Step 2: Design your app

Each app may contain a number of different components, and depending on the functionality you want to create, some components are required and others are optional.

This section provides details about each component, including where it is required and what it is used for. It also includes a selection of sample architectures using the different components.

App components

The following sections describe the typical app components and explain where and why they are needed.

App shell

Required for: Answers bot blocks, Conversations context cards, Moments Flow elements, any app listed on the marketplace
Used for: Presenting a configuration page, storing
What is it: A collection of data stored in an app in the Publish tab of Exchange

Manifest

Required for: Answers bot blocks, Conversations context cards, Conversations full-page apps, and Moments Flow elements
Used for: Connecting the app to Answers, Conversations, or Moments, providing the Infobip product the information it needs to correctly display the app in the user interface
What is it: A JSON or YAML file, describing the app’s API structure or context card location

Context card UI page

Required for: Conversations context cards, Conversations full-page apps
Used for: Displaying helpful user content to Conversations Contact center agents.
What is it: A website, displayed in an iframe within the agent’s Conversations dashboard

API endpoint

Required for: Answers bot blocks and Moments Flow elements
Used for: Executing the functions needed in the app, and it ometimes combined with an API middleware to match user account profiles and settings, and to create the request to the platform API endpoint
What is it: An API endpoint accessible to the API middleware or Infobip Exchange

API middleware

Optional for: Any type of app
Used for: Interpreting the requests from Exchange and formatting them for the final API endpoint, or managing the flow of data; middleware can use data from an App Settings database to handle account mappings and other account-level settings
What is it: An API endpoint accessible to Infobip Exchange

Configuration Page UI

Optional for: Any type of app
Used for: Collecting account level settings for an app, commonly used to connect an Infobip user’s account to an external platform account, or to collect account-level settings such as language preferences
What is it: A website, displayed in an iframe within the Exchange marketplace

App settings database

Optional for: Any type of app
Used for: Storing account level settings defined on the Configuration Page UI, and used by the context card UI or API middleware to apply the account settings
What is it: A database storing information like account mappings, user preferences, and so on

App component requirement

The following table describes where each app component is required by default and which are optional.

	Answers bot block	Conversations context card	Moments - Flow element	People API data sync	Channels API integration
App shell	Required	Required	Required	Optional	Optional
Manifest	Required	Required	Required	Not used	Not used
Context Card UI	Not used	Required	Not used	Not used	Not used
API endpoint	Required	Optional	Required	Required for 2-way data sync	Optional
API Middleware	Optional	Optional	Optional	Optional	Optional
Configuration Page UI	Optional	Optional	Optional	Optional	Optional
App Settings database	Optional	Optional	Optional	Optional	Optional