Connecting to apps

Connect to the app that you or your team wish to use. If you run a skill without connecting to the app beforehand, you can still connect to the app during the skill run. The connection steps outlined in the following topics applies if you want to use skills in the legacy chat.

Before you begin

Switching from chat experiences: The legacy chat might not be the default chat of your tenant. In this case, the administrator of the tenant can switch between the AI chat or legacy chat experiences. For more information, see Switching the chat experience.

Connecting to apps as described in the topic might require that a member with Admin or Builder role on the tenant defines the credential type beforehand:

  • For the personal skill set, the administrator or builder doesn't need to define a credential type.
  • For the team skill set, the administrator or builder must define the credential type either as Member credentials or Team credentials. The following procedure for connection is valid for Team skill set with apps defined to use Member credentials as credential type.
Note:Connecting to apps by usage in the following resources requires that the administrator or builder defines the apps to use Team credentials as credential type:
  • Use through AI assistants.
  • Use directly in the AI chat.
  • Use by the Team skill set with shared credentials.
For more information, see Managing app connections.

Connecting to an app

Connect to an app to authorize watsonx Orchestrate running tasks in the specified app on behalf of the account by which the credential is defined:

  1. From the menu, click Skill catalog.
  2. Search for the app, and click the app tile.
  3. From the app page, click Connect app, and provide the connection details.
  4. Click Connect app to establish the connection.

The legacy chat also provides the option to connect to an app when users try to use skills but the app is not connected:

  1. From the menu, click Chat, and start the skill.
  2. Click Connect app. It opens a modal in the chat page where you can configure the connection for the app.
  3. Provide the connection details, and click Connect app to establish the connection.

Configuring the connection

The connection configuration for the apps available in the product varies from app to app.

To configure the connection of prebuilt apps, see the documentation of the wanted app in the list of apps provided at Configuring the app connection.
To configure the connection of imported apps, contact the developer that developed and imported the app to watsonx Orchestrate to get the connection details.

Skills accessible upon request

Certain skills and skill flows are not broadly available to all on the watsonx Orchestrate skill catalog.

In the documentation, the tag Available upon request indicates the availability of more skills or skill flows that can be accessed by requesting.

You can refer to the specific app page for detailed information on the additional skills and the steps to request them. The following list of apps offer more skills that are available upon request:

What to do next

After you establish the connection with the app, you can use the skills of the app in the legacy chat.

Note: The connection that you set is only validated when you use the skill.

If you want to use skills through AI assistants, or in the AI chat, see Managing skills in the AI chat and Building your AI assistant with actions.

Parent topic:

→ Using the legacy chat