Overview

The Microsoft Bot Framework is a powerful set of services, tools, and SDKs that provides a rich foundation or "framework" for developers to build and connect intelligent bots.

By leveraging the Microsoft Bot Framework, developers can create, integrate, and manage a wide variety of bots and bot experiences that interact with users naturally. The tools and services available in Microsoft Bot Framework dramatically reduce the amount of code and coordination required to develop “enterprise-ready” bot experiences.

In this practical course, you'll explore “Conversation as a Platform” as it pertains to natural language understanding, bots, and Cortana. You'll work through hands-on exercises to learn how to piece them together—and find out how to make “Conversation as a Platform” a reality in your organization.

The course starts with an overview of the Microsoft Bot Framework, and then takes a look at Azure Bot Service, which is designed to provision every resource required for production bots at the same time, as an integrated collection of services. The course material also shows how Azure Bot Service provides an integrated environment, specifically designed for developing bots.

Explore Microsoft Language Understanding (LUIS) to create language models and add natural language understanding to bot experiences. Leverage Microsoft QnA Maker to develop “question and answer” bots, ideal for online support experiences. And dig into Cortana Skills, where your bot experience can be extended to any device capable of running Cortana; including Windows 10, Android, and even iOS devices.

Uncover the latest best practices of bot design and development principles, as you learn how to create Node.js bots. These can run on any platform and numerous third-party channels, such as Skype, Microsoft Teams, Slack—even Cortana. With a prerequisite of proficiency in a C-based programming language like C, C#, C++, or Java, follow along with the instructor as you work through the labs to replicate and modify the code in the examples.

You'll wrap up the course by creating a Cortana Skills bot that leverages leading edge artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language understanding to discover related images, videos, and news for popular people, topics, and concepts.

From general overviews to specific use cases to hands-on labs, this course will give you what you need to create powerful, intelligent, AI-infused bot experiences - a key pillar of “Conversation as a Platform.”

Syllabus

Module 1: The Microsoft Bot Framework: Introduction to Microsoft Bot Framework concepts and best practices, creating bots, working with messages, and deploying to channels.
Module 2: Azure Bot Service: Introduction to Azure Bot Service and QnA maker concepts and best practices, creating knowledge base bots and service integration.
Module 3: Language Understanding: Introduction to Microsoft Language Understanding (LUIS) concepts and best practices, creating language models, and integrating language understanding into bots.
Module 4: Cortana Skills: Introduction to Cortana Skills concepts and best practices, deploying and integrating speech synthesis into Cortana Skill bots.
Module 5: Final Project: Developing a Cortana Skills bot with Node.js using various aspects of the Microsoft Bot Framework, Azure Bot Service, and Language Understanding.