Firestore Natural Language Processing

Description: Performs Natural Language Processing on strings written to a Cloud Firestore collection (uses Cloud Natural Language API).

Details: Use this extension to perform NLP tasks on strings (for example, reviews) written to a Cloud Firestore collection. The tasks available are sentiment analysis, entity extraction and text classification.

This extension listens to your specified Cloud Firestore collection. If you add a string to a specified field in any document within that collection, this extension:

• Performs the configured NLP tasks using the input string.
• Adds the NLP data of the string to a separate specified field in the same document.

You specify the desired NLP tasks at configuration time. All tasks are powered by the Google Cloud Natural Language API. The options offered are:

• Sentiment analysis.
• Entity extraction.
  • Entity extraction offers additional customization. You can specify the types of entities to save (for example, LOCATION, PERSON) and specify if the extension should save common noun entities.
• Text classification.

If the original input field of the document is updated, then the NLP data will be automatically updated, as well.

Additional setup

Before installing this extension, make sure that you've set up a Cloud Firestore database in your Firebase project.

Billing

This extension uses other Firebase or Google Cloud Platform services which may have associated charges:

• Cloud Natural Language API
• Cloud Firestore
• Cloud Functions

When you use Firebase Extensions, you're only charged for the underlying resources that you use. A paid-tier billing plan is only required if the extension uses a service that requires a paid-tier plan, for example calling to a Google Cloud Platform API or making outbound network requests to non-Google services. All Firebase services offer a free tier of usage. Learn more about Firebase billing.

Configuration Parameters:

• Cloud Functions location: Where do you want to deploy the functions created for this extension? You usually want a location close to your database. For help selecting a location, refer to the location selection guide.

• Collection path: What is the path to the collection that contains the strings on which to perform NLP?

• Input field name: What is the name of the field that contains the string on which to perform NLP?

• Output field name: What is the name of the field where you want to store NLP data?

• Tasks: What NLP tasks do you want the extension to perform? One or more of: sentiment analysis, entity extraction and text classification.

• Entities to filter: What types of entities do you want entity extraction to retain?

• Save common entities: Do you want entity extraction to also retain common names entities (for example, 'users')?

Cloud Functions:

• firestoreNlpDocCreate: Listens for new documents in your specified Cloud Firestore collection, performs the configured NLP tasks on a specific string, then writes the output from the NLP tasks back to the same document.
• firestoreNlpDocUpdate: Same functionality as firestoreNlpDocCreate, but listens for update on documents. Checks if input field has changed and, if so, overwrites old NLP data with new NLP data.

APIs Used:

• language.googleapis.com (Reason: Powers all NLP tasks performed by the extension.)

Access Required:

This extension will operate with the following project IAM roles:

• datastore.user (Reason: Allows the extension to write NLP data to Cloud Firestore.)