How to check if a VA Topic was triggered from NLU or if a user selected it from topic picker?

[Nisarg Thakur]

Hello,

I am wanting to add a condition in my virtual agent topic where if the topic was triggered from an NLU, then perform certain actions, if a user manually selects it, then skip those steps. How do I check that in the designer?

Any suggestions appreciated! Thank you!

[Richard Kiss1]

Hi Nish,

There is a system variable called vaSystem.getSearchText(). According to the docs: "This method returns the last utterance typed by the user and is used to find the current topic."

If you select manually, the variable will not have a value, if you perform a search, it will have a value. Just created a small topic to test it:

The conditions are:

NLU: return !gs.nil(vaSystem.getSearchText())

Manual selection: return gs.nil(vaSystem.getSearchText())

The outcome is this:

NLU search

Manual selection from the Show me everything:

I hope this helps.

Richard

[MB Richards]

@Richard Kiss1  thanks for this, worked like a charm!