Botkit: Is there a way for the bot to initiate a `conversation`?

[sundeepgupta]

I see there's a way to initiate a say: https://github.com/sundeepgupta/botkit#botsay

Is there a way to do something similar for a conversation or an ask?

[jonchurch]

Is startConversation() or startPrivateConversation() not what you are looking for?
In the docs, startConversation

Edit: Ahh, I see what you mean. Starting a conversation based on logic in the app, not in response to a user's message

You can call bot.startConversation( ) and pass in an object containing a known user's ID as the channel. In this instance you just have to know the ID ahead of time. You have to start a conversation in order to use the ask() function.

bot.startConversation({
  user: <USER ID>,
  channel: <USER ID>,
  text: 'dummy'
  }, function(err, convo) {
    convo.ask({
    channel: <USER ID>,
    text: 'Just what do you think you are doing, Dave?'
     }, function(res, convo) {
       convo.say(res.text + ' is not a good enough answer.')
       convo.next()
       }
)

[sundeepgupta]

Excellent, thanks @jonchurch

[ewdave]

@jonchurch Really grateful for this.... Finally, I got this feature to work for me. Thanks again!

[ewdave]

This was what actually worked for me.

I had to initiate Slack's web API with bot.api.im.open -- this will allow you know the user channelID before hand.

Hear:

new CronJob('0 */1 * * * *', () => {
    bot.api.im.open({
        user: 'U2WQ0L9FW'
    }, (err, res) => {
        if (err) {
            bot.botkit.log('Failed to open IM with user', err)
        }
        console.log(res);
        bot.startConversation({
            user: 'U2WQ0L9FW',
            channel: res.channel.id,
            text: 'WOWZA... 1....2'
        }, (err, convo) => {
            convo.say('This is the shit')
        });
    })
}, null, true, 'Africa/Lagos')

[Billydubb]

I can confirm @ewdave's answer. If I try it the way @jonchurch suggested, namely without bot.api.im.open, it will only post the first message, and no further messages or questions after that. Can anyone else confirm?

[nicholasgubbins]

hey @ewdave did you get this to work? I'm getting a 'not_authed' error when i use bot.api.im.open...