Define Bot Question Elements Differently with Slots Renamed to Variables

For greater flexibility in how Einstein Bots gather, manage, and store data, slots are renamed variables and no longer require an associated entity. Don’t worry—you don’t have to update your current bots. For existing bots, we handle the change for you. For new bots, you use a slightly different process to create Question elements that gather customer data.

Where: This change applies to both Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic in Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions. Setup for Einstein Bots is available only in Lightning Experience.

Who: Einstein Bots is available to orgs with both Service Cloud and Live Agent user licenses. Each org is provided with 25 Einstein Bots conversations per month for each Live Agent User with an active subscription. To make full use of the Einstein Bots Performance page, you also need Service Cloud Analytics.

Why: A variable (what we used to call a slot) is a container that stores a specific piece of data collected from the customer. An entity sets the expected type of incoming data and determines how to process it. Previously, when you defined a slot, you associated it with an entity as part of the slot’s definition. The new variable isn’t tied to an entity in this way, so it’s more flexible for data storage. You can use variables within dialog actions as both inputs and outputs.

How: When you create a Question element, instead of specifying a slot, you specify an entity and a variable. We provide several system entities, and you can create your own. Your entities can be pattern-based or value-list driven.

Entity and Variable fields in Question element