Hi rasa community, Please find below a simplified version of what I am struggled to when trying to design my rasa chatbot. [Story_loops] Typically, I have a story whose large part of it is iteratively repeated until a variable number of times (here fixed to 3 iterations). More specifically, I have multiple loops within my story and some of them are even nested inside my big loop on the scheme… Based on this, I wondered how to efficiently design those loops within rasa. I saw checkpoints but could read that it was not optimal regarding high use of memory. And I saw people suggesting Forms. The problem is that I can’t imagine how to design this as a Form since I don’t have typical slots to fill until completion of the form, but rather have a sequence of custom actions that I have to iteratively repeat several times for a user within a session. Could anyone give me lights about this design ? Thanks !

When dealing with loops, you should use Forms. Instead of using “typical slots” , you can use a counter slot that counts how many repetitions has occurred. E.g. you could have one required slot called counter that contains the integer number of how many repetitions there have been, and another required slot continue (or something) that only gets filled when the value in counter exceeds three. This will then complete the form and carry on to the next action. That suggestion makes a few assumptions about what you are trying to achieve. If you can give a concrete example of the behaviour you expect, I may be able to help you better.

Hi @mloubser thank you for your answer. Intuitively, I have indeed defined two slots counter (float, doesn’t influence the conversation) and end_loop_session (bool, influence the conversation) that I update within the custom action action_propose_subjects as following: index_iter = tracker.get_slot("counter") if index_iter < 3: index_iter += 1 return [SlotSet("counter", index_iter), SlotSet("end_loop_session", False)] elif index_iter == 3: index_iter = 1 return [SlotSet("counter", index_iter), SlotSet("end_loop_session", True)] However, I can’t manage to deal with these slots within Forms, so I defined multiple rules as following: rules: - rule: Welcome # This rule only applies to the start of a session. conversation_start: True steps: - intent: greet - action: utter_welcome - action: action_propose_subjects - rule: Propose subjects steps: - action: action_propose_subjects - intent: affirm - action: utter_precontent - rule: Propose content steps: - action: utter_precontent - intent: affirm - action: utter_content - action: utter_feedback - rule: Answer feedback and continue session condition: - slot_was_set: - end_loop_session: false steps: - action: utter_feedback - intent: affirm - action: action_propose_subjects - rule: Answer feedback and close session condition: - slot_was_set: - end_loop_session: true steps: - action: utter_feedback - intent: affirm - action: utter_goodbye This system seems to loop until the third iteration but the conversation doesn’t go to the end wanted which is action: utter_goodbye from rule: Answer feedback and close session, but stops at intent: affirm from rule: Propose subjects. Could you have any advice on this problem and how to deal with these within Forms?

You can actually use just 1 counter slot, and use a validation action on the last required slot to check and iterate it’s value. I pulled the basis for each customization directly from the Advanced Usage forms docs. Responses are just to make it clear what step it’s on, you could customize these or make them custom actions as you need. Result is this conversation, code is below: Your input -> /greet welcome Round 1: Proposed subjects are x,y,z, is that fine? Your input -> /affirm precontent pls affirm? Your input -> /affirm content pls affirm? Your input -> /affirm feedback pls affirm? Your input -> /affirm Round 2: Proposed subjects are x,y,z, is that fine? Your input -> /affirm precontent pls affirm? Your input -> /affirm content pls affirm? Your input -> /affirm feedback pls affirm? Your input -> /affirm Round 3: Proposed subjects are x,y,z, is that fine? Your input -> /affirm precontent pls affirm? Your input -> /affirm content pls affirm? Your input -> /affirm feedback pls affirm? Your input -> /affirm goodbye domain.yml intents: - affirm - greet slots: # None of the slots used to fill the form need to be featurized proposed_subjects: type: any precontent: type: any content: type: any feedback: type: any counter: type: any initial_value: 1 forms: feedback_loop: proposed_subjects: - intent: affirm type: from_intent value: yes precontent: - intent: affirm type: from_intent value: yes content: - intent: affirm type: from_intent value: yes # we will use a validation method for `feedback` that increases the counter and resets slots if necessary feedback: - intent: affirm type: from_intent value: yes actions: - validate_feedback_loop - action_ask_feedback_loop_proposed_subjects responses: utter_welcome: - text: welcome utter_goodbye: - text: goodbye # There's no `utter_ask` for proposed_subjects slot becuase # the custom action `action_ask_feedback_loop_proposed_subjects` should be called instead # this should do what your action `action_proposed subjects` was doing utter_ask_feedback_loop_precontent: - text: precontent pls affirm? utter_ask_feedback_loop_content: - text: content pls affirm? utter_ask_feedback_loop_feedback: - text: feedback pls affirm? rules.yml I didn’t add a second way to trigger the form since you didn’t list one, but you could add more rules that also trigger the…

counter_loop_bot.zip (5.3 KB) You can train this with rasa train core (no NLU data in the repo) on rasa==2.4.2 (patch prob doesn’t matter, but just for the record) to see the behaviour above by using hardcoded intents (/greet, /affirm)

Thanks @mloubser this is awesome! I have two following questions: Are the slots linked to the form automatically reset after this form has been completed? How could I deal with forms within forms, i.e. how could I implement nested loops?

Nope, but you could definitely do that in a final custom action Depending what you want to achieve you could do something with activating and deactivating forms based on each other, so it’s more like form-interrupts-form-returns to form

@mloubser could you indicate me examples of form-interrupts-form-returns to form?

I use this as a reference when I was dealing with forms in Rasa 2.4.x . Check out their stories and the usage of next_form_name slot. Hope this helps. [image] RasaHQ/financial-demo 58c079f72eab4d0da3c4c259a2d5ab576bb9b436 A demo for a financial services bot. Contribute to RasaHQ/financial-demo development by creating an account on GitHub.

I was wonder, how would you define current counter if its not static number (it will depend on the intent). For example: “Darren and John in one group” which would mean the counter should go up to 2 next it could be like “Emily Jessica and Susan is one group” which would mean the counter should go up to 3

How to practically design chatbot with repeated parts of a story

Rasa Open Source

mattvan83 (Matthieu Vanhoutte) April 7, 2021, 3:51pm 4

@mloubser would you have any time for helping me?

Thanks!

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How to practically design chatbot with repeated parts of a story

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