Understanding the API response

It is essential to understand the response from the Smart Symptom Checker to build a responsive User Interface for your application or service that presents messages to the end users, as well as allowing them to respond to free text or multiple-choice questions.

This guide describes the structure of the response, the data the elements may contain, and when they are included in the response.

A more technical overview of the API Response is described in the API Response Schema.

Question

A question asks for input from the user, either in the form of a free-text response or a choice of one or more options from a list.

Messages

A message is information presented to the user as a part of a question.

Choices

The answers to the question that a user can choose.

Conversation

The conversation contains essential information about the current conversation.

Conversation ID

Every response from the Smart Symptom Checker contains a unique Conversation ID. This Conversation ID needs to be used as part of each request to the Smart Symptom Checker so that a conversation can be maintained across multiple API calls.

Conversation scenario and phase

This provides information about where the user is during a conversation.

Symptoms summary

As a user progresses through an assessment, the symptoms summary keeps track of the symptoms the user has said they have, as well as those that have been provided as options but not selected.

Available commands

Lists the commands available at a given point in a conversation with the Smart Symptom Checker. Typically these commands allow the user to exit a conversation.

Report

At the end of an assessment, a Consultation Report is generated. See Consultation Report for further information.