Custom App Series - Step 1 - Building a Custom App
Objective
The purpose of this document is to describe how to create an app in the VoiceWorx. After going through this document, you should be able to create custom app for channels such as Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Amazon Lex, Twilio and Slack.
Pre-requisites
You should have a connection and/or a Data Source established.
Scenario
You want to build an Amazon Alexa Skill where you can ask for a person’s phone number. All the phone numbers are stored in a Data Source, and for simplicity of this documents, it is assumed that the user has established a connection between the Data Source and the VoiceWorx Platform
We want to create a skill where the following commands should return a phone number:
“Get phone number for John Doe?”
“Find me the contact number for Doctor John Doe.”
Terminologies
Intent
Utterance
Slot
Entities
Methods
Input
Intent
Intent is the task the user wants to accomplish. Intent is not a specific word; it is the overall goal the user is trying to achieve. In our example, our intent is to find a phone number by name.
Utterance
A user can convey an intent by saying various phrases. In our example, we are going to use the two above mentioned utterances.
Slots
Slots are variables contained in intent. In our example, the slot is the name of the person whose phone number we are trying to find.
Entities
Entities are the synonyms/variations for the slots. They define the various ways a user can specify an intent. For example, in our use case, the user can say the name of the person as ‘John Doe’ or ‘Doctor John Doe.’
Methods
Methods are the tasks performed on the database. Examples are search, put, push, delete etc.
Inputs
Inputs are slot mappings to the methods. VoiceWorx gets ‘slots’ from channels such as Alexa, Google Assistant or chatbots and then has to map these to methods for task execution. Inputs can contain multiple Input parameters.
Step 1: Create an App
Creating a custom app that can be consumed from an external platform like Alexa or Lex, includes the following steps
Connect System (Data Source Integration)
Create App
Create the App Methods
Add intents to the App
Add Slots to the App
Define Utterance
Define Input
Create Entities for App Slots (This is optional)
Step 2: Set up a Data Source
Login to the VoiceWorx platform, go to Integration menu and select Connect System. In the resulting page, click connect external systems
In the resulting popup, choose “Custom” from the “Select External System” and choose “Rest API Service” from the Select System Type option then click connect system.
Add the web API endpoint , username and password and click “Validate System” to ensure you have access to the web API endpoint.
ApiName: ContactFinder
Authorization Type: Basic Auth
Base API URL: https://demo.voiceworx.ai
Basic Auth Settings: Your VoiceWorx username
Password: Your VoiceWorx password
AuthorizationURL : https://demo.voiceworx.ai/api/contacts
Create Custom App in Voiceworx.ai
To create a custom app in VoiceWorx click on “Custom Apps” menu and select “Manage Apps”.
Click “New Custom App” button
Provide following details and click on Save.
Name: ContactFinder
Custom App Type: Search
Category: None
In the top menu tabs, select “Data Sources” then “Create New Data Source”. Provide the following details:
Name: ContactFinderDS
Integration Configuration: Rest API Service : Contact Finder ( integration configured in Step 2)
Click on methods and create new methods. Enter the following in the fields
Name: GetPhoneNumberByName
Request Type: GET
Query Path: ?name={{Person}}
Result Type: Record
Method Path: /api/contacts
Result Template: {{Person}}
Empty Result Template:
Let’s test if the method is extracting the contact information correctly. Click on Test button.
Fill the following parameter and click on Method Test, then on Result section, click on Result tab.
Step 3: Creating an Intent
Navigate to the ‘Intents’ tab and click on the ‘Create New Intent’ button.
Step 4: Create Slot
Navigate to the ‘Slots’ tab and select your intent from the drop-down list. Then click on the ‘Create New Slot’ button.
Step 3: Creating Utterances
Navigate to the ‘Utterances’ tab and select the intent from the drop-down list for which you’re creating utterances. Then click on ‘Create New Utterance.’
Important: To insert slot in an utterance, type ‘{‘and a drop-down of available slots will appear.
You can add as many utterances as you would like.
Step 4: Mapping Inputs
Navigate to the ‘Inputs’ tab and click on ‘Create New Input.’
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