Entities are another information that we can extract from user’s input via Microsoft LUIS. First type of entities is the prebuilt entities which is very easy to use. We just need to enable it via the portal. Then, we can detect the prebuilt entities.
For example, LUIS is used to extract person’s name, email, and phone number accurately from user’s input. This is important so that our virtual assistant can greet back the user using his name and confirmation of his phone number. If there is no entities detection, we can only greet the user with “Thanks, My name is Alex, our salesperson will contact you soon at my number is 012345678’, for example. This is because we have to assume the user’s reply is the name, email, and phone number.
The prebuilt datetime entities of LUIS is also very useful. If a user said next Monday, LUIS would return the exact date of next Monday. This makes the conversation more natural during an appointment making and much more.
You may ask, what if the entities you need are not available in the prebuilt entities? LUIS allows us to create our own entities. Most basic entity types would be list entity and regex entity. In list entities you can also provide synonyms. For example, an entity for small size can includes “sm, sml, tiny, smallest” as its synonyms.
Another example of entities would be BMW the brand entities which you can provide synonyms as “Bayerische Motoren Werke AG”, “BM”, “Bayerische Motoren Werke GmbH” and “Bavarian Engine Works Company”. As for regex entity, you can use it for fixed format such as identity card number.
There are many more ways you can enhance your chatbot with LUIS. Do check out Microsoft’s documentation at this link or check out some of our chatbots that are using Microsoft LUIS and Azure Bot Framework:
