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How to create & manage intents
How to create & manage intents

Learn how to create and manage intents to trigger flows

Alvaro Vargas avatar
Written by Alvaro Vargas
Updated over 4 months ago

Intents are crucial in conversation design, representing the user's purpose or goal when interacting with your AI Assistant. For instance, in the phrase "Where is my order", the intent is the user's wish to track their order status.

Frontline's Intent feature enables you to create flexible, non-linear conversation paths within your assistant. This feature listens for the associated intent and initiates the corresponding conversation route.

Intents offer the versatility to seamlessly navigate between flows. Frontline assistants continuously monitor for intents to be invoked by a user. Once their associated intent is activated, the Intent step is initiated, guiding users to the corresponding flow.

Adding an intent

Step 1.

Navigate to the assistant > flows > intents and click on create intent

Step 2.

When adding an intent, users should complete the following fields:

  • Name (friendly and descriptive name)

  • Description (optional)

  • Utterances

How utterances work

Utterances are example phrases that users might say or type to trigger a specific intent match. They represent diverse ways users might express the same underlying intention. For instance, for the intent "Where is my order", utterances could include:

  • "What's the status of my order?"

  • "Can you track my package?"

  • "When will my order arrive?"

  • "I need to find my order"

The more varied and comprehensive the utterances linked to an intent, the better the Frontline AI Assistant can recognize and interpret user intentions. This recognition is quantified as a confidence score for each intent.

Adding and Managing Utterances:

Manual Addition: Type an example phrase in the input field and press enter to add it as an utterance.

AI-Powered Generation: Use the "Generate" button to create utterances automatically. This feature combines data from the Intent Name, Description, existing utterances (if any), and any example phrases in the input field to produce relevant variations.

Deletion: Remove unwanted utterances by clicking the "-" icon next to each one.

Best Practices:

Include a mix of short and long phrases

Consider common misspellings or grammatical errors users might make

Incorporate synonyms and different word orders

Reflect various user demographics and speaking styles

Regularly reviewing and updating your utterances can significantly improve your AI assistant's understanding and response accuracy over time.

Step 3.

The final step in setting up your intent is integrating it into a conversation flow. Here's how to do it:

  1. Navigate to Your Assistant:

    • Go to Assistant > Flows > Flows section

  2. Create or Edit a Flow:

    • Either create a new flow or select an existing one to edit

  3. Access the Designer:

    • Open the flow to enter the Designer interface

  4. Add the Intent Node:

    • Locate the intent node in the left menu

    • Drag and drop it onto your canvas

  5. Connect the Intent:

    • Link the intent node with other nodes in your flow

    • Remember: Intents typically serve as entry points, so position them at the beginning of your flow

  6. Multiple Intents:

    • You can add several intents to a single node if needed

    • This allows for multiple entry points or triggers for the same conversation path

Pro Tips:

  • Consider the user journey when placing your intent nodes

  • Test your flow thoroughly to ensure smooth transitions between intents and other nodes

  • Regularly review and update your flows to optimize user experience

By following these steps, you'll effectively incorporate your intents into your conversation flows, creating more dynamic and responsive interactions for your users.

Deleting an intent

To remove an intent from your assistant:

  1. Go to Assistant > Flows > Flows section

  2. Find the intent you want to delete:

    1. Scroll through the list, or

    2. Use the search box

  3. Click the three dots (...) to the right of the intent

  4. Select "Delete" from the dropdown menu

  5. Confirm the deletion if prompted

Note: Deleting an intent is permanent. Ensure it's not used in any active flows before removing.

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