I have developed a smart home Alexa skill with a custom lambda implementation. I want to share the link to this skill to a few friends and get their feedback. I know I can do this in a few ways:
(1) Publish it on Amazon. (My skill is in beta stage, so not yet ready to face the world).
(2) Add all the friends as collaborators in my Alexa Developer account. (There are inquisitive teens in the group).
(3) Develop the skill using an Alexa blueprint; blueprints have a 'share' button. (Unfortunately, my type of smart home skill is not available as a blueprint).
Any other options ? I am willing do it using the AWS console, CLI or write an API call. I just want to get a shareable link to my skill.
You can use the Beta Test feature for that!
Go into the Alexa developer console
Then go into your skill
Click on the distribution tab
Complete all required information and click on Availability
Enter the email addresses of the users that are going to test
Related
I am trying to build an alexa skill, that would have facebook login as an account linking provider. I have built a development version of it that is working with my own account. Now I am thinking of submitting facebook app for review, so I could make my app public and publish alexa skill.
First probably that I encountered is that, I need to specify platform in FB app. The closest one to my use case, might be website. But what url to put in the field. My skill url?
The other thing, is that I want to get users friend-list, which use my app. This scope requires user permission. To get it I have to write how am I going to use that data, how to test it and provide a screencast how it works. There are bunch of requirements like, the button to the login page has to be in FB style, while in alexa app it is just a simple link to login page. Also how to write, testing instructions?
The more I think, the more it seems that it is impossible to have FB service as the account link service for alexa skills. Maybe someone has succeeded to build a working live skill with FB as account linking service and can share your experience?
What url to put in the field. My skill url?
Yes, but I doubt how a "website" is the closest match to your usecase.
write how am I going to use that data
Answer how your skills uses the users friend list, why do you want it and how it adds to the user experience of your skill.
the login page has to be in FB style, while in alexa app it is just a
simple link to login page.
This should be fine, mention how login works in Alexa and how your skill users get redirected to FB login page.
how to write, testing instructions?
Write it step by step and as easy as possible, just like how somebody is going to use it. Create an Amazon test account and add it under beta testers in you Alexa skill. Share this test account along with the instructions.
The more I think, the more it seems that it is impossible to have FB
service as the account link service for alexa skills.
Give it a try, it should be certainly possible. I would have tried it like this.
And wait for their reply. If there are any mistakes or they need any other data/instructions/clarifications, they would hopefully leave a comment.
PS: I don't have any experience in submitting a Facebook app. Checkout other answers as well, this is just my suggestion.
All the best.
I publish a flash briefing skill on Amazon's Alexa. It is a brief news update on a specific topic. I provide the information to Alexa via a json file that is updated every 10 minutes.
I'd like to publish something similar on Google Home devices. However, when I look at DialogFlow, that API appears to be conversational-based. Is that the right API for this type of app? Is there a Template for flash-briefing-like apps (i.e., easy to launch apps that don't require any additional user input after launching)?
No, you don't need a conversational Action for what you're doing.
Depending on the specifics of how you're providing the content, you may wish to look at either Podcast Actions or News Actions. These methods document what Google is looking for to make structured content available to the Google Assistant.
I am developing a Google Assistant app for Google Home, and about to launch the app. I am wondering, once my app is live on the Google Assistant platform, whether I (as a developer) would have access to all of the conversation histories as users interact with my app.
If so, does Actions on Google / Google have some sort of interface to view / download the history? Or, do I have to log and capture the history myself? I thought the history will be really helpful for me to improve my app.
Many thanks!
It depends a bit on how you have built your Action.
If you have built it with one of the templates - then no, you don't have access to the conversations.
If you have built it with the Actions SDK or with Dialogflow, then you will have access to quite a bit of information that is delivered to your fulfillment webhook. If you have intents that do not send anything to your webhook - you will not get that information.
There are tools that help you examine conversation flow, see where users get stuck or fall out of the conversation, or how they're using your Action. Most of them have good integration with the Actions on Google libraries. I use a combination of Chatbase, Dashbot.io, and Google Analytics.
I work for a publication and would like to find out how I can enable our site to be read by Google Home or if there's something I need to do to set that up. I've looked at the Google Assistant SDK but it seems to be geared more towards custom commands to your own device like a Raspberry Pi etc.
Thank you!
You're right, the Google Assistant SDK is for building your own Assistant hardware.
The Actions on Google API is for building Actions that work with the Google Assistant on multiple platforms. With this, you can build an Action that responds to requests to "Hey Google, Talk to your action name". Google also reviews these Actions periodically to find ones that may more directly respond to questions such as "Hey Google, tell me the news".
There is currently no way to explicitly have your audio included as part of Google Assistant's "Good Morning" news briefing list, although Google may use RSS streams or other public feeds to make such content available.
Update
Google just announced formalizing what they call Content Actions, which are the formal way to get specific content such as poscasts, news, and recipes through the Assistant. See the documentation for details, but in your case, they've documented what the RSS feed should look like.
we are developping an app which gives the user a list of travel proposals. The list will also include a travel proposal with Uber.
To book a Uber travel, our app will start the Uber app over the deep links API. After booking the user will be able to jump back to our app with the trip branding feature.
How can we test this? Does Uber provide a test app? Or do we have to use the productive app for this?
Thank you for a reply.
Jean-Marc
You can test using the production app by generating a deep link from your app. See more details in the deep linking documentation.