Combo

Chatbot to manage SQUARE Gift Cards and Loyalty with Square API on Google Assistant

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Inspiration

Following discovery of Square solution by advertisement, and awareness of Square hackathon organized by Devpost, I have decided to propose an application for this hackathon based on Square service thru their API.

What it does

  • It provides a seamless UX experience based on web messenger combined with vocal access on Google Assistant to SQUARE services.

  • Rich Messages (Lists, Cards, Images, Buttons, Suggestions,...) are provided to facilitate and enhance user interaction.

How we built it

It enables end buyer user and seller interaction with SQUARE services, thanks to automatic exchange with SQUARE APIs : Customers, Orders, Gift Cards, Payments, Loyalty, Invoice, Team,....

I have developed a Node JS Backend Web Service :

  • to handle requests coming from vocal and web modules

  • to interact with SQUARE APIs and other third party ones

some SQUARE features have been integrated by Mocking associated REST API, with test fixtures specified on Jest Framework

Each end user gift card is associated to dynamically generated qrcode, to enable easy access deep link

Challenges we ran into

  • small issue : BigInt error during JSON parsing => implement fix tip based on MDN

  • some SQUARE APIs (Invoice,..) not (yet) available apparently in France and layout feature could not be configured on my test account : => need to implement mock of some APIs to use the app required features :

    1. Layout Rewards list
    2. Layout Reward Redeem
    3. Layout accumulated Points
    4. Invoice review

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Working application running in sandbox environment, which are accessible on multiple devices (smartphones, smartdisplays like Google Home/Nest, desktops) and multiple media (vocal, web,...)

  • Mock REST API with Swagger Documentation

What we learned

  • Configuration of SQUARE service as developer, seller

  • Interaction with SQUARE API

  • Mock Node JS REST APIs

What's next for Combo

  • Enhance Content Rendering

  • Add More API features

  • Deploy in (pre)prod environment

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