How do I create lists (slots)?

Owned by Rajkiran Alla (Deactivated)
Last updated: Mar 07, 2020 by markmetcalfemm (Unlicensed)
3 min read

A slot is a variable in curly brackets { } that helps the voice assistant understand information about the request. For example, whether you ask “Alexa: What is the weather in Boston?” or “Alexa: What is the weather in New York?”, the intent you write (what is the weather in {CityName}) interprets the question using slots to respond to either request: “The weather in {CityName} is {getCityWeather}”.

Orbita has built-in slots for commonly used items, such as date, time, street address, and so on.

To use a slot in an utterance, select a slot from the dropdown and enter a name you want to use in the utterance. For example, select the built-in slot ORBITA.DATE and name the slot date. Then use the curly bracket around the name (such as {date}) in your utterance. The following examples show some uses:

  • I want to schedule an appointment for {date} at {time}

  • Tell me about restaurants in {city}

  • Is {athlete} still playing {sport} for {sportsTeam}

In this topic

Creating a custom slot

If you need a custom slot, you can create one, and then return to edit the intent to select your custom slot from the slot list. For example, perhaps you want to schedule an appointment with a specific person at the Red Cross, so you create a custom slot called staff and list the staff members in the slot.

To create a new slot go to Create > Components > Lists, click Slot Types and click Add. The following image shows the Slot Types screen with list values:

The name of a custom slot type must begin and end with an alphabetic character and can consist only of alphabetic characters or underscores.

To add multiple values simultaneously or paste copied data, click the double arrow button.

When you choose to deploy the interaction model to Google Dialogflow, the characters that are not supported by Google Dialogflow will be truncated i.e. ^()<>|\

Note:

  1. Underscore and colon cannot be used at the beginning, or the end of a word or a sentence.

  2. When the symbol @ is used at the beginning of the word, it should be followed by an alphabet. When the symbol @ is used in the middle of a sentence, then it should be followed by an alphabet or number.

  3. Empty and incomplete (if not in pairs) Square and curly brackets will be truncated.

When you choose to deploy the interaction model to Alexa, the characters that are not supported by Alexa will be truncated i.e. Quotes (")

After the slot is created, it appears at the bottom of the slot selection list in the intent. The following image shows the RCScheduler intent updated to also use the staff slot.

When creating an intent, an intent may have slots. The list you would like to use in the intent should be given a Slot Name. This Slot Name will be used in the utterances.

The “Slot name - List name” combination can be used in other intents, but the same Slot Name cannot be associated with a different List Name.

 

Mapping Google and Amazon Slots

Amazon may support a slot that is not supported in Google and vice versa. You can see available slots in the Slot Library that are available from the pull-down on an Intents dialog box.

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