Virtual assistant to facilitate enrollment processes.

The main objective of universities is education, however, the strategic processes must also be improved to achieve good levels of performance that allow focusing on training better professionals.

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Inspiration

I am a Software Engineering student and a few months ago the university changed its internal regulations regarding student enrollment. Many of the students felt confused by the changes in the enrollment process, which is why we asked the faculty's administrative staff many questions. Soon, the staff realized that we students were having trouble understanding the new regulations, so they wrote student guides. However, the guides were too long and students did not read them. At that point, some of my professors suggested that I create a section of frequently asked questions on the website of the faculty. Then, I heard about the challenge proposed by Kore.ai and related it to the problems in my school, so I got to work creating a virtual assistant that helps students understand the enrollment processes.

What it does

The virtual assistant focuses on answering the questions that the students of my faculty have regarding the enrollment processes that have changed. To do this, the VA tries to solve the communication problems that exist with the faculty staff, in addition, it seeks to offer relevant and personalized content so that students feel comfortable.

Specifically, the VA focuses on performing three main tasks.

  1. Respond to students' questions by offering simple and concrete answers that students can easily understand.
  2. Help students understand the changes that have been made in the enrollment processes through interactive tools that can be used efficiently.
  3. Provide a simple way to carry out the enrollment processes by reducing the time necessary for students to complete the required documentation.

How we built it

The first step for the construction of the VA was to define exactly the use case for which it would be used. In this context, I used a few days to find all the needs that should be covered by the VA. When the whole scenario was fully defined, I thoroughly read the documentation provided by Kore.ai to get an idea of the methodology I would use to implement the tasks that needed to be covered.

At this point, I thought about all the usability aspects that had to be used to make students feel comfortable using VA. It helped me a lot to analyze other existing VAs on the web, because that way I knew what characteristics my implementation should have.

When all the requirements were defined, I started to create simple VAs that answered simple questions regarding the enrollment process. Thus, I was doing tests and tests until I felt comfortable with the work environment. With which, I obtained the confidence to solve the problems that I had proposed.

While testing the VA features, my creativity grew and I felt like I could incorporate so much more. With which I began to read information about external APIs that would allow me to send emails to students. Thus, I found the SendGrid API that easily coupled with the framework.

Gradually the accuracy of the VA grew to the point where I was able to publish it. I started by creating a local web application, however, soon after, the authorities of my faculty offered me the necessary support to be able to incorporate the VA on the official website of the faculty.

At this point, I continued to follow the recommendations that the Kore.ai staff mentioned and was surprised that the VA growth was very fast.

Challenges we ran into

One of the most complex challenges I found when developing the virtual assistant was the language in which it was implemented. I used Spanish to make students feel comfortable conversing with the VA, however, training the bot to understand all the ways Spanish expressions can be written was very complex. Fortunately, I managed to find a balance between the use of a correct ontology, the correct synonyms for the keywords and the best expressions to train the VA.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

In general, it is very nice to see that the VA understands the most questions related to the enrollment process. However, my biggest achievement was showing that the XO platform has great potential by allowing the integration of external tools, such as the API that I used to be able to send emails to students after they have completed a form. Without a doubt, this makes me feel proud because it indicates that the VA can grow without limit to provide all the functionalities that are required in any type of organization.

What we learned

I've learned that it's so easy these days to create custom tools that make people's jobs easier. Also, I learned that from a good definition of requirements the process of creating an application or tool is much easier. Finally, I learned that the XO platform is very easy to use even for people who are not related to programming, which is very encouraging.

What's next for Virtual assistant to facilitate enrollment processes.

The next step is to improve the accuracy with which students' questions are answered. Also, I want faculty staff to engage with using the XO platform so they too can incorporate their ideas.

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