RASA X change slots order in form

Rasa X
#1

Hi, I wanted to ask if there is a reason for alphabetical order of slots used by forms (defined in domain file) when using RASA X?

I have something like this in my domain file:

 personal_data_form:
    name_and_surname:
      - entity: persName
        type: from_entity
    date_of_birth:
      - entity: time
        type: from_entity

When I start RASA X on my server, it edits my domain file and introduce an alphabetical order to my slots. Like this:

personal_data_form:
    date_of_birth:
      - entity: time
        type: from_entity
    name_and_surname:
      - entity: persName
        type: from_entity

Is that a desired behavior? I want my form to ask for name first (and then for date of birth). Rasa shell works just fine, but RASA X breaks the order of my slots and the dialog is incoherent.

Thanks in advance for response/advice.

#2

@BarMin, you can use custom action to ask for the next action, i’ll send you the docs of teaching how you should do. Hope it helps :smiley:

1 Like
#3

AFAIK, this is a bug in the current version of Rasa X and a tracked issue. It should be fixed in a release soon. In the meantime, you can use the custom action workaround in the comment above.

2 Likes
#4

Thanks for the answers. I actually just add numbers to my slots like:

    1_name_and_surname:
      - entity: persName
        type: from_entity
    2_date_of_birth:
      - entity: time
        type: from_entity

It’s not very beautiful, but it works both in RASA X and RASA and I didn’t have to create any custom actions this way (less code is always better :D)

When this bug will be fixed i will just remove the indices and that’s it.

2 Likes
#5

Hey!

I like the discussion going on here. Been running into a similar use-case where I want my form to run in a certain order. So I take it, @BarMin that your users are always asked to fill a requested slot in the order you set up there? Also, that’s a great hacky fix :smiley:

#6

@kearnsw, has this bug been resolved in the latest release yet?

#7

Yes. That’s correct. Numbers are actually necessary only if you use RASA X, because it sorts the slots by name and save it back to domain.yml (very annoying bug). RASA X is not open-source, so… There is no way to fix it properly on your own.

If you use RASA service only - then it works just fine (because RASA doesn’t sort anything) and the order of slots is preserved just fine and no numbering is needed.

1 Like