Identifying numbers correctly - dialogflow-es

Question

I have an intent where I might say 'Transfer 4 to Bob' and it identifies this as 'Transfer for to Bob'
Also I might say 'Transfer 10 to Bob and it identifies this as 'Transfer 102 Bob' treating to word to as 2 on the end of the previous number.
What is the best way to get API.AI to recognise these parts correctly so 4 is not for and to is not 2?

Answer 1

You mentioned that you're using the Actions on Google platform. This means that speech recognition - the process of translating what the user says into text - is happening before the data gets to API.AI.
The problem you're experiencing is that Actions on Google is misrecognizing some numbers as words, e.g. four becomes for.
Because this happens before - and separately from - API.AI, you won't be able to fix the misrecognition.
Below, I'll explain how you can work around this issue in API.AI. However, it's also worth thinking about how you could make your conversation design as robust as possible so that issues like this are less likely to cause problems.
One way you could increase robustness would be to mark the number as a required parameter in API.AI so the user is prompted if it isn't detected due to a recognition error. In that case, the dialog would go like this:
User: Give me four lattes.
App: Sure, four lattes coming up.
User: Give me for lattes.
App: How many do you want?
User: Four.
App: Sure, four lattes coming up.
Regardless, here's a workaround you can use to help recover from misrecognition:
In your intent, provide examples of these commonly misrecognized values. Highlight and mark them as numbers.
Test out your intent out in the console and you'll see that "for" is now matched as a "number" entity with value "for".
In your fulfillment webhook, check the parameter for this value and convert it to the appropriate number using a dictionary. Here's the JSON for the above query:
{
"id": "994c4e39-be49-4eae-94b0-077700ef87a3",
"timestamp": "2017-08-03T19:50:26.314Z",
"lang": "en",
"result": {
"source": "agent",
"resolvedQuery": "Get me for lattes",
"action": "",
"actionIncomplete": false,
"parameters": {
"drink": "lattes",
"number": "for" // NOTE: Convert this to "4" in your webhook
},
"contexts": [],
"metadata": {
"intentId": "0e1b0e72-78ba-4c61-a4fd-a73788034de1",
"webhookUsed": "false",
"webhookForSlotFillingUsed": "false",
"intentName": "get drink"
},
"fulfillment": {
"speech": "",
"messages": [
{
"type": 0,
"speech": ""
}
]
},
"score": 1
},
"status": {
"code": 200,
"errorType": "success"
},
"sessionId": "8b0891c1-50c8-43c6-99c4-8f77261acf86"
}