Forms

Note

There is an in-depth tutorial here about how to use Rasa Forms for slot filling.

Configuration File

To use forms, you also need to include the FormPolicy in your policy configuration file. For example:

policies:
  - name: "FormPolicy"

Form Basics

Using a FormAction, you can describe all of the happy paths with a single story. By “happy path”, we mean that whenever you ask a user for some information, they respond with the information you asked for.

## happy path
* request_restaurant
    - restaurant_form
    - form{"name": "restaurant_form"}
    - form{"name": null}

Custom slot mappings

If you do not define slot mappings, slots will be only filled by entities with the same name as the slot that are picked up from the user input. Some slots, like cuisine, can be picked up using a single entity, but a FormAction can also support yes/no questions and free-text input. The slot_mappings method defines how to extract slot values from user responses.

def slot_mappings(self) -> Dict[Text, Union[Dict, List[Dict]]]:
    return {
        "cuisine": self.from_entity(entity="cuisine", not_intent="chitchat"),
        "num_people": [
            self.from_entity(entity="num_people", intent=["inform", "request_restaurant"]),
            self.from_entity(entity="number"),
        ],
    }

Validating user input

After extracting a slot value from user input, the form will try to validate the value of the slot. Note that by default, validation only happens if the form action is executed immediately after user input.

def validate_cuisine(self, value: Text, dispatcher: CollectingDispatcher, tracker: Tracker, domain: Dict[Text, Any]) -> Dict[Text, Any]:
    if value.lower() in self.cuisine_db():
        return {"cuisine": value}
    else:
        dispatcher.utter_message(template="utter_wrong_cuisine")
        return {"cuisine": None}

Handling unhappy paths

Of course your users will not always respond with the information you ask of them.

## chitchat
* request_restaurant
    - restaurant_form
    - form{"name": "restaurant_form"}
* stop
    - utter_ask_continue
* deny
    - action_deactivate_form
    - form{"name": null}

The requested_slot slot

The slot requested_slot is automatically added to the domain as an unfeaturized slot. If you want to make it featurized, you need to add it to your domain file as a categorical slot.

Handling conditional slot logic

Many forms require more logic than just requesting a list of fields. For example:

@staticmethod
def required_slots(tracker) -> List[Text]:
    if tracker.get_slot('cuisine') == 'greek':
        return ["cuisine", "num_people", "outdoor_seating", "preferences", "feedback"]
    else:
        return ["cuisine", "num_people", "preferences", "feedback"]

Debugging

The first thing to try is to run your bot with the debug flag. Real user behavior will always surprise you!