You are building a chatbot by using the Microsoft Bot Framework Composer.

Dialog RecapThe Bot Framework Composer dialog shown:

Bot asks: “What is your name?”

User input stored in user.name.

Property is user.name with a value expression: =coalesce(@user.Name, @personName)

Bot asks: “Hello ${user.name}, how old are you?”

User input stored in user.age.

user.name is an entity.

No.

user.name here is not an entity. It is a property in the bot’s memory (user state).

Entities come from LUIS/CLU recognition, while this is a variable property.

The dialog asks for a user name and a user age and assigns appropriate values to the user.name and user.age properties.

Yes.

The dialog explicitly prompts for a text input (name) and a number input (age) and assigns them to user.name and user.age.

The chatbot attempts to take the first non-null entity value for userName or personName and assigns the value to user.name.

Yes.

The expression =coalesce(@user.Name, @personName) ensures that if @user.Name exists, it’s used; otherwise, it tries @personName. This is exactly first-non-null entity resolution.

Statement Analysis

user.name is an entity. → No

The dialog asks for a user name and a user age and assigns appropriate values to the user.name and user.age properties. → Yes

The chatbot attempts to take the first non-null entity value for userName or personName and assigns the value to user.name. → Yes

Final Answer

Bot Framework Composer – Memory and Properties

Expressions and coalesce function