Neurons Bots creation

Ivanti Neurons Bots can be built in one of two ways; starting from blank, or from a preconfigured template. If creating a bot from the blank option you must first select the type of bot you want to create, based on the trigger; schedule or custom action. You then build out the bot in the Neurons Bots editor by adding stages. If there is a template that fits your needs, select to create the bot from template. New Ivanti Neurons Bots templates will be added regularly.

Bot creation from blank

Create a bot to add to your bot catalog. To do this, go to Ivanti Neurons platform > Neurons Bots and select either the Create bot option or the Create survey option.

On the Create bot/Create Survey pages you need to select the Trigger type for the bot you want to create; a Schedule bot or a Custom Action bot or a Patch Deployment Survey bot (Survey Bots):

Triggers

There are three types of triggers in Neurons Bots:

  • Schedule: The bot runs automatically on a specified schedule. Using a schedule trigger lets you run a bot periodically against device groups to perform repetitive IT tasks without the effort. Example: You might want to create a bot that will automatically clean up old files on devices each week to maintain a healthy amount of disk space.
  • Custom Action: The bot runs when a custom action is manually run from within Devices. The custom action can be run against a single device, or multiple devices. See Device view published options to specify the bot settings. If you want to allow the bot to be run on multiple devices the Bulk Custom Actions role must be assigned to the user in Admin > Access Control > Roles.
  • Patch deployment survey: This trigger allows you to create a survey for users to get opinions on their device experience after the patch is installed. When you select this trigger, by default it selects Devices as a target type, which means you can run this trigger on a device only. Once you create this survey bot, first you need to activate the trigger; see Trigger settings. This patch survey requires at least one MS Teams Rating stage with Submit result to patch enabled along with other details that need to be entered; see MS Teams Stages. Once you save and publish this survey bot, it will appear and become usable in Patch Management; see Ring Deployments for additional details on Patch Management.
    You can use Run now to test the patch survey bot, there is also a new experience in Run now that is Iteration, which creates a new version of the bot and partitions the survey data so that the previous version doesn’t contaminate the reporting data. You can also add to an existing iteration or just run the parent bot. This iteration will appear on the Survey Bots page as a sub-table to avoid the survey bot list being overwhelmed and help to clean the old surveys.
    Alternatively, in the Start from a template tab, you can use the Post Patch Survey Basic template instead of using the Patch deployment survey. This trigger is only available for survey bots.

The trigger is the first stage that is added to the bot editor. Go to Trigger settings for more details.

Regardless of trigger type, you can select a bot to run immediately by manually selecting the Run Now option. Learn more about Run Now.

Target Types

There are two target types in Neurons Bots:

  • Devices: Using this option, you can run the workflow against the devices, selecting the device groups. All the stages are visible under Stages. You can drag and drop the required stage into the working area.
  • People: Using this option, you can run the workflow against the people, selecting the people groups. The stages that are applicable only to people are visible under the Stages. You can drag and drop the required stage into the working area.

    • When you create a Survey bot targeting People, the less frequently used stages are hidden by default.

  1. Go to Main menu > Neurons Bots.
    The Neurons Bots homepage appears.
  2. Select the General Bots or Survey Bots tab.
  3. Select the Create bot or Create survey.
    The Create bot or Create Survey page appears.
  4. Select the bot trigger: Schedule or Custom action or Patch deployment survey(survey bots).
  5. Select the target type: Devices or People.
  6. Enter a Name for the bot. Optionally enter a brief description.
  7. Click Create.
    The Bots editor page appears.
    The new bot is saved as an inactive draft version.
  8. In the Bot editor you will see the selected trigger in the work area: Schedule or Custom action.
    Click on the trigger to open the Trigger settings panel.
  9. In the Trigger settings panel, set the Trigger status to Active to display the settings.
  10. Set the criteria for the Schedule, or the Custom Action. Learn more about Trigger settings.
  11. In the Bot editor work area, build the bot by dragging and dropping stages from the Stage panel over to the work area. Learn more about Neurons Bots Stages and the Neurons Bots editor.

    In the Stages section, click on the Core survey stages check box to filter the core survey stages for the survey bots.

  12. Click on a Stage in the work area to open the Stage settings panel.
  13. In the Stage settings panel complete the settings fields. Learn more about Stage settings.
  14. Once all stages have been added and the bot is complete, click Save and publish.

    15. You can save the bot as a draft at any time, click Save draft. If you exit the editor without saving, a confirmation dialog displays. You can select to save a draft, or discard any changes you have made.
    When you save a draft, the bot name displays with my draft next to it, to indicate the draft status.

  15. To make the bot available for use, you must set the Trigger status to Active.
    1. Click on the Trigger in the work area to open.
      The Trigger Settings panel opens.
    2. Toggle the Trigger status from Inactive to Active.
      Toggle the Trigger status back to Inactive to make the bot unavailable for use.

    16. The current bot version will always be the latest one, if you want to use an earlier version you must select the version in the Bots results, edit and Save and publish. This creates a new version which will be the current one. Learn more about Neurons Bots versioning.

Bot creation from template

Ivanti frequently release new and updated out-of-the-box Neurons Bots templates. Deploy the templates to accelerate bot creation.

The Ivanti Neurons Bots templates are bot examples and must be tested before deployment.

Template Categories

  • Issue Prevention
  • Self-Heal
  • Sentiment Surveys
  • Human Triggered

These template categories are visible in the Type field, along with the All and Example categories. In the Matching text field, you can enter keywords to search across all categories or within a selected category, based on the option chosen in the Type field.

Similarly, the New & Updated category is also listed in the Type field. It helps you to list out the new and updated templates with the badge “New” or “Updated” on the template.

  1. From Ivanti Neurons platform, open Neurons Bots from the menu. The Neurons Bots homepage displays.
  2. Select Create bot, the Create Bot page displays.
  3. Click on the template category; Issue Prevention, Self-Heal, Sentiment Survey, Human Triggered. Each category will have the available templates listed.
  4. Select Learn more on a template to display the Template Information dialog. The dialog displays a description of what the template bot is used for, the OS compatibility, and any other instructions before deploying.
  5. On the template information dialog, select Create to display the Neurons Bots editor. Alternatively, select Cancel to return to the Create Bot page.
  6. In the Bot editor, edit and customize any of the stages to suit your requirements. To do this, click on a stage to open the Stage settings panel.
  7. If you want the bot to be active to use, click on the Schedule trigger stage to open the Trigger settings panel.
  8. Select the Trigger status toggle from Inactive to Active. The bot can now be invoked by the trigger; either on the specified schedule or as a custom action or as a patch deployment survey (survey bots) from a device.
  9. Once you are happy with all the settings, click Save and publish.

    10. You can save the bot as a draft at any time, click Save draft. If you exit the editor without saving, a confirmation dialog displays. You can select to save a draft, or discard any changes you have made.
    When you save a draft, the bot name displays with my draft next to it, to indicate the draft status.

After deploying the bot, the template may change over time, this will not affect the deployed bot. However, if you want to use the latest changes you must re-deploy the bot.

Save and publish

Once you have created a bot, select Save and publish. The Save and publish dialog displays.

Name: Enter a name for the bot. Once the bot has been saved you can edit the name on the Neurons Bots homepage > Actions > Rename, or on the Neurons Bots results page, select the edit icon edit icon next to the name. Renaming the bot will not create a new version.
If a bot has been saved as a draft version, my draft will display after the name.

Description: Enter a description for the bot. The first two lines of the description display on the bots homepage along with the name, hover over to pop up the full description. Once the bot has been saved you can edit the description on the Neurons Bots homepage > Actions > Edit Description, or on the Neurons Bots results page, select Description to the right of the bot name. Editing the bot description will create a new version.

Include a category: You can assign the bot version a category, either enter a new category to create it, or select an existing one from the drop-down list. Limited to 50 characters.

Include a comment: You can enter a comment for the bot version. This can be useful to differentiate between different versions of the same bot.

Save and publish: Select to save any edits and publish. This creates a new version of the bot.

Learn more about Neurons Bots versioning.

Related topics

Neurons Bots editor