This sample demonstrates how to save user and conversation data in a Python bot. The bot maintains conversation state to track and direct the conversation and ask the user questions. The bot maintains user state to track the user's answers.

• Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/ConversationalComponents/coco_examples.git

• Run pip install -r requirements.txt to install all dependencies
• Run python app.py
• Alternatively to the last command, you can set the file in an environment variable with set FLASK_APP=app.py in windows (export FLASK_APP=app.py in mac/linux) and then run flask run --host=127.0.0.1 --port=3978

• Activate your desired virtual environment
• Open botbuilder-python\samples\45.state-management folder
• Bring up a terminal, navigate to botbuilder-python\samples\45.state-management folder
• In the terminal, type pip install -r requirements.txt
• In the terminal, type python app.py

Microsoft Bot Framework Emulator is a desktop application that allows bot developers to test and debug their bots on localhost or running remotely through a tunnel.

• Install the Bot Framework emulator from here

• Launch Bot Framework Emulator
• Paste this URL in the emulator window - http://localhost:3978/api/messages

A key to good bot design is to track the context of a conversation, so that your bot remembers things like the answers to previous questions. Depending on what your bot is used for, you may even need to keep track of state or store information for longer than the lifetime of the conversation. A bot's state is information it remembers in order to respond appropriately to incoming messages. The Bot Builder SDK provides classes for storing and retrieving state data as an object associated with a user or a conversation.

• Azure Bot Service Introduction
• Bot State
• Write directly to storage
• Managing conversation and user state