FAQ: Slots

Frequently asked questions related to NLX's Dialog Studio Slots

Slot type

Should I use a built-in slot type or custom slot?

Several built-in slots are provided in Dialog Studio that capture common values that would otherwise be painstaking to recreate: list of countries, time, dates, common first names, etc.

Create custom slots if built-in types don't exist and when you want to provide fairly fixed choices that users select from or would normally use to clarify a preference: Yes/No, reason for cancellation, t-shirt size, etc.

For values that may change regularly or are massive in scale (e.g., showtimes, available hotel rooms, grocery store inventory, etc.) create a Data request instead.

Attached slots

Can I reuse a custom slot across multiple intents?

Absolutely. In order to use a slot with any intent in your workspace, it must first be attached to the intent. From there, you may decide how it's used in training phrases and/or the intent's flow as well as determine the path that continues forward from each selected value in a User choice node.

Why do I need to attach a slot to an intent?

Since slots can be used in training phrases or within an intent flow when users make selections on User choice nodes, the slot's values then become part of the data that trains the NLP to understand and process the users requests.

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