# Ask Text

**Understanding "Ask Text"**

"**Ask Text**" Card in WhatsTool Business lets bots ask users open-ended questions, making conversations more fun. Users can share their thoughts, opinions, or give info based on the questions. This user-generated text can be stored in a designated variable, allowing you to use that data in your BotFlow.

You can ask the customer a question as a **Text** or as a **Voice**.

### **Ask as Text Essentials** <a href="#ask-as-text-essentials" id="ask-as-text-essentials"></a>

Learn the basics of the "Ask as Text" option in Ask Text Card to make talking to users more interesting.

#### **Question Text** <a href="#question-text" id="question-text"></a>

This is the question you want to ask users. Make it clear and short so users know what you're asking.

The **Question text** can be made **Bold**, *Italic*, or ~~strikethrough~~ using the options provided. The text will add the asterisk(\*) for **Bold**, Underscore(\_) for **Italic text**, and Tilde(\~) for **Strikethrough** around the text.

### **Implementation Example:** <a href="#implementation-example" id="implementation-example"></a>

Imagine you are asking your customers for their **PAN Card** to evaluate their Financial profile. The Ask Text question type with validation settings will make sure users give helpful responses within a specific character limit.

For the **Question Text** you can enter: *Enter your PAN Card details to evaluate your profile.*

You have the option to **store the user response** in the variable. You can create a variable - `user_details` for example to store the user response.

Now for the **validation settings**, you could provide the **attempt** limit as 1, Validation Error Message is optional. Provide the **Action on Invalid Response**, and turn on the Additional Validation Settings.

In the additional validation settings, provide the **Minimum character, Maximum character, Regex.** The PAN Card number is of 10 digits meaning the minimum characters and the maximum characters are 10.

The first five characters of a PAN Card are letters (**in uppercase by default**), followed by four numerals, and the last (tenth) character is a letter. To capture this you could use a regex - **^\[A-Z]{5}\[0-9]{4}\[A-Z]{1}$** to make sure that the user enters a valid **PAN Number** which matches the following criteria's:

* The PAN Card number must be ten characters long.
* The first five characters must be uppercase letters.
* The next four characters must be numbers.
* The last character must be an uppercase letter.

### Sample Flow Using Ask Text Card <a href="#sample-flow-using-ask-text-card" id="sample-flow-using-ask-text-card"></a>

#### In WhatsTool Business Bot Interface: <a href="#in-gallabox-bot-interface" id="in-gallabox-bot-interface"></a>

#### In WhatsApp: <a href="#in-whatsapp" id="in-whatsapp"></a>

The above sample flow is for you to understand how "**Ask Text**" Card works and it's usage. It is not a representation of what can be achieved with WhatsTool Business.


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# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://docs.whatstool.business/bots/ask-questions/ask-text.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.