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Charging multiple options question on Greeting topic

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Posted on by fernandosilva Super User 2024 Season 1

Hi there,

Why is Microsoft billing the session straight away when there is a multiple option question on the Greetings topic?

We have two chatbots in two different websites and one has a multiple option question on the Greeting topic and the other is just a normal question.

After 4 weeks analysing all the parameters of the "billing" option on the analytics, I found out that the most billed topic is the Greeting topic with the multiple option question.

Taking the options out, the session billed go down by half.

Could any employer of Microsoft explain clearly why we are been billed for having Multiple Options question as the first question?

Kind regards,

Fernando

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MattJimison 579 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi, @fernandosilva . As I understand it, a session becomes "engaged" (billable) once a custom topic is triggered, but not a system topic. In your multiple option question, you don't have any additional logic afterwards redirecting to a custom topic by chance?

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fernandosilva Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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Hi @MattJimison ,

On my Greetings topic, I have a multiple option question which goes to another topic.
So, if I understand properly now, as soon as I have an interaction on the Greetings topic, a new session will be billed.
So, what happens if I use am adaptive card on the Greetings topic that will redirect to another topic?

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MattJimison 579 Most Valuable Professional on at

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If you're redirecting to another topic from your greeting, and that topic is a custom one, then I would suspect that it should create an engaged (billable) session at that point. Regardless of whether it's a question or an adaptive card, I think it is the act of the user interacting with the topic and triggering the topic redirect that would trigger the session becoming engaged.

Find this post helpful? Please mark it as the solution and/or provide kudos so that it will help others in the future.

Cheers,
Matt

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HenryJammes Microsoft Employee on at

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Hi @fernandosilva, @MattJimison,
Tagging @mboninco

This is the definition of a billed session:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-virtual-agents/analytics-billed-sessions

"A billed session begins when a user topic or premium functionality is triggered."
That means that entering a custom topic leads to a billed session.
Same if you call a premium feature (e.g. a Power Automate flow) from a system topic.

Are you on PVA classic or PVA unified authoring?
In the unified authoring, Greeting is a custom topic.

It is supposed to be triggered when the user engages with the bot, for example by saying "Hello".
You can choose to disable it or even delete it.

If the bot proactively starts the conversation, this should be done through the Conversation Start topic:

Here, adding Quick Replies as suggested actions for the user shouldn't lead to a billed session if the user doesn't engage with the chatbot.

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fernandosilva Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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Hi @HenryJammes ,

Thanks for you reply.
We use PVA classic and on the Greetings topic we have a Multiple Options question which each option leads to another topic.
Since we implemented this question, our billed session more than double in a months time.
If that's the reason, so then the Greetings topic will be just a message telling the user what to do next.

Thank you @MattJimison and @HenryJammes ,

Fernando

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HenryJammes Microsoft Employee on at

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If it's a classic bot, I don't think the Greeting topic would generate billing unless it uses premium features.
Do you have a screenshot of what the topic does?
Are you saying that even if the user doesn't select an option (so, no topic redirect happens), this leads to a billed session?

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fernandosilva Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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Hi @HenryJammes ,

See attached my Greetings topic with the multi options question.

Thank you,

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fernandosilva Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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If the attachment is not clear, please see the new one in this reply.

Cheers

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HenryJammes Microsoft Employee on at

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Thank you @fernandosilva
So you're saying that this Greeting topic, in PVA classic, generates Billed Sessions, even if the user does NOT interact with the bot. Correct?

@mboninco can you have a look and advise?

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fernandosilva Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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Yes, comparing with the previous month where there was not a multiple option question on the Greetings topic, the amount of billed session increased by at least 100%.

If I take the multiple option question out of the Greetings topic, the numbers of billed sessions will reduce drastically.

For reference, once we had the chatbot connected with Dynamics 365 Customer Service and the number of sessions billed was less than half the size we have now as well.

Seems like everything is pointing to the interaction on the options of the question, so as I said, I will have to change the Greetings topic to be just a message and no interactions from the topic in question.

Cheers,

Fernando

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