String variable
When you want to receive specific information from a customer and store it, you can use the Send Message or Send Input Form nodeRecently, Alli added a validation feature that can verify the format of such received information, so we introduce it here.
Currently the Validation feature applies only to string-type variables. The usage is not difficult, but there are some precautions, so please read the guide carefully before using it.
Step 1. Create the string variable to which you will apply the Validation settings
Option 1. Create a variable from the settings menu
Option 2. Create a variable while editing a node
Log in to the Alli dashboard and start creating a string-type variable. There are two ways to create a variable. Option 1 – Go to Settings > Variables > User and click the '+ Add' button. For the general method of creating/managing variables from the settings menu, this guide. Option 2 – While building a skill, you can create a new variable from supported nodes. When selecting the variable to store the customer's response, click 'Create new variable'.
When you choose the string type, the validation settings menu appears. Choose a validation type and enter the error message to display for invalid input.
When you choose the string type, the Validation settings appear.
Alli currently provides email and phone number validation by default. If you select 'Custom', you can add other formats using regular expressions. If you are not familiar with regular expressions, please refer to the examples at the end of this post.
Step 2. Build the skill using the created variable
Validation is supported in the Send Message and Send Input Form nodes.
Step 3. Check that Validation works correctly
You can check whether validation works properly using the Preview menu. If an invalid format is entered, the configured error message will be displayed.
If the 'Always allow natural language input' feature in Settings > General is turned on, real-time string variable validation will not operate. However, validation runs in the background, and if all natural language processing attempts fail, the entered content will be checked against the format and an error message will be shown if it doesn't match.
If you want to use real-time validation without performing natural language processing in a specific 'Ask' node, enable 'Always treat input as an answer' that appears when you select the string type for the variable to be saved.
[Advanced Use] [Additional Information] Custom validation examples using regular expressions
^[0-9]{2,3}$ : Two- to three-digit number format
^(0[1-9]|1[012])[- /.](0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])[- /.](19|20)\d\d$ : Date, mm/dd/yyyy format
^[0-9]{2,3}[-]+[0-9]{3,4}[-]+[0-9]{4}$ : Phone number format provided by Alli by default
(^\w[a-zA-Z0-9_ .+-]*@(\w[a-zA-Z0-9-]*\.)+[a-zA-Z]+$) : Email format provided by Alli by default
You can find various regular expressions through internet searches. If you want to learn more about regular expressions, please refer to the website below. https://netpeaksoftware.com/blog/regular-expressions-for-seos-and-digital-marketers-with-use-cases
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