article by Frank Nimphius, February 2019
Dialog flows in Oracle Digital Assistant intelligently guide users through a conversation to complete a task or request. Users may have different experiences with bot interactions. Although the bot designer's goal is to make the conversation as natural as possible to humans, there still is a possibility of users getting stuck.
One reason for users to get stuck is when they don't know how to provide a valid answer to a bot question. Another reason is that the bot user changes his mind and wants to continue with a different task or request. Often it is the validation loop implemented on a dialog flow state that makes the bot appearing stubborn and not letting users out.
In this article I explain Oracle Digital Assistant features and implementation strategies for you to use in your skill design to keep users unlocked.
Skill bot downloads
Download the sample skills used in the article. The download is a ZIP file for each. You can directly import the ZIP files as a skill to Oracle Digital Assistant
Example shows how entity validation keeps a user locked and how you can use the "maxPrompts" property and the "cancel" action transition to escape the loop. Also, after a first failed input attempt, the list prompt shows a message guiding the user
Common Response Component example
Example shows how to use the common response component to display help buttons in case of a failed input message. The sample also shows how to display a helping prompt after a first failed message input.
Example does not use an entity type variable and thus only validates against values in the list. A text received action transition is called when the user types a value that is not in the list. You can then use this information e.g. to validate the user input against an entity using the System.MatchEntity component
Related articles
TechExchange Quick-Tip: How-to use the maxPrompts property for input validation
TechExchange Quick-Tip: How-to Validate User Input For Non-Entity Variables
TechExchange – Building Smart Value Lists from Entities
