I've something that I don't succeed to understand.
Here the situation I would like to do :
Bot: Hello, what do you want to do ?
User: Search a product
Bot: Which
product are you looking for ?
User: Apple
Bot -> list of products
matched with apple
here is a fragment code :
function searchProduct() {
agent.add('Which product are you looking for ?');
// receive the product answer
//-> then research the matched product in DB
}
const intentMap = new Map();
intentMap.set('I want a product', searchProduct);
agent.handleRequest(intentMap);
In this code, I ask to user the product that he's looking for.
But when he answered "Apple", how can I receive the user response in the same function to continue my process ?
I know there is the "context" concept, but to continue the "search product" process, I need to come back in the function.
For now, I use dialog-fulfillment. And I try to understand this documentation to find the solution :
https://github.com/dialogflow/dialogflow-fulfillment-nodejs/blob/master/docs/WebhookClient.md
The short answer is that you can't (or, at the very least, shouldn't) do it in the "same" function. Each function represents an Intent, or what the user has communicated to us. In the function we need to do the following:
Determine what the user has said that is important to us.
Compute anything based on what they've said.
Send a reply to the user based on (1) and (2).
Once we have sent the reply to the user - that round of the conversation is over. We need to wait for the next Intent to be triggered by the user so we can repeat the above.
Contexts are used so we know which stage of the overall conversation we're in. As part of our reply (step 3 above), we can set a Context which will help Dialogflow determine which Intent should be triggered (and thus which function should be called to process what we know so far). Contexts can also store information about previous turns of the conversation.
Keep in mind that Intents aren't about what we say, but are about what the user says. The reply we send is based on what we need, and then we would use a single Intent to capture each part. The function that handles that Intent would store the answer in the Context and determine the next part of the question.
Related
I have a custom Alexa Skill similar to some Q&A skill , in which I'm asking the user for a response (say option_1, option_2, option_3), but when the user responds with one of these asked options a different intent (say ruleIntent) is triggered because the option text is somewhat similar to its utterances.
I think it is not a good design if more than one IntentHandler is triggered for same( or similar) phrase, but then I don't know the text of options in advance to avoid this (or what the user is going to speak out as the answer of asked question). What if I can somehow maintain the context of user's response, I think that will be one of the solutions.
Example : -
1.User : Start a Science test {Invokes testIntent }.
2.Alexa : Okay, but before starting do you want to know the rules. Please answer in Yes or No. { response generated from testIntentHandler}
3.User : Yes { invokes many intents }
In line 3 even if I hard-code this to a Intent (say ruleIntent) , then what will happen if some question contains its options as Yes or No. How will I differentiate that and map that to the response of asked question.
One way to deal with this is to track the state using persistent or session attributes.
You can do a check of the state in the canhandle method to route the user to appropriate test intent
One way to solve this could be to use Dialogs. You can use auto delegation for dialogs
Enable auto delegation, either for the entire skill or for specific
intents. In this case, Alexa completes all of the dialog steps based
on your dialog model. Alexa sends your skill a single IntentRequest
when the dialog is complete
Delegate the Dialog to Alexa
I have two intents get_name and get_age
in get_name I take the user name, this intent is enabled for fulfillment.
In the editor, how to ask for confirmation of the name?
if confirmed, then I should add output context to get_name, so that get_age intent gets invoked.
i tried using the conv object to start a conversation without leaving the intent, but it does not even call the function.
function confirmation(agent){
var entity_name = agent.name;
var name = agent.parameters.name;
var conv = agent.conv();
conv.ask(`Is ${name} correct?`);
agent.add(conv);
var user_query = conv.query;
if(user_query.entities.name=='yes'){
agent.setContext({
name: `${entity_name}`+'_done',
lifespan: 2
});
agent.add(`Give your age ${name}`);
}
}
You're mixing up a couple of concepts. While it is possible to use the Inline Editor to do fulfillment, and it is possible to confirm an entry from a user without a Followup Intent, you will still need additional Intents to do the confirmation.
There are two important things to understand about Dialogflow fulfillment programming:
All responses from the user have to come through an Intent. It doesn't need to be a unique or Followup Intent, but the intent of what the user says is always captured this way.
When an Intent is triggered, it can send the information to an Intent Handler. This is the only way an Intent Handler gets information from the user. When a Handler is triggered, it does not wait for further user input. All it can do is send a reply.
So in your code, once you have sent
conv.ask(`Is ${name} correct?`);
agent.add(conv);
you will not get the response from that prompt in the same Intent Handler.
You will need another Intent that can capture the user saying yes or no. You can do this as one Intent or two - which you do is up to you. Based on what the user says, you then prompt them again.
Your issue is similar to what is described in this article, which points out that how we reply is based on two things:
The current state (in your case, which question you are asking them to confirm)
The user's reply ("yes", in which case you save the info and ask about the next question, or "no", in which case you repeat the question)
I am writing you to ask a question about Dialogflow fulfillments.
I am trying to create an agent for Google Home and my backend is basically a web hook implemented in TypeScript.
In the conversation that I designed, the user requests to the agent to perform an action, providing a category as paramter. Now, the set of possible categories can vary through time, so I am using the entity type #sys.any to detect the parameter.
My problem is that, when on the fulfillment I try to identify the specific category on which the agent needs to take action, it may be the case that the requested paramter matches multiple cateogries, so I'd need a followup intent to ask the user to clarify which is the actual category it wants to select.
E.g. the conversation could be the following:
Agent: 'Welcome.'
User: 'Do action on **category**'
Agent: 'I have found **categoryA**, **categoryB** and **categoryC**. Please specify which one you want to select.'
User: 'Select the second || Select **categoryB**'
Agent: 'Great, action performed on **categoryB**'
Now, I was able to build this conversation using followup events and contexts: for example I created two followup events, one that detects the numbers and another that detects the text, so the user is driven on one or another depending on what it says (if the user says 'The first', a number is detected and in the backend I cycle the categories selecting the one that is associated to that index. I do a similar operation if the user says "categoryX", but inside a different intent).
What I want to understand is: what is the proper way to achieve that kind of conversation through the Node.js fulfillment API?
Thank you for any help.
From your description - you've done precisely the right thing (although you don't need followup intents).
When you reply with the options the user has, you include a Context that may contain the array of possible results. You then create Intents that have this as an Input Context, match either the index of the array (lets call this the match.index Intent) or by name (the match.name Intent).
In your webhook, the match.index Intent would determine which category was actually chosen, and then call a function that takes care of that category. Similarly, the webhook for match.name would take the parameter with the name and call the same function to take care of that category.
I am developing a google assistant app on Dialogflow.
And I have a intent that receives two entities: #name and #age
Using the fulfillment throught the inline editor I verify if the #age is below 18.
In that case I need to ask for additional info, I need to ask the name of the person responsible for the child.
I looked around the internet, including the fulfillment samples at https://dialogflow.com/docs/samples
I believe it would look something like this:
let conv = agent.conv();
conv.ask('As your age is under 18 I need the name of the person responsible for you:');
//Some code to retrieve user input into a variable
agent.add(conv);
But I was unable to find how to do it.
Can someone help me to achieve this?
Thanks in advance.
While you are handling an Intent, there is no way to "wait for" the user to respond to your question. Instead, you need to handle user input this way:
You send a response back from your Intent.
The user replies with something they say.
You handle this new user statement through an Intent.
Intents always represent the user taking some action - usually saying something.
So one approach would be to create a new Intent that accepts the user's response. But somehow you need to distinguish this response from the initial Intent that captured the person's name.
One way to do this would be, in the case you ask the question about who the responsible adult is, is to also set a Context. Then you can have a different Intent be triggered only when that Context is set and handle this new Intent to get the name of the adult.
I have a conversation with dialogflow to select a favourite type of drink and then depending on the category of drink there are follow up questions (ie follow up intents).
Under the intent tab I have the following intents:
Default Welcome Intent
Favourite drink Intent
Coffee Intent
follow up
Soft Drink Intent
follow up
Juice Intent
follow up
I use the training phrase in the Favourite Drink Intent and ask:
"What is your favourite drink?"
And store the response in an entity #drink.
But I don't know how then to trigger the intent "soft drink", "juice" or "coffee" intents depending on the users response. If I was writing code I'd use a switch statement or if/else but that prob doesn't apply here.
I wasn't sure if I had to use the fulfillment inline editor or I could just do that from within the Intent UI.
Thanks
In general - think of Intents as capturing what the user could be saying. Although Intents also have replies, this isn't their primary purpose.
Depending what, exactly, you're trying to do, there are a few approaches. All three of them require fulfillment code, which you can do using the built-in editor, or (better) use a webhook more under your control
If you want to use Intents to determine how to reply
This isn't really the best idea, but it is possible. In your fulfillment code, you would have a switch statement against the parameter with the user's selection. Based on this, you would trigger a followup event from your fulfillment. Your other Intents would have the Event section populated with the possible events, and the system would pick which one to trigger and use for fulfillment/response.
This is a bit of a kludge for what you want, probably.
Update to clarify based on questions in the comments. Sending an event directly triggers a different Intent. Sometimes this is what you want, but it is somewhat exceptional. Most of the time you want to use one of the methods below. In particular, you should remember that Intents are mostly meant to represent what the user is trying to do (what they "intend" to do), and this is mostly represented by what they're saying. Intents are good to capture the complex ways people talk instead of forcing them into a phone-tree-like "conversation".
If you just want to reply to each possible user response differently
You can use the fulfillment webhook code to determine what response should be sent to the user. You don't indicate what library you're using, but in general you'd write code that would determine what message should be sent to the user based on the drink type selected and include that as the speech and/or display text in the response.
You wouldn't use the other, drink specific, Intents in these cases. There isn't any need for them. Unless...
You want to reply to each user response differently, and the followup conversation might be different
Remember - Intents are really best for specifying what you expect the user to say. Not what you expect to reply with. So it is reasonable that you may have a different conversation based on if they selected Coffee (where you might ask how much sugar they want) or Juice (where you might ask if they want a straw).
In this case, you would still do as you have in the previous case (use your fulfillment to include a tailored message in your reply, possibly to prompt them for that info) and include in the reply an Output Context indicating what their choice was. You should do this as part of the response, rather than setting it in the Intent, since you'll want to name it differently for each beverage type.
Then you can create Intents specific to each beverage type with what you expect the user today. For those specific to Coffee, you would set the Input Context to require that the coffee context has been set. The soda context if they specified soda, and so forth.
Update, since you indicated in your comment that this sounded like the avenue you were interested in.
In this scenario, you'd do as you described (almost):
Get the value for the drink parameter with code something like
const drink = request.body.queryResult.parameters.drink;
Do a switch based on this, and in the body of each case set what we'll reply with and what context we should remember. Something like this pseudocode, perhaps:
switch( drink ){
case 'coffee':
context = 'order_coffee';
msg = 'Do you want sugar with that?';
break;
case 'soda':
context = 'order_soda';
msg = 'Do you want a bottle or can?';
break;
case 'juice':
context = 'order_juice';
msg = 'Would you like a straw?';
break;
}
// Format JSON setting the message and context
You would then have Intents that would be triggered based on a combination of two things:
What the context is
What the user has said
For example, you would want a context (let's call it "coffee.black") which would be triggered if the order_coffee context is active and the user answered your question with "No" or "Just black" or other valid combinations.
But you'd want a different context (say, "juice.nostraw") if the order_juice context is active and the user replied "No".
And it wouldn't make much sense at all if the user said "No" while the order_soda context was active, so you'd want to try and direct them back to the subject at hand.
Remember, the Intent is for what the user says. Not for what your voice agent is saying. Your agent doesn't normally "trigger" an Intent - the user triggers it based on what they say.
In the example I gave, there might be other Intents that are valid for each of those contexts. For example, you might have a "coffee.sugar" Intent that is valid for the order_coffee context and responds to them saying "Yes". And another one where they might say "Just cream". There are lots of other things they might say as well, but it is important to your agent that the directions they're giving you have to do with ordering coffee.
As for your original question...
(To answer your original, now edited, question: Yes, you can create Intents from within your fulfillment. You almost certainly don't want to do this, however.)