing pages — the auto-upgrade option, launching on October 22, 2025. Your landing pages are designed to bring in leads, and we want to make sure you never miss

                                                                                                          • Workdrive comment links stopped working.

                                                                                                            I have marked a PDF file with 95 comments, they have worked for a while. When i clicked on them they brought me to the correct page and showed me the outline that i had drew on the plans. The comments included the page number of the outline, but now it

                                                                                                          • How to Bulk-Update Sales Orders in CRM

                                                                                                            Hi - I need to bulk update existing sales orders with dates from our ERP of when the sales orders were created. I made a date field on the Sales Order module where I want to insert that data. I can't Mass Update because I am not updating the fields to

                                                                                                          • Zoho ToDo in Cliq

                                                                                                            Our organization utilizes Zoho ToDo in the Zoho Mail Desktop app. Is there a way for these to show up in Cliq Desktop app as well?

                                                                                                          • 【Zoho CRM】サンドボックス機能のアップデート：カスタムビューが利用可能になりました。

                                                                                                            ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。コミュニティチームの中野です。 今回は「Zoho CRM アップデート情報」の中から、サンドボックス機能のアップデートをご紹介します。 目次 1. カスタムビューとは 2. 今回の機能アップデートについて 1. カスタムビューとは カスタムビューは、ユーザーが設定した条件に基づいてデータをフィルタリング・整理し、 重要な情報へ効率的にアクセスできるようにする機能です。 「過去15日間の見込み客」や「受注間近の商談」、「特定の優先度レベルが設定された案件」など 条件を指定してわずか数クリックで設定できます。

                                                                                                          • Changing an agents email address

                                                                                                            How do you change an agent's email address? I keep getting a red circle even though I am an admin. And on one of my agents he has two email addresses? How is that possible?

                                                                                                          • Zoho CRM - Potentials Tab

                                                                                                            Hi! When I create a Deal (Potentials tab) the header looks like this: After a refresh on the page it looks like this: What should I do so that it is displayed like in the second pic without refresh? Also I have a user that as of recently, cannot see this

                                                                                                          • Is there a way to automatically add Secondary Contacts (CCs) when creating a new ticket for specific customers?

                                                                                                            Some of our customers want multiple contacts to receive all notifications from our support team. Is there a way to automatically add secondary contacts to a ticket when our support team opens a new ticket and associates it with an account? This would

                                                                                                          • Unable to create embed code for resource of workdrive using API

                                                                                                            Hello Team, I am trying to create embed code for a resource using workdrive api in powershell, however facing some issues with injecting data in body. Followed Doc: https://workdrive.zoho.com/apidocs/v1/filefoldersharing/shareeveryone Please help, below

                                                                                                          • Feature Request - Insert URL Links in Folders

                                                                                                            I would love to see the ability to create simple URL links with titles in WorkDrive. or perhaps a WorkDrive extension to allow it. Example use case: A team is working on a project and there is project folder in WordDrive. The team uses LucidChart to create

                                                                                                          • not able to convert pdf to jpg and other forms and vice versa.

                                                                                                            i want to change my pdf to jpg, word, etc and some times jpg to pdf. i don't know how to do in this.

                                                                                                          • Enable / show scroll bar when Mega Menu is opened

                                                                                                            Hey there I am using the mega menu add-on and experience a "flicker" whenever the mega menu opens. The reason is, that the scrollbar, which has a width of a few pixels, stops showing when the mega menu opens. As the scrollbar disappears the whole page

                                                                                                          • Reports: Custom Search Function Fields

                                                                                                            Hi Zoho, Hope you'll add this into your roadmap. Issue: For the past 2yrs our global team been complaining and was brought to our attention recently that it's a time consuming process looking/scrolling down. Use-case: This form is a service report with

                                                                                                          • Zoho Inventory - Composite Items - Assembly - Single Line Item Quantity of One

                                                                                                            Hi Zoho Inventory Team, Please consider relaxing the system rules which prevent an assembly items from consisting of a single line item and outputting a quantity of 1. A client I'm currently working with sells cosmetics and offers testers of their products

                                                                                                          • How can I transfer data from Production to Development environment?

                                                                                                            Hi, I am using Creator V6 and would like to bring all the data in production to the Development and Testing environments? Is there an easy way of doing that or I have to export and import each table?

                                                                                                          • Add "Reset MFA" Option for Zoho Creator Client Portal Users

                                                                                                            Hello Zoho Creator Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to request an important enhancement related to Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for client portal users in Zoho Creator. Currently, Creator allows us to enforce MFA for portal users,

                                                                                                          • New portal SAML authentication error: User not found

                                                                                                            Dears, Has anyone else been experiencing this lately? I am creating a new portal authenticated by SAML (Entra ID). I followed the same process as I did with other portals, but any new portal created after this always encounters this error. I’ve been reporting

                                                                                                          • Devis et facture multi page

                                                                                                            Bonjour, je suis sur Zoho invoice et je rencontre un problème sur mes devis et factures lorsqu'ils dépassent 1 page. je me retrouve souvent avec des lignes coupées ou le sous total page 1 et le total page 2. j'aimerai savoir s'il existe une possibilité

                                                                                                          • Rotate an Image in Workdrive Image Editor

                                                                                                            I don't know if I'm just missing something, but my team needs a way to rotate images in Workdrive and save them at that new orientation. For example one of our ground crew members will take photos of job sites vertically (9:16) on his phone and upload

                                                                                                          • Help with Filtering Records, HTML Pages, and Automatic File Uploads in Zoho Creator

                                                                                                            Hi Zoho Creator Community, I’m building a Zoho Creator application and need guidance on a few features I’ve been struggling with. I want to implement them safely and efficiently, and I’d appreciate any examples, tips, or best practices. I want users to

                                                                                                          • How to Send Email from within a custom module (with or without an email template)

                                                                                                            It is possible to send an email from the Deals module. However, I can't find a way to send an email from any of our custom modules. I have tried adding an email field to the modules (even though we don't really want one or need it there). That doesn't

                                                                                                          • Convert invoice from zoho to xml with all details

                                                                                                            How to convert an Invoice to XML format with all details

                                                                                                          • Feature Suggestion for Zoho Websites – Inspired by Squarespace Systems

                                                                                                            Dear Zoho Team, I’m a Zoho user and also a Squarespace Platinum Circle member, and I recently noticed the launch of Zoho Websites in India. I wanted to share some ideas for features that could enhance the platform for professional users and agencies.

                                                                                                          • Custom View - Sort by Custom Field

                                                                                                            I created a custom field for our Engineering team to know which tickets to work first by numbering them.  I created a custom view to general data which includes the Engineering Priority.  However, I cannot sort the Engineering Priority column ascending

                                                                                                          • Zoho Indeed Intergation not pulling candidate details

                                                                                                            We have recently integrated zoho with indeed. Prior to this our candidates came into the candidates tab via the zoho.resumes email address from indeed and it pulled through the candidates mobile number, and majority of the time a postcode. However since

                                                                                                          • Custom View of tickets created today

                                                                                                            How can I create a custom view that list all my ticked created in the current date? Currently, if I select the "Created Time" criteria, the "Current Time" option does not work as today. Actually, I don't know how it works this "Current Time".

                                                                                                          • Lifecycle Reports

                                                                                                            From data to decisions: A deep dive into ticketing system reports A lifecycle report captures and visualises the sequential states that a ticket undergoes across its lifespan. For instance, when a customer submits a support ticket for a faulty product,

                                                                                                          • Next Page