What is difference between adding new values or synonyms to entities on IBM Watson Conversation?

Question

I am using IBM Watson Conversation to build a chatbot. I am just wondering what is the difference between adding different synonyms to entity values rather than creating new values? Is it just a way to keep things organized?

Answer 1

The value is the value of the entity, and the synonyms are the synonyms of that value.

For example, when you create one Entity @devices , and you add the Value Samsung S7 , you can add the synonyms: S7 by Samsung , S7 Samsung , etc.

And when you access the entity value like: @devices , you'll get the real VALUE name ( Samsung S7 ), and not the synonyms.

But you can access the synonyms value with the .literal property to get the exact text that was recognized as the detected entity, for example:

<?@devices.literal?>

One good idea to use the synonyms is if you want one specific value from the user and the user types with different forms . For example, I did one entity with @Positions , and I added a lot of values like:

• Value : Support Analyst Synonyms : Support Technican
• Value : Windows Analyst Synonyms : Support Analyst, Windows Support, etc
• Value : Linux Analyst Synonyms : Support Linux

Because, in my case, I want to save the real value from my entity. I wanna save: Support Analyst, Windows Analyst and Linux Analyst, because they are the real value from the @positions in my Company.

If the user types Support Technican, the entity @positions will be detected and the value Support Analyst will be available inside the @Positions entity, for example.

Reference: Watson Converstation Service Documentation here .