DialogFlow: Create an Agent in DialogFlow

Owned by Koen Hindriks
Last updated: Dec 16, 2022 by Gardner, I.V. (Bella)
3 min read

 

To set up an agent on Dialogflow, first sign up here. You may use your VU-account for logging in.

  • Choose 'Create new agent'.

  • On the next screen, start by choosing a name for your agent

  • Then give the preferred language (English).

  • When finished setting up, click the 'Create' button.

  • You will now see the general dashboard for creating the agent, with options to create your first intents or entities.

You can share your Dialog agent with your group members and TA by clicking the settings button, in the top-left corner of your dashboard screen, next to the name of your agent. Next, click on `Share' and add the email addresses to share the agent with, under 'INVITE NEW PEOPLE'. Click here to see how to connect a DialogFlow agent to a GOAL agent.

Add Intents to the Dialogflow Agent

  • To add an intent to the agent, when on the dashboard page of your Dialogflow Agent, click on the '+' sign next to Intents' in the left-hand bar.

  • You can give the intent a name on the top screen and add a couple of variants in which the intent may be worded under Training Phrases' (See below).

 

  • Such variants may be thought of from the top of your head, or come forward from actual conversations with a user during testing.

  • Be sure to press the blue 'SAVE' button when you are done. If you have provided over five phrases, Dialogflow will train a classification model that recognises phrases similar to the training phrases.

  • For a proper connection to the GOAL agent, make sure that the exact Intent name is given as a title in the `Actions and parameters' box (See the figure below). Be sure to give as title the same name as your intent name. In addition, entities should be given in lowercase.

 

  • Also, make sure that the webhook switch is checked (see the figure below). Responses can be left untouched, as those are handled by the GOAL agent.

Add Entities to Dialogflow Agent

  • Entities can be made by clicking the '+' sign next to Entities' in the left-hand bar of the dashboard page.

  • You can specify entity types (e.g.: recipes') and entities (e.g.: pasta aglio e olio').

  • Checking Define synonyms' and Fuzzy matching' gives most chance that different ways in which the user might name an entity are understood by the agent.

  • For a proper link to the GOAL agent, the entity type should be written in lowercase.

  • Entities only become useful when they are marked in specific intents. This can be done in the intent screen by adding the entity under Actions and Parameters', and subsequently segmenting the entities that are mentioned in the Training Phrases with your cursor, selecting the particular entity with your mouse (see the figure below). Make sure to write the entity in lower case and giving the same name as both entity (starting with a '@' sign) and value (starting with a '$' sign).

For additional pointers, you may inspect the following resources: