I am trying to get the current location of the user and I am using the Api.AI web tool to create my actions/intent.
Deployed using -
firebase --only functions
API.AI Action -
Simulator -
Full index.js - link
But when my action is triggered I get this message -
Sorry, this action is not available in simulation
Can't we ask for permission on a simulation ? Also how do I test my app on a real device ?
EDIT:
The permission function is stuck in a loop -
Your problem is in this block of code:
//Action business logic
function welcomeMessage(app){
app.tell('Welcome !, Do you want to book a ride ?'); // Todo: Insert proper messages.
}
The app.tell() method sends the message and then closes the conversation. If you want to send the message to the user and keep the conversation going (ie - you're expecting a response) you need to use app.ask().
This is what is causing the "Sorry" message when you reply "Yeah" - your Action is no longer listening.
You can ask for permission in the simulation.
Once you have run it once in the simulator, you should be able to access it on any device that is linked to the same account you used to develop the Action, or to other accounts you've permitted (once they have run the simulator).
Related
I am new to the whole creation-process of Google Actions.
I created an Action with the new Action Console.
It has an fulfillment endpoint to my server (as example: www.mypage.com/api).
For testing purposes it has no authentification, so it generates a public API response.
Said API generates a simple JSON response based on a send event handler.
In short: Action onEnter sends handler to API, API queries SQL database and sends the response back to my Google Action that then "speaks" the SQL result.
The result with the Actions Console Simulator is:
Testing with "Smart Display device: everything works.
Testing with "Speaker (e.g. Google Home): everything works.
Testing with "Phone": main intent is invoked and text is shown but does not get spoken.
So i tested the command "Hey Google, talk to the unicorn app" directly on my smartphone.
Here **everything works fine ** as said smartphone has the same e-mail like the one on my Action Console account: it recognizes the main invocation command and when i ask by voice to get the data, the data is received from my server and spoken.
So something is wrong with the "Phone" device in the simulator. This has been confirmed by me from other users saying that they often have trouble with the simulator function correctly.
I then deployed my Action.
It was reviewed and approved.
A few seconds later i received an auto-email saying that there were too many errors with my app, asking me to check its health status. I did so and in the Health tab, i can see that it has an error but it does not show me what the error is.
THEN I CONTACTED A ACTIONS-ON-GOOGLE EXPERT
They helped me a lot into the right direction but could not go deeper into the problem as my connection (the endpoint API) is outside of their servers.
So i ended with their tip on checking the Google Cloud Logging Console.
As said Logging Console is also new for me, i learned on how to query my results but:
How can i query for the so called "is_health_check" flag?
I am asking this because the Google Expert recommended me to search for said flag but i do not know on how to query it.
Sorry for this ultra-long entry but i am trying to be as transparent to you as possible, as i have been trying this out for several days now.
Thanks in advance for your time, ppl!
So the error is simple once that you know how Google handles the external webhooks. Thanks to the help of 2 Actions-On-Google Experts i was informed that Google pings your external Webhook from time to time.
As soon as they get an error as result from said ping, the Action will be deactivated from the Assistant until a new ping response sends that everything is fine again.
My problem was that after deploying the action and while it was under reviews, i continued to work on the code on my server. While coding, the Google server pinged and received an error code.
My fault, but at least i learned the thing about pinging your action!
I have AoG action that is logging-in to external backend and once logged in it can control specific appliance via external backend's API. Action basically controls home alarm via commands like arm section XY, disarm section garage, etc. Before getting control to alarm it is necessary to login and this takes considerable time (approx. 20-30 seconds). This is much longer than AoG actually allows resulting in timeouts. I am initiating login as asynchronous operation in actions.intent.MAIN handler (i.e. not waiting for the result of login within handler) and just saying to user to tell the command (arm/disarm garage, etc.) in couple of seconds. I have also implemented push notification which is working fine. Problem with push notification is that it just pops up on mobile phone without any sound & user has to open notifications and tap it. Then it will trigger intent and do requested action.
This is not really good user experience (typically I would like to use my action in the car when coming home and having the possibility to disarm the home alarm without need to touch the phone, tap the notification, etc).
Any idea how to implement it in more proper way? What I would really appreciate is if google assistant could actually re-initiate the conversation & tell me something like: 'hey I am already logged in into alarm service provider, what do you want me to do now?'.
I will be grateful for any advice dealing with similar problem.
I am using ActionsSDK for Node.JS to build my action.
You've already looked at the ways that the Assistant can initiate (or re-initiate) a conversation. Actions are really designed for something that is conversational, and a 30 second pause in the conversation would be awkward.
One other option you have is to use a Media Response as part of your reply to the user logging in (or as part of your welcome intent? Not entirely clear, but the approach would be the same). This would let you play some "hold music" for several seconds. At the end of the music playing, an actions.intent.MEDIA_STATUS would be sent to your Action, which you can use to make sure the login has completed and, if so, respond to the user appropriately.
The only way for AoG to "take initiative of starting a conversation" is through push notifications. There is no way for the assistant to strike up a conversation after a period of time or when an event occur.
Perhaps another way of doing might be to only send push notification if your action fails to execute the long sequence of events and the triggering action could invoke an intent to try again. The assumption would be that everything's fine unless said so.
You could also notify the user that it'll take a couple of seconds to complete the action once it's initated and implement followup intents that handles if the user asks "Is it done?" or "How's it going?". Making it part of the flow to check on progress, but with the assumption that it should be successful.
You can easily dislocate the long running background process by implementing a task queue in Firebase where your intent is creating a child similar to this.
firebase.database().ref("tasks").push({action: "disarm_garage"});
And then you create a cloud function trigger to handle it
functions.database.ref('tasks/{id}').onCreate((snap) => {
const action = snap.val().action;
switch (action) {
case 'disarm_garage':
// ...
break;
}
// Remove the task after processing
return snap.ref.remove();
});
That would ensure that you have enough time to complete the task in background without blocking the conversation.
I have been working with AWS for a little while now and I am starting to get the hang of APIGateway and Lambda. I have just made a Lambda function that receives the username entered by a user and then uses the AdminDeleteUser function to delete that user from the user pool, and it works fine. I even have it set up with APIGateway to be used in XCode and it works fine with that as well.
Problem
My problem is, is that I am trying to have the Lambda function run right as the user terminates the iOS app. I am using a NotificationCenter observer to watch when the App terminates, that all works well except the fact that I believe the Lambda function's call is cancelled once the app fully terminates, meaning it can't complete the full request. My lambda function essentially checks if the username that is being received is a user who is unconfirmed, and if they are unconfirmed then they are deleted from the user pool. I am doing this on the screen where the user has to confirm a confirmation code that was sent via SMS
Question
So I guess the questions I have are,
Is it possible to call a Lambda function while the App is terminating?
If not, is it possible to delete the current user from the user pool if they are not confirmed, before the App exits?
Thank you in advanced.
It sounds like what is happening is exactly what you have described above. The app is exiting before the connection can be made to the service.
A better design might be to have a process run at X interval (using a Lambda scheduled event) to automatically remove any unconfirmed users from your data store.
Edit:
When searching for unconfirmed users, you should be able to use the UserCreateDate field to check if the user has registered within your specified amount of time. If 'createDate' falls within that time, ignore that user.
ListUsers API
In my application , i works with web-services and when user log in into my app my app is sending a request with status 1 means loged in and when on log out button click sending a request with status 0.
Now problem is , when user removes app from devices , status in my server is remain 1(log in) , hence other user can see him available while his app is not in device. so is there any way by which i can send request when my app removes from device (i don't think it is possible) or is there any other way that i can do in my backend side ?
Thanks in advance.
It is not possible to call a web service when the user deleting the app from an ios device. There are three methods to came to know that whether your application is there in user's ios device. But there are few limitations also.
Activate Push notification: By doing this, device will get registered with Apple's push notification service. When user delete the app from device, the registration will be revoked from APNS server and through the APNS feedback service, you can get to know whether the application is existing. (Limitation: If the user did not agree with receiving push notifications, then the app will not be registered with APNS and you never came to know that whether application is existing or not)
Activate Location Based service: If your application enables location based service, then your application will get periodic location updates in a location delegate method. In this delegate, you can call a webservice and keep update the status of user even the application is in background. (Limitation: If user disables the location update, then your server will not get info about user status)
Periodically Call a Webservice From you app: This is possible only if your app is active. (Limitation: When you application pushed in to background, your application will be in suspended mode, so it will not possible to call webservice)
Sorry Unfortunately Apple not provide any method that user Uninstall app from user's device, There is no such method.
When user delete any application device does give the alert "Do you want to delete this application" with option "Delete" and "Cancel". You don't have to write any specific code for this.
I just assume that There is one method in which you can find out when user is about to delete your app. That is you need to implement push notification Apple server will inform you when you try to push to an uninstalled instance. Other than that there's no way to detect it but i am not sure its helpful or not.
You can't do this from within the app. You would want to do something like have a periodic task which runs on the backend, checking the last activity date of logged in users and setting them to 'not available' after some configured period of inactivity. This will probably require some changes to the backend to record last activity date and a change to the app so that while it's open it sends a periodic 'heartbeat' to the backend. You probably want to make the timeout quite big (say 15 minutes, big enough to not have a large impact on performance).
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I have received email like this
Do i have to authorize every time?
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