KONSTANTINOS TSAKAS
Reservations Architectures Solutions Intern
Final Presentation
FACTS ABOUT ME

Greek father

German mother

2 siblings

I can eat a lot!

My first skyscraper!

PRIOR SKILLS

Programming:

  • HTML/CSS
  • Javascript / NodeJS
  • PHP
  • C / C++
  • Golang

Databases:

  • MySQL
  • MongoDB
  • Class president in high school
  • Member of the HSA board at Brown
WHY TRAVELCLICK

I am international.

Awesome interview.

Perfect company size.


WHAT I LIKED

Lunch & Learn.

Company activities.

CHATBOT

What is Big Data?

What is Machine Learning?

How are they relevant to the project?

Why are chatbots trending now?
CHATBOT

What platforms did we try?

  • Pandora Bots
    (8 years old)
  • API.ai
    (6 years old)
  • WIT.ai (aquired by Facebook)
    (3 years old)
CHATBOT GOALS

  • Mix widgets with the dialog
  • Ability to change the context of the story
  • Test the limits of the platforms
  • Clean interface
  • Mobile friendly & embedable

I achieved this through lot of trial and error...

CHATBOT CHALLENGES

Pandora bots:

  • No user interface
  • No knowledgebase

API.ai:

  • Extremely complex to mix stories

Wit.ai is still young.

The only real limitation is the ammount of data we hold...

CHATBOT

Some interesting integrations...

  • Watson API by IBM
    • Detect feelings in a message
      (eg. angry, happy, sad)
    • Is a message positive or negative?
    • What is the topic of conversation?
  • Bing Translate by Microsoft
RALLY PROJECT

How does the current support system work?

A ticket is created on Salesforce.

Most probably is dies in Salesforce.

If it is a serious issue that requires fixing, it moves to Rally.

And if it is from a focus customer it gets a high priority.

RALLY PROJECT

Fortunately, Rally makes all the data easily available to us through an API...

So we took all this data and made is searchable and presentable.

RALLY PROJECT

An interesting fact.

  • 450,000 user stories in rally since 2013
RALLY PROJECT

What tools did we use?

  • ElasticSearch
    the database
  • Logstash
    to import the data
  • Kibana
    to make nice graphs

Toghether they are called the ELK stack.

LATEST PROJECT

Creating a simplified user interface for the customer support dashboard...
WHAT I LEARNED THIS SUMMER

Elastic, Kibana and Logstash
Chatbot platforms & their inner workings.
Agile development.

Improved in countless areas:

  • Programming practices:
    • Documentation
    • Testing
    • Logging
    • Version control
  • Knowledge of AngularJS
  • Learned the latest Javascript features
  • Deployment with Ansible

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Don't try to get it perfect, do what solves your problem.

Always ask questions.

Big shoutout to Raj & Noel.