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Variables
Variables are used to store any information the bot knows about a user. This can be their preferred language, or the channel they're using, but also information coming from external data sources like, for example, an API. All variables are stored in what is called a user's session.
To create a variable from the
Settings
tab:- 1.Click on
Variables
. - 2.Click on
Create Variable
. - 3.A window pops up. Fill in the fields with what you want.
- 4.
Save
your changes.

Create a variable from the Settings tab.
Chatlayer allows you to make sure that some variables are processed differently. This is useful when the conversation between a bot and a user contains sensitive information, such as the user's bank account number or anything GDPR-sensitive.
To define a variable as sensitive:
- 1.Open your
Variables
menu under theSettings
tab. - 2.Toggle on the
Sensitive
switch if you don't want this variable to be saved in the conversation history. - 3.
Save
your changes.

Create a sensitive variable from the Settings tab.
If you put the Sensitive toggle to
true
, the values of your variable will never be shown in Chatlayer. Instead, any user of our platform will only see a placeholder with the variable name. This information can only be retrieved through an API request.You can set default values for variables, which serve as initial values for these variables. For example, default value can be used to define the path to a URL for making API calls. This ensures for example that the chatbot always has the correct URL to fetch data or interact with external services.

Default values are limited to string data types.
When publishing changes to the chatbot, new values are only set for variables if previous values did not exist for those variables. If there were previous values, they are retained.
When using the clear session template, the value for a variable will be reset to its default value if it had been modified during the session.
If you want to incrementally increase the value of a variable, you can use the following steps:
- 1.Define a variable, for example
variableName
, and give it a numeric value such as0
- 2.At the point in the flow where you want to increment the value of
variableName
, enter variableName as the variable and{variableName|increment}
as the value
This method will increase the value of counter by 1 each time, for example when a specific bot dialog is passed or a button is clicked.
Incrementing a variable can be typically useful when you want to count how many times the user wasn't understood by the bot. Learn how to build a Not Understood Counter here.
Variables and values are case-sensitive.
For example,
capitalVariable
will be regarded as a separate variable fromCapitalVariable
.The same goes for values. If you check in a Go To if a value for
variableX
is equal to valueY
it will not be triggered if the value for variableX
is equal to valuey
You can transform a value from upper case to lower case and vice versa by adding these modifiers to the value name:
{name|toUpperCase}
{name|toLowerCase}
{name|capitalize}
Last modified 2mo ago