Rasa Starter Pack: Telecom - Instructions

Looking to install and use the Rasa CALM Starter Pack for Telecom? We've documented all the steps in these simple-to-use installation instructions.

Once installed, leverage the Starter Pack as the foundation for creating your own Telecom Assistant or as inspiration for features you can implement.
The Telecom Demo Assistant focuses on two key customer support areas:

• Helps users check their monthly expenses/billing details
• Guides users through basic troubleshooting steps to resolve slow internet issues. making sure the user is engaged through all the necessary steps

Before You Begin#

To use this starter pack, you will need:

• A free Rasa Pro Developer Edition license. To get the free license use the link and complete the form. You’ll be emailed the license key. Store this somewhere safe as you’ll need it a bit later in the instructions below. The actual installation of the Rasa Pro platform will be performed during the installation steps described below.
• An API key from OpenAI (the default model provider for this starter pack, though CALM supports other LLMs, too).
  • If you haven't already, sign up for an account on the OpenAI platform.
  • Then, navigate to the OpenAI Key Management (Dashboard > API keys) https://platform.openai.com/api-keys page and click on the "Create New Secret Key" button to initiate obtaining <your-openai-api-key>.
• A computer. Instructions are available for Mac & Windows. Instructions are available for Linux with minimal modifications.

Installation steps#

For Mac:

1. Download the Source Code Assets for the latest release from GitHub:

2. Uncompress the assets in a local directory. The zip file is preferred for Macs.

   • You can find instructions for installing dependencies, training the model, and running the assistant locally in the README file located inside the ​​starterpack-telco-en directory where the zip file was uncompressed.

3. Navigate to the starterpack-telco-en directory where the zip file was uncompressed, and run the following commands in your terminal to set up your environment:

   • make install-homebrew
     i. Note: You may need to run the following commands if prompted:
     1. echo >> $HOME/.zprofile
     2. echo 'eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"' >> $HOME/.zprofile
     3. eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"
   • make install-pyenv
   • make install-uv
   • make setup-pyenv-virtualenv
   • source ~/.zshrc
   • pyenv activate rasa3.11.3-py3.11.11
     i. Note: Use the command `pyenv versions` to view your version. The versions of Rasa and Python may differ based on updated versions of releases of the starter pack in Github.
   • make install-packages
   • source deactivate

4. Once the installation is complete, update the placeholders in the Makefile file with your actual values (Note: remove the # and <, > characters too), and save the file.

#RASA_PRO_LICENSE=<your-rasa-pro-license-key>
#OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-<your-openai-api-key>

For example, after updating, it would look similar to this:

RASA_PRO_LICENSE=etou948949theu
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-proj-ntehoitnhtnoe

5. Run the following commands in your terminal:
   • make set-env
   • source ~/.zshrc

Congratulations, you have successfully installed Rasa and are ready to use the Telecom Starter Pack as a demo or as a foundation for your custom flows.

For Windows:

1. Clone or download the Source Code Assets for the latest release from GitHub:
   • You can find instructions for installing dependencies, training the model, and running the assistant locally in the README file located inside the ​​starterpack-insurance-en directory.
2. Navigate to the starterpack-insurance-en directory and run the following commands in your terminal to set up your environment:

   • Check if your Python environment is already configured and a supported version by typing:

     • python --version

     If this package is already installed, this command should display version numbers, and you can skip to the step no 3.

   • Make sure the Microsoft VC++ Compiler is installed, so Python can compile any dependencies. You can get the compiler from Visual Studio.

   • Download the installer and select VC++ Build tools in the list.

   • Install Python 3 (64-bit version) for Windows.

     • C:\> pip3 install -U pip
3. Setup a Virtual Environment.
   • We strongly recommend isolating python projects using virtual environments.These instructions will leverage the venv module included in Python.
   • Create a new virtual environment in ./venv directory with:
     • C:\> python -m venv ./venv
   • Activate the virtual environment with:
     • C:\> .\venv\Scripts\activate
   • Install the required packages with by typing the following command
     • uv pip install -r requirements.txt
4. Once the installation is complete, you must create the env variable RASA_PRO_LICENSE, which must contain the content of the license key file provided by rasa. You will also need to set the variable OPENAI_API_KEY, which must contain the API key provided by OpenAI. You can set the environment variables temporarily in your terminal, but it is recommended to set it persistently so that you don't have to set it every time you run Rasa Pro.
   • For the temporary option:
     • $env: RASA_PRO_LICENSE=<your-license-string>
     • $env: OPENAI_API_KEY=<your-license-string>
   • For the persistent option:
     • [System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('RASA_PRO_LICENSE','<your-license-string>','USER')
     • [System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable(‘OPENAI_API_KEY’,'<your-license-string>','USER')

Congratulations, you have successfully installed Rasa and are ready to use the Telecom Starter Pack as a demo or as a foundation for your custom flows.

Starting the demo#

To start up the Telecom Banking Demo Assistant, follow these steps:

• Ensure you're in the starterpack-telco-en directory.

• Next, type the following commands in your terminal window:

For Mac

For windows

If you used Rasa Run instead of Rasa Inspect

• Once you see a 'Starting worker' message in the terminal window, proceed with the next step.
• In a Finder or File Explorer window, navigate to the chatwidget directory inside the starterpack-telco-en directory where the zip file was uncompressed.
• Double-click on the index.html to open the demo. You can now interact with the Telco Demo Assistant using Rasa's chatbot widget.
  • Note: It is also possible to modify this index.html to your liking.

For a full list of Rasa CLI commands refer to: https://rasa.com/docs/reference/api/command-line-interface/#cheat-sheet

Stopping the demo#

1. To stop the Rasa server go to your terminal window and press: Ctrl-C
2. Congratulations you have successfully run your first Rasa Assistant. Feel free to close your terminal window.

Restarting the demo#

1. Open your terminal window and navigate to your starterpack-telco-en directory.
2. Repeat Starting the Demo Instructions

Demo examples#

For the following examples, please note:

• Due to the dynamic nature of this conversational bot assistant, the assistant’s responses might differ slightly
  • For instance the internet speed result is a random number between 50 and 150 Mbps, in the example below it is 53 Mbps and you run the bot it will definitely be different.

You are now ready to start your demo. Feel free to follow the steps below:

Example 1: happy path with solving "internet slow" issue

- Bot: Hey Serena 👋 I am your virtual AI assistant that can check your bills or resolve issues with Internet speed. How may I help you?
- User: My internet is slow
- Bot:
      I see.
      Let me try identify the root cause of the issue you are facing.
      I will run a network diagnostics for you 🛜
      Wait a moment please...
      Thank you for waiting... ✅
      Your network download speed is 53 Mbps.
      That's definitely not good.
      Let's reboot your router. It helps resolving most issues with speed. Please turn the router off, wait 10 seconds and turn it back on. Let me know when you are done!
- User: Done
- Bot:
      I will run a network diagnostics for you 🛜
      Wait a moment please...
      Thank you for waiting... ✅
      111 Mbps, Awesome! 🚀
      If the Internet gets slow again, you can always reset the router.
      If that doesn't help, let me know, and we can try something else. 😊

Example 2: Providing human agent help when needed in the "billing" use case

- User: can you tell me my expenses?
- Bot:
      Alright. Could you please specify the month? 📅
- User: Feb
- Bot:
      Your bill for February 2025 is $55.00.
      The average of your past bills is $88.50.
      This bill is lower than your average by $33.50.
      Would you like to see the breakdown of the costs?
- User: Nope
- Bot: Did I manage to provide all the information you need?
- User: No
- Bot:
      Let me connect you to our human support managers. They will help you further!
      Please hold on while I connect you to our expert 📲

Advanced configurations#

By default, the Telecom Starter Pack always starts the chat session with "Hey Serena .." as the end user. You can easily adjust this to showcase multiple user profiles by filling in the “customer_first_name” slot with an adequate user name through an API call to the right Database.

The Telecom Assistant includes three user profiles:

• Serena Williams with 123 as a customer id
• Lionel Messi with 124 as a customer id
• Tom Cruise with 125as a customer id
• Beyoncé Knowles with 456 as a customer id

You can check in the csvs folder to find the information above plus the information about their expenses.

Each profile has its own expenses on Internet, Mobile and TV.

What’s next?#

Congratulations on installing the Rasa CALM Starter Pack for Telecom! Stay tuned for more starter packs coming soon.