CasperVend 2/Bot Delivery

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As of the 12th of January, 2014, CasperVend can now use a SmartBots Personal Bot to deliver inventory, with the dropbox remaining as a backup.

We're very proud to introduce this feature, yet again we're pushing the boundaries and are the first in Second Life to offer this.

Why Deliver With a Bot?

CasperVend is the most reliable networked vending system available in Second Life, thanks to our fully tracked deliveries and transaction system. However, no in-world vending system can provide a 100% guaranteed delivery using the standard delivery mechanism (llGiveInventory), and in some situations (such as if you sell high value items) you may want a little more reassurance. Bot delivery can help you there.

Unless you are Linden Lab, the only scriptable option available to deliver items in Second Life is llGiveInventory. Unfortunately, this function does not provide guaranteed delivery - it is a "fire and forget" job, with no confirmation that the item was actually received by the customer.

In addition, thanks to the "streamlined" design of the V2 / V3 viewers, inventory offer dialogs disappear within a few seconds, and many users don't know that they can check the message stack in the top right (or bottom right, depending on their viewer) to look for deliveries.

Using a bot to send items brings two major advantages:

• If a user "declines" an inventory offer, it will go to their trash rather than disappearing forever.
• If a user doesn't receive (or doesn't see) the inventory offer dialog, the item will STILL appear in their inventory.

Viewers & Scripted Item Delivery Issues

This video illustrates some of the issues customers run into with scripted item delivery. This applies to ALL scripted item delivery systems, not just CasperVend, and is an issue inherent with certain SL Viewers.

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Video by Casper explaining viewer-related delivery issues

What Do I Need?

You will need a SmartBots Personal Bot, which costs L$479 per week. This has extra capabilities beyond the basic group inviter service, so unfortunately the L$79/week group inviter service alone will not be sufficient.

You need to be able to give your bot avatar the box products in a format that the bot can use to pass on to the customer. This is why you need the Personal Bot service - because you need to use YOUR bot avatar.

Can I Use (_other_) Bot Service?

Currently, SmartBots is the only service which provides the HTTP interface we need to ensure reliable delivery. While bots such as PikkuBot can deliver items, they don't provide the scripted callbacks we need to ensure that the delivery was successful.

What If My Bot is Offline?

If the bot cannot deliver the item, the DropBox will be used.

How Do I Set This Up?

1. Simply edit or create a new product.

2. Set an item to deliver (from your dropbox) - there must always be a dropbox item set to use as a fallback.

3. Once you've set an item to deliver, a box will pop up offering the new service.

4. Simply follow the instructions on screen to configure the product for SmartBots delivery.

Limitations

• Folders cannot currently be delivered, this is due to technical limitations at SmartBots.

• There's a bug at SmartBot's side which means that permissions checks are not performed - if you try to assign a "no transfer" item for delivery, the delivery will appear to succeed but the recipient will get an error.

• Delivering no-copy items is possible, however it will only deliver once and then will fall back to the dropbox method.

• Items attached to product *variants* cannot be delivered via SmartBots at this time. Bot delivery can only be used with single-item products.