fascinating-indigo•2y ago
"geography", "name" entity types and tutorial flow don't exist in languages that aren't english
after spending a lot of time troubleshooting why my "name" custom entity wasn't working, i found out that in languages that aren't english (tested: german, portuguese BR, portuguese PT, spanish):
1. the custom entity type "Name" doesn't exist, and hard-coding it in doesn't work-
2. the custom entity type "Geography" has the same problems as above-
3. the starting "home" topic doesn't have any tutorials.
is there any other way to hard-code the entity type or to do something to solve this? thanks!
6 Replies
In Voiceflow, there are 14 pre-defined entity types for English-based projects, including "Name" and "Geography". However, these system-defined entities may not be available in all languages.
If a specific entity type doesn't exist in your chosen language, you can create a custom entity to fit your needs. For example, if the "Name" entity type doesn't exist in German, you can create a custom entity to capture names in German.
To create a custom entity, navigate to the Entities tab in the Model Quickview or NLU Manager and click on the + icon in the Search Entities bar. You'll then see a New Entity creation screen. When creating a new entity, you'll need to enter the Entity Name, Entity Type, Entity Values (for custom entities), and optionally, Entity Synonyms.
Unfortunately, hard-coding an entity type that doesn't exist in the system won't work. The system won't recognize it and it will cause errors in your project.
As for the lack of tutorials in the starting "home" topic for non-English languages, I apologize for the inconvenience. We're constantly working on improving our documentation and resources, and we'll take your feedback into account.
For more information on creating custom entities, you can refer to this document: Custom Entity Types.
fascinating-indigoOP•2y ago
this can't be on purpose? since names from other countries work on the english "name" custom entities
adverse-sapphire•2y ago
Languages besides English are not so well supported. I think you'll have to either use the AI to extract entities from the user's input – or use a NLU outside of Voiceflow to extract stuff.
Somewhere was an announcement that AI-based entities will be coming soon to Voiceflow…
fascinating-indigoOP•2y ago
yeah i started using the set AI step to extract the name from the message after i saw this problem, but the fact that it even exists is really annoying, wasted a lot of time and patience ahahaha
they probably should say that other languages aren't well suported somewhere...
Do not hesitate to check our docs whenever you need more info:
https://learn.voiceflow.com/hc/en-us/articles/22213888147213-Entities
Voiceflow
Entities
Introduction to the Entities Page
Voiceflow's Entities CMS is an integral part of the conversational AI framework, allowing you to define and manage the entities that your application needs to reco...
