article by Frank Nimphius, September 2020
"The proof of the pudding is in the eating" is a known proverb. A quote that I personally like, although it is less well known, is attributed to Dettmar Cramer, a former German soccer coach: "Solange besser möglich ist, ist gut nicht genug." *)
In this article I explain the concept of model-driven conversations using entities in Oracle Digital Assistant and provide a sample to proof the concept. If you want to try the sample skill, you need to be on Oracle Digital Assistant 20.08.
The concept of model-driven conversations is to move as much functionality as possible into entities, which also includes prompts, labels and messages. You then either use the System.CommonResponse or the System.ResolveEntities components to generate the user interfaces for a conversation.
Following this approach you write less code in your dialog flows but gain maturity and add intelligence to your conversations. For this article I recommend to download the sample skill and have a look at the BotML code as well as the entities and resource bundles being used.
*) As long as it could be done better, good is just not good enough.
Download Sample Skill
Pasta Alfredo Sample Skill (Model Driven Conversation)
- Import skill
- Train the model
- Run embedded conversation tester e.g "I like to order pasta".
- Follow the conversation dialogs
- When prompted for completing the order or adding more, type: "one more" instead of pressing the button
- Type "I want a bacon pasta with oil and garlic and make it large" to see out-of-order extraction of values in action
- Complete the order
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