Using entities

Entities are the items or data your chatbot will ask for and use in the conversation. Zoom Virtual Agent has prebuilt entities you can use like dates, major cities, airports, or urls. When you use a prebuilt entity, you’re telling your chatbot that you want the user to answer in that particular format. If you want to define what the chatbot will accept, then you can create your own custom entities which can be used in bot flows. For example, you could create an entity called “Product” that has a list of different products you sell (for example, face wash, sunscreen, moisturizer). Then, you can set up your bot and use that entity to ask, “What type of product are you looking for today?” and only accept replies which are “face wash”, “sunscreen”, or “moisturizer”.

Entities can be used to collect specific information which can be used to route the user down a path, store information, or make data calls. In Zoom Virtual Agent, custom entities are created in intents and used by bot flows and variables.

This article covers:

Prerequisites for using entities in Zoom Virtual Agent

How to use entities in Zoom Virtual Agent

Intents

Entities are used as placeholder values in training phrases. Training phrases are what customers might type or use when searching for answers.

  1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
  2. In the navigation menu, click AI Management then Intent Management.
  3. Click the intent name you want to add training phrases to.
  4. Under the Training Phrases section, click Add Training Phrase(s) then Custom. 
  5. In the Add Training Phrase(s) window, enter a training phrase and add each training phrase on a separate line.
  6. Insert an entity into a training phrase using double brackets {{ }}.For example, Shipping cost from {{ Country}}.

You can take words used by customers and add them as variants to entities. For example, add Canada as variant to Country entity. Then you can use it in a training phrase like How much does shipping from Canada cost?

Bot Flows

In your bot flow, there’s a Text Input type option from the drop-down menu in the Collect Input widget. This is where you can tell your bot to only accept text inputs from users if they match a certain entity option. For example, if you have a “My Product Types” entity with entity variants such as eye cream, face wash, and toner, you could have your bot ask, “What product type?” and only accept values that are eye cream, face wash, and toner.

  1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
  2. In the navigation menu, click AI Management then Virtual Agent.
  3. Click the display name of an existing chatbot.
  4. Click the Bot Flows tab.
  5. Click the display name of an existing bot flow.
  6. In the left-side widgets panel, click and drag Collect Input onto the preferred location in the flow.
  7. Select the Collect Input widget.
  8. Under Customer Response Type, click Text.
  9. Under Data Type, select Bot Custom Entity or Bot System Entity.
  10. Under Entity, choose the specific entity you want to associate with the user's input.

User's response will be stored as a variable locally or globally. Locally means the response will only be used by a single bot flow they’re in. This option can be used for information that you don't want your bot to remember. Globally means that variable is stored by the bot so you can use it in other flows or pass it onto agents.