Attach slots

Learn to attach slots for use in training phrases or conversation flows in your NLX workspace

What's the Attached slots tab?

Slots help capture parameters from user responses and are deemed required bits of information for completing a process outlined in an intent.

The majority of user turns in an intent workflow are likely to be made up of User choice nodes that capture and resolve these slot values while the AI assistant is guiding a user through a self-service task.

If a user wants to book a stay at your resort, you would use slots to resolve the preferred room type, check-in date, check-out date, number of guests, name of guest, and so on.

Slots must always be attached to an intent to be used within that intent's training data and/or the intent's conversation flow(s).

Custom or built-in

You may use either custom slots (containing custom values), or built-in slot types:

Custom

Custom slots have values that are small in range, are customizable to your business, and may be visible choices for use in chat. Custom slots are created within your workspace using the Slots resource

  • Examples:

    • Yes / No (boolean)

    • Small / Medium / Large

    • I want to signup / I want something else

Built-in

Built-in slots have standardized slot values that may be large or infinite in range or abstract. Built-in slots are accessible when attaching a slot to your intent

Built-in slot type
Use

NLX.Country

When the user input will be any country.

NLX.Date

When the user input will use words to represent a date. Converts words to standard ISO-8601 format. Recognizes words such as "now" or "today" to mean the complete date of the current day. Input such as "this week" or "next week" will map to the first day of the week. ISO-8601 format begins its week on Monday and ends on Sunday. Input such as "next month" maps to the last day of the following month

NLX.Duration

When the user input will use words to represent duration. Converts words to standard format

NLX.Email

When the user input will use words and characters to represent an email address. Supports additional characters such as underscores, hyphens, periods, and plus signs

NLX.FirstName

When the user input will use a word to represent a first name

NLX.LastName

When the user input will use a word to represent a last name

NLX.Number

When the user input will use numeric words. Converts words to digits

NLX.Ordinal

When the user input will use ordinal words (e.g., first or 1st) to represent ordinal position

NLX.AlphaNumeric

When the user input will be a combination of letters and numbers

NLX.PhoneNumber

When the user input will use numeric words to represent a phone number. Converts them to a numeric string

NLX.Text

When the user input will consist of any words or characters

NLX.Time

When the user input will use words to represent time. Converts them to standard time format

NLX.Url

When the user input will use words to represent a URL. Converts them to standard URL format

NLX.City

When the user input will be any global city

NLX.USCity

When the user input will be a United States city

NLX.USState

When the user input will be a United States state

Attach a slot

  • Click Attached slots tab of intent > Select + Attach new slot

  • Choose a slot source from the dropdown (organized by Custom then Built-in types)

  • Provide a name for the slot to be referenced when using in an intent's training date or conversation flow

  • Click Save

Optional: Request, invalid, and example phrases

Expand a slot to access adding Request phrases or Invalid phrases:

For better UX, it's recommended that User choice nodes and fail state messaging with Basic nodes be used to collect preferred slot values rather than employing the Request phrases or Invalid phrases feature.

  • Request phrases: What you'd like your bot to say to prompt the user to provide slot choice (if not using the User choice node in your conversation flow to collect a value)

  • Invalid phrases: What you'd like your bot to say when the user selection is invalid

  • Examples: Add sample phrases that users may provide (e.g., for the built-in NLX.Time slot, you might add "7 pm," "7:00pm" or "7 in the evening" as examples for use with the Generative Journey node).

  • Enter as many variations as you like. Your bot selects from them randomly

Optional: Sensitive setting

There may be cases where a user's selection may reveal personally identifiable information (PII). For user privacy, you can enable the Sensitive setting so user input for this slot is not stored in conversation logs.

By default, the Sensitive toggle is disabled.

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