Chatlayer Documentation
Get in touchAbout Chatlayer
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  • start quickly
    • Leadzy tutorial
      • 0. Introduction
      • 1. New bot, new block
      • 2. Understand your users
      • 3. Collect and display user input
      • 4. Steer the conversation with Conditions
      • 5. Empower your bot with Actions
      • 6. Set up a channel and publish your bot
    • Templates
      • Banking
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        • Canvas functionalities
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        • Manage your flows
        • 🆕[Beta] Export and import flows
      • Bot dialogs view
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      • Add content to your KBAI
      • Build your KBAI flow
      • Use your KBAI source URL in a button
      • Use tags to limit your KBAI content
      • 🆕Use Tables to store your KBAI questions
      • 🆕Manage handover where KBAI is unsatisfactory
    • History
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      • Create a table with records
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        • Insert record
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      • API
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  • build your bot
    • Conversation design
      • Plan your bot
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    • Flow logic
      • Blocks
        • Message
        • Condition
        • Collect input
        • Action
      • Go-to connections
    • 🆕Emulator
    • Tips & best practices
      • Route your flow depending on the time
      • Improve the Not understood block
        • How to create better not understood messages
        • Not understood counter
        • Not understood Google search
      • Go to previous block
      • Recognizing a returning user
      • Skip introduction message
      • Route your flow depending on the channel
      • Reuse flows
      • Connect two bots to each other
  • understand users
    • Natural language processing (NLP)
      • Basic NLP concepts
      • Detect information with entities
        • Match entities
        • Contextual entities
        • System entities
        • Composite entities
      • NLP best practices
        • Word order and diversity of expressions
      • AI intent booster
      • Train your NLP
      • Context
      • NLP import & export
      • Sentiment analysis
    • Languages
      • Supported languages
      • Make your bot multilingual
      • Change language within the conversation
  • set up channels
    • Add a channel to your bot
    • All channels
      • 🚨Facebook Messenger [Deprecated soon]
        • Facebook Admin Removal
        • Facebook Webview Whitelisting
        • Facebook Messenger API updates for Europe
      • 🚨Google Assistant [Deprecated soon]
      • Webhook
      • Web
        • 🚨Web V1 [Deprecated]
          • Customize web widget
          • Live example web widget
        • 🆕Web V2
          • 🆕From Web V1 to V2
          • 🆕Web V2 methods and options
    • Sinch Conversation API
      • Configure your Sinch Conversation API
      • 🆕 Make the most of RCS with Carousels
      • WhatsApp Business API
  • integrate & code
    • API calls
      • Configure your API integration
      • Advanced API features
      • V1 API Reference
      • Custom integrations 101
    • Code editor
      • [Example] Sending data to Airtable (POST)
      • [Example] Retrieving data from Airtable (GET)
      • [Example] Making SOAP requests
    • App integrations
      • Airtable
      • Freshdesk
      • Freshdesk Messaging
      • 🆕Gmail
      • Intercom
      • Mailgun
      • OpenAI: GPT-3, ChatGPT and GPT-4
      • Salesforce
      • 🆕Slack
      • Topdesk
      • Zendesk Support
      • Zendesk Sunshine (beta)
    • 🆕Expression syntax
    • Human handover & live chat
      • Sinch Contact Pro
      • #Interact
      • Genesys Cloud
      • Offloading Webhook
      • Salesforce Service Cloud
      • Sparkcentral by Hootsuite
      • Zendesk Chat
    • Chatlayer messages specifications
  • Publish
    • Publish your bot
      • Publish a flow
  • Analyze & maintain
    • Analytics definitions
    • Data retention
    • Maintenance
    • Session
    • Track events for analytics
  • VOICE
    • 🆕Send bot response as audio
    • Voicebots
      • Create a voicebot
      • Voicebot-specific actions
      • Test your voicebot
      • From chat to voice
  • access & support
    • Identity & Access
      • Single Sign-On (SAML SSO)
    • Billing & subscription
    • Get in touch
    • Chatlayer glossary
    • SaaS Regions & IP Ranges
    • Status
    • Debug your bot
      • No correct response
      • Collect input not working
      • Video isn't working
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On this page
  • Auto layout
  • Drag and drop
  • 🆕 Duplicate blocks
  • Connections
  • Go-to connections
  • Parent-child connections
  • Connection settings

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  1. navigation
  2. Bot builder
  3. Flows

Canvas functionalities

Our flexible canvas offers multiple ways to make your bot building experience quick and easy.

PreviousFlowsNextCollaborate with team members

Last updated 8 months ago

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🎥 Canvas video tutorial

Prefer to watch instead of read? In this tutorial, learn how to use the different canvas functionalities by building a quick and easy Pizza bot 👇

If you prefer to read, we'll go through each special functionality of the canvas below 👇

Auto layout

If you try out the canvas with an existing bot, your bot blocks will appear as overlapping. The Auto layout functionality is there to solve that.

To use Auto-layout:

  1. From your canvas, click on the Auto layout button at the bottom right corner of your screen.

  1. Your blocks are now spread over the canvas in a non-overlapping fashion. Feel free now to drag and drop each block where you like it the best!

Note that once you tidied up your flow using Auto layout, you cannot go back to what your flow looked like before.

Drag and drop

To add new blocks to your bot with the canvas, simply drag and drop them directly from the top-right corner to anywhere you like in the canvas.

🆕 Duplicate blocks

To duplicate a block:

  1. Select a block by clicking on it.

  2. Click on the Duplicate icon above it.

  1. A copy of this block appears on your canvas!

Connections

There are 2 types of arrow connections on the canvas: Go-to's, and Parent connections.

Go-to connections

To link 2 components with a Go-to:

  1. Click and hold the Go-to dot at the bottom right corner of a node.

  2. Connect it with any other existing block by drawing an arrow, or you can just create a new one if you don't have a block available yet.

Parent-child connections

To add a parent-child connection:

  1. Go to its Settings.

  2. Under Parent, define a parent block.

  3. Click Save.

Connection settings

Delete arrows

Both Go-to and Parent-child arrows can be deleted by hovering over them and clicking the trash icon.

Arrows position and color

You have the flexibility to move arrows back and forth at your convenience to achieve the perfect positioning. Additionally, you are able to modify their colours to suit your preferences.

Should you ever want to revert to the previous arrow design, a simple reset option allows you to restore the original arrows instantly.

The plain arrows represent the , i.e. an actual flow connection. This means that the blocked pointed to by the arrow happens right after the first one, guiding the conversation from one component to another.

The dotted arrows are , designed as a visual aid to help you organize your flows. While it doesn't create functional links between components, it offers a tool for visually structuring your block in a coherent manner.

Open your .

For instance, Parent-child connections are especially useful when you're using .

Go-to connections
Parent-child connections
block
context
Auto layout button.
Drag and drop a block to your canvas.
Duplicate a block.
Go-to dot from where you can draw connections
From the Go-to dots, draw connections between components.
Parent-child connection enhances visualization.
Click on the trash icon from an arrow to delete a flow connection
Change the arrow color and placement.
Restet the arrow to its previous state.