# Categorical Slot value set whereas not in list

**URL:** <https://forum.rasa.com/t/categorical-slot-value-set-whereas-not-in-list/25708>\
**Category:** Rasa Open Source\
**Created:** [March 5, 2020, 3:09pm UTC](https://forum.rasa.com/t/categorical-slot-value-set-whereas-not-in-list/25708 "2020-03-05T15:09:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![glaulom](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/forum.rasa.com/glaulom/32/6653_2.png) [@glaulom](https://forum.rasa.com/u/glaulom)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 3:09pm UTC](https://forum.rasa.com/t/categorical-slot-value-set-whereas-not-in-list/25708/1 "2020-03-05T15:09:36Z")

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Hi,

I’ve got a categorical slot defined as follow :

```
site:
    type: categorical
    values:
      - paris
      - grenoble 

```

And when I say to my bot “aiguillage” for instance here is what I get

```
* aiguillage{"site":"aiguillage"}
    - slot{"site":"aiguillage"}

```

Whereas it’s not part of the categorical list above. Is it a normal behaviour ? Should not it be set as “other” or not at all set as entity/slot ?

Thanks for any help 🙂

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ghostvv](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/forum.rasa.com/ghostvv/32/211_2.png) [@Ghostvv](https://forum.rasa.com/u/Ghostvv)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2020, 3:34pm UTC](https://forum.rasa.com/t/categorical-slot-value-set-whereas-not-in-list/25708/2 "2020-03-06T15:34:24Z")

</div>

`slot{"site":"aiguillage"}` is string representation of corresponding `SlotSet` event, it is independent of the type of the slot. Type of the slot is used during featurization

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stephens](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/forum.rasa.com/stephens/32/1632_2.png) [@stephens](https://forum.rasa.com/u/stephens)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2020, 7:19pm UTC](https://forum.rasa.com/t/categorical-slot-value-set-whereas-not-in-list/25708/3 "2020-03-06T19:19:55Z")

</div>

So for featurization, `aiguillage` is mapped to ` __other__ ` as described in the [docs](https://rasa.com/docs/rasa/core/slots/#categorical-slot). But there’s no validation of the string representation.