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Overview of Orbita Answers

Orbita Answers builds an answer to a question based on the structure and context of the question. A question has two parts: a topic and a relationship.

• Topic. The subject of what is being asked.
  For example, “what are the symptoms of diabetes?”

• Relationship. An attribute of a topic.
  For example, “what are the symptoms of diabetes?”

The following table shows a Cafeteria topic and two relationships (Location and Hours) that deal with separate contexts about the topic.

• A topic often has synonyms that people use to refer to the same thing, such as a Café, Cafeteria, or Restaurant.

• A relationship also often has synonyms. such as nearby, close, or in this building; if the relationship is Hours, then synonyms may be open and hours.

Facts are the topic/relationship combinations and its corresponding answers, a visitor can ask the following questions and more:

• Where is the Restaurant in this building?

• Is the Cafeteria nearby?

• What are the hours of the café?

• When does the cafeteria open?

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When you create a new topic, such as Gift Shop, you can leverage the same relationships. That is, you can use Location and Hours with the Gift Shop as you do with the Cafeteria and not have to recreate the same relationships over and over.

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By constructing lists of topics and relationships, you can build a robust database of questions and answers (articles) for your patients.

The following image shows a spreadsheet of topics, relationships, questions, and related answers (articles). The first topic, Internet, has three relationships: Connect, Available, and no relationship. From three relationships to one topic, five questions are generated with five answers.

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Understanding the Knowledge Base

The structure of a Knowledge Base can be compared to an Excel spreadsheet with four columns:

• Article

• Questions

• Topic

• Relationship

The article represents a discrete piece of content containing information that authoritatively answers the questions. A topic represents the main subject of an article. A relationshiprepresents a subcategory or attribute of the article.

For example, continuing with the first aid example, a knowledge base containing facts about the flu and sunburn might look like:

Table 1: Example table representing a knowledge base of first aid information

Each row in the spreadsheet represents a fact. In the example table above, there are three facts. One fact for sunburn, and two facts for influenza.

More about Topics & Relationships

Topics and relationships serve two purposes in Orbita Answers.

• The first is for purely organizational purposes. It makes it easier to find and manage facts when they’re organized in this way.

• The second is for accuracy purposes. You can create lists of synonyms for topics and relationships to capture the various ways a person might refer to them conversationally. For example, someone might refer to the topic “influenza” as “the flu.” Or the relationship “symptoms” as “signs.”

As you can see in Table 1, the relationship “Treatment” is used for both Influence and Sunburn. This is ideal and a sign of a well-structured knowledge base. In general, it is good practice to identify a set of general categorical attributes that are common to all topics. For example, in a first aid knowledge base, the relationships “treatments,” “symptoms,” “risks,” and “prevention” generally apply to all topics.

More about Questions

Questions should cover the various ways someone might ask for information covered in the article.

How many questions do you need per fact? There’s no hard rule. A general rule of thumb is, no less than six but the more the better. Most important is capturing the variation in how people conversationally ask the same question.

Another general best practice is to think of questions that include the topic and relationship. In situations where you have a question that does not contain the topic and relationship in the question, there may be an opportunity to include words from the question into the synonyms for the topic or relationship.

Organizing your Knowledge Base

Using a spreadsheet will make it easier to build and organize your databaseknowledge base.

1. Make a list of topics such as the Internet, Cafeteria, Gift shop, Influenza, Black Eye, and so on for all the subjects that are related to your situation.

   Note: Many topics have synonyms. For example, a cafeteria might be referred to as a cafe, restaurant, or bistro. Synonyms are added to the database in another step, but you can add them to your spreadsheet if you want.

2. Define the relationships for each topic. For example, a cafeteria may have a relationship to its Hours of operation and its Location.

3. Define the questions that arise from a topic and relationship. For example, What are the hours of operation for the cafeteria? and Where is the cafeteria located?

4. Define the facts that contain the answers to the topic - relationship pair. For example, the question can be When is cafe open? (Cafeteria - Hours). The answer would be The cafeteria is open from 5 AM to 11 PM.

Defining a topic

1. After you log in, select your project from the Recent Projects list. If you do not see your project click See All Projects.

2. In the left menu, select Create > Agents > Answers.

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3. Select the database from the Knowledge Bases list. This example uses the Demo database. The Demo database shows Facts, Interrogative, Topics, and Relationships tabs that list each. The following image shows the Topics tab with a list of topics and their relationships. and any related topics.

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4. To create a new topic, click on the "Topics" tab and click Add (+). The following image shows how to add a Gift shop to the list of topics.

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Defining a relationship

1. The Relationships tab shows the relationships (Proximity, Location, Hours).

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2. To create a new relationship, click Add (+).
   

   The following image shows a list of relationships.

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Defining a fact

A Fact can be defined as a topic-relationship pair. To add a fact, click on the fact tab, and click on the (+) icon.

Facts can have straightforward answers that answer the context of the question. For example:

• Where is the cafeteria? can be answered with The cafeteria is located on the third floor. It is open from 5 AM to 11 PM.

• When is the cafeteria open? can be answered with The cafeteria is open from 5 AM to 11 PM and is located on the third floor.

If you have many facts referencing the location and hours for the cafeteria, you can use tokens in the facts to save time and energy. If the information changes, you need only change the value of the token in the Content area. For more information, see How to use Tokens?

The UI that you see below is defined by the schema that you select while creating a Knowledge base.

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• Say Text. Enter the content that answers the question.

• Reprompt. Enter a follow-up comment.

• Description. Enter a description that Google will index for search engine optimization (SEO).

• Flow Selector. Click the field and select an item from the list.

• Thumbnail. Enter the URL to the image you want displayed with the answer.

• Feature image. Enter the URL to the image you want displayed with the answer.

• Topics. Enter a topic name of an existing topic, or enter a new topic name to create it.

• Relationships. Enter a topic name of an existing topic., or enter a new relationship name to create it.

Defining synonyms

If someone can refer to any of your topics by other names, you should list them in the Topic Synonyms tab.

1. Open the Topic Synonyms tab. The following image shows that Cafe and Restaurant are already defined synonyms for Cafeteria.

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2. Click Add topic Synonym and enter Bistro (or Grill, Eatery, Lunchroom, a place to eat or other synonyms) to the list. Make your synonym list robust to ensure the best natural voice recognition and responses.

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Defining a related topic

1. Open the Related Topics tab.

2. Click Add (+) to add a related topic. For example, enter Vending Machine as a related topic to Cafeteria.

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   Vending Machines appear on the list.

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1. Create a spreadsheet with four columns: article, questions, topic, relationship

2. Organize your content into meaningful chunks. Each chunk should represent an article

3. Identify the primary topic for each article.

4. Identify the relationship of the article

5. Define a set of questions that are answered by the article.

As you go through the following steps, keep in mind the best practices and guidelines described in the previous sections (More about Topics & Relationships and More about Questions). Also, keep in mind that developing the spreadsheet will most likely be an iterative process.

With this spreadsheet complete, then:

1. For each topic, define a set of synonyms capturing the various ways someone might refer to the topic (e.g. Anaphylaxis → “severe allergic reaction,” “anaphylactic shock,” etc.)

2. For each relationship, define a set of synonyms for the same purpose (e.g. Treatment → “remedy,” “therapy,” etc.)

Best Practices for Naming Topics

• A topic is a word or phrase (most likely be a noun, noun phrase, proper noun, or compound noun).
  Example: Sunburn

• A topic name doesn’t necessarily need to be a word in a dictionary. It could be a business name, brand name, product name, etc.

• A topic name should be the singular form of the noun (e.g. Chemical Burn vs Chemical Burns). Orbita handles lexemes (burns, burning, burned, etc.)

• There are cases where a topic might be a verb (e.g. Eat) and should be the dictionary form of the word (e.g. Eat, rather than eats, eating, ate. This form is also called the lemma form).

• A topic can be an acronym (e.g. COPD). When specifying an acronym, use single letters with no spaces.

• A topic may contain multiple concepts (e.g. Cancer and Hunger) but generally should focus on a single concept (e.g. Cancer, Hunger). A best practice is to think about the questions people will ask – if someone is likely to ask about each concept separately, make it two topics. If they ask about two concepts in the question (e.g., will I lose my appetite during cancer treatments?), it’s okay to have a topic with two concepts.

Best Practices for Naming Synonyms

• A synonym is a word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as the topic (most likely be a noun, noun phrase, proper noun, or compound noun).

• A synonym should be the singular form of the noun (e.g. Chemical Burn vs Chemical Burns). Orbita handles lexemes (burns, burning, burned, etc.)

• A synonym should reflect the way people express topics conversationally and will not necessarily be a synonym that exists in a dictionary for your topic (e.g. severe allergic reaction or covered in hives may be synonyms for the topic anaphylaxis). Research ways people refer to concepts conversationally by looking at web search logs, call center logs, talking with customer support, etc.

• A synonym should consider the question someone might ask about the topic. For example, Assume a knowledge base of First Aid content, where a topic/relationship is Anaphylaxis/Causes. Consider the question What causes severe hives? ”severe hives” would be a synonym for Anaphylaxis

• A synonym name doesn’t necessarily need to be a word in a dictionary. It could be a business name, brand name, product name, etc.

• A synonym name can be an acronym. When specifying an acronym, use single letters with no spaces (e.g. COPD)

• A good synonym reflects the ways people refer to the concept conversationally.

Defining a Knowledge Base in Orbita

Using your spreadsheet as a guide, you’re now ready to create your Knowledge Base in Orbita.

Create a New Knowledge Base

In Experience Manager, select your project, then:

1. Navigate to Answers

2. Click the “+” icon

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In the dialog:

1. Provide a Name for your knowledge base

2. You can choose either the default or custom schema, you created, for the facts edit screen. How do I create Schemas?

3. Check the checkbox titled “Generate intent per fact in KB”.

4. Click “Add”

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From the list of Knowledge Bases, click and open your newly created Knowledge Base.

Create Your First Fact

To add a fact, click on the (+) icon.

Adding an Article

1. On the Answer tab, enter the article content into the Multi-modal Content Editor (default schema). If you have a custom schema, this view will change according to the schema selected.

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The fact you are working on will be locked for other users to edit. Any other user who tries to edit the locked fact will get a pop-up message and can choose to force edit by clicking on Continue.

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Adding a Topic

2. Enter the name of the topic in the Topics field. You’ll be able to select existing topics once they have been created.

3. Click “OK” when prompted. For example, if you create a topic for Sunburn, the following prompt will appear.

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4. Click the Synonyms icon to specify alternative names for your topic. For example, “sunburn” might be referred to as “sun poisoning.” (e.g. What are the signs of sun poisoning?)

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Adding a Relationship

5. Enter the name of the relationship in the Relationships field. You’ll be able to select existing relationships once they have been created.

6. Click “OK when prompted. For example, if you create a relationship for Treatment, the following prompt will appear.

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7. Click the Synonyms icon to specify alternative names for your relationship. For example, “treatment” might be alternatively referred to as “remedies” or “home remedies” (e.g. What are home remedies for the flu?)

Adding Questions

1. Click on the Questions tab

2. Enter in questions capturing the various ways someone might ask for information covered in the article. For example, if the article includes location information for a hospital, questions might include “Where is the hospital located?” “Where’s the hospital?”, etc.

3. Click Save button

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You can use slots/terms in these questions. For example, the user might ask one of the below questions with the same intent.

• Where is the hospital located?

• Where is the health center located?

• Where is the health facility located?

You can club all these into one question using a common slot/term that contains all the variations of the word hospital as shown below.

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This slot/term can be used in the questions.

1. While adding questions use the “@” character. You will see a drop-down listing all the slots/terms.
   

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2. Select the slot/term.
   

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Best Practices for creating Facts

It is a best practice to add less than 8 Relationships on a Fact to avoid a known performance issue.

If you have 8 or more Relationships to be added to the Fact, as a workaround, instead of adding all the Relationships to a single Fact, you could create two separate Facts, dividing the number of Relationships across them.

For example, instead of having one single Fact with 1 Topic + 8 Relationships, you could have two Facts, with 1 Topic + 4 Relationships each.

Managing a Knowledge Base in Orbita

Viewing a List of All Topics

1. From the list of knowledge bases, find the desired knowledge base and click its action menu icon (three dots on the right of the row)

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2. From the action menu, select Settings

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3. From the Settings screen, you can click the “Topics” to see a list of topics or relationships.

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Adding a Related Topic

Topics can be related to one another. For example, you might have topics for Asthma, Bronchitis, Pneumonia, and COPD. Because these topics all deal with lung disease, you might want to relate them to one another.

1. Follow the steps above for “Viewing a List of All Topics”

2. Find the desired topic from the list

3. Click the topic’s action menu icon

4. Choose Edit from the menu

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5. Open the Related Topics tab.

6. Click Add (+) to add a related topic. You must select an existing topic from the list.

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Your related topic now appears on the list of related topics

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Managing Advanced Settings

1. From the list of knowledge bases, find the desired knowledge base and click its action menu icon (three dots on the right of the row)

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1. From the action menu, select Settings

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1. From the Settings screen, click “Advanced” to see advanced settings options

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Generating an Intent per Fact

Enabling this option creates an intent per fact, using the questions associated with the fact (on the Questions tab) to train the natural language processor. It is recommended to enable this option as it increases accuracy and provides sufficient and relevant questions to the question tab for each fact.

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The new tab Intents will capture all the Auto-generated intents for each fact.

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Refer, How do I create an intent? and How to use Annotations in Intents for more information on intents.

Setting a Primary Topic

In most cases, a knowledge base will be created to capture information on a specific topic. For example, imagine a knowledge base created to contain information about sleep & wellness. Topics in this knowledge base might include general information about sleep or specific information about insomnia treatment.

Identifying a primary topic helps Orbita Answers to disambiguate questions that include multiple topics. For example, the question “I have insomnia and can’t sleep” contains two topics from Orbita Answers' perspective: Insomnia and Sleep (e.g. “I have insomnia and can’t sleep”). By identifying “sleep” as a Primary Topic, Orbita Answers understands that this particular question is asking about “insomnia” and not generally about “sleep.”

Using a Fallback

The fallback is used to define a relationship that will be used when one is not present in the question. For example, imagine someone is looking for information about “insomnia” but just says the phrase “insomnia” instead of asking a question “What is insomnia?”

By defining a fallback relationship, the fallback relationship will be used in cases where an end-user asks about a topic, without expressing a relationship in the question (e.g. “insomnia”, “COVID-19”, etc)

A general best practice is to create a relationship covering general information and to use it as a fallback relationship.

See also How do I set up and use Answers?

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