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Creating actions for your assistant#

Now that the skills in your application are connected to your assistant, you are ready to create actions that are tied to those skills. Learn more about building actions here

Configure the number of input fields#

Before configuring actions, it is important to modify a setting within watsonx Orchestrate that allows triggered skills to display as forms (versus conversational skills).

  1. Click your (a) profile icon and then click (b) Settings

    Learn more about configuring input fields here.

  2. Click the Skill configurations tab.

  3. Enter 0 for the Number of form fields.

Create actions#

  1. Click the main menu and select AI assistant builder.

  2. Hover over the Home icon () and click Actions.

  3. Click Create action.

  4. Click the Skill-based action tile.

  5. Select the z/OS Gather Facts tile and click Next.

    Note, it may take a minute for the page to display the action tiles. The date that is shown in the z/OS Gather Facts tile reflects when you added the skill to your application.

  6. On the New action dialog, (a) enter a prompt a user of the assistant might use to initiate the action and then (b) click Save.

    Sample prompts:

    Get z/OS facts

    Gather z/OS facts

  7. Add any extra prompts (a) and then click the save () (b).

  8. Click Preview.

  9. Enter one of the prompts you specified in step 9 or 10.

    Prompt: 

    Get z/OS facts

  10. Review the returned results and record the job number.

    If an error is generated or the action is not performed and only search results are returned, review the following Troubleshooting section.

Verify the job in the Ansible Automation Platform console#

Return to the Ansible Automation Platform (AAP) console and review the job information.

  1. Click Jobs and then click the job number that you recorded in the previous step for the z/OS Gather Facts skill.

  2. Review both the Details and Output for the z/OS Gather Facts job.

    Recall, that in the assistant, the contents shown in the Output of the Ansible job were not displayed.

IBM watsonx Assistant for Z provides utility skills to retrieve the job output. It is also possible to create a skill flow that executes the z/OS Gather Facts skill followed by the Retrieve job output utility skill in sequence; passing the job ID from the first skill to the second to view the output within the assistant. Creating a skill flow is covered in the next section.

Troubleshooting#

Skill returns "Sorry, we're having issues generating a response" or the action is not performed and only search results are returned.

This error appears to be an intermittent issue when a skill is first added. To resolve, add the skill to your personal skills catalog using the steps that follow. If you encounter the issue, try the steps that follow:

  1. Expand the main menu and select Chat.

  2. Click Add skills from the catalog.

  3. Search for the skill app you created earlier and click the tile for your app.

  4. Click Add skill for all the skills you want to add.

  5. Click Connect app.

  6. Enter the (a) username and (b) password using the username (admin) and password for your IBM Technology Zone (ITZ) watsonx Assistant for Z Pilot - AAP & z/OS reservation (AAP User Password (Use SSH key to login, only use password for UI)), and then click Connect app.

  7. Expand the main menu and select Chat.

  8. Try one of the prompts you created for your skill.

    Prompt: 

    Gather z/OS facts

You should now be able to run the skill through the assistant preview.