I have an Alexa skill that's been published and in the alexa app store for some time. Recently, the ability for users to install this skill by voice no longer works. I noticed this within the last 7 days.
Now when a user asks 'Alexa, enable shop clerk', they hear the message:
"If you'd like to enable this skill, you can do so by finding it in the Skills section of your Alexa app."
Previously (and for virtually all skills I've tried) the normal response is to install and enable the skill.
Has anyone seen this behavior or have an idea of how I can resolve this issue?
I received the following info from the Amazon Alexa team:
Thanks for your patience. To ensure the high-quality and accuracy of the voice-enablement feature for skills, we are making improvements to the feature. During this time, the feature will not apply to all skills.
Basically, they're saying "yeah, it doesn't work for your skill anymore."
I followed up with them and they acknowledge that it is a challenge for us but that they can give no information as to why this happened to us, how we can resolve it, or when (or even if) it will ever be resolved.
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Prewarning: I am a noob with development, I started doing web design when I retired from the Marines about 3 years ago. I specialized in Intelligence and Tactics, so not a computer user during that career. Fast forward to Today:
I work as an Exchange admin and migration specialist with GoDaddy, I have been through several Webdesign courses and learned a decent foundation of html/css/php however JavaScript, Nodejs, Java, Python, C++, and C# are all still things I am working on.
My issue: My lead wants to have a bot built that essentially posts messages in the #general group (I learned how to do this and actually setup a nodejs server within my test hosting server # GD and have a Joke bot running in my slack WS). The tricky part that I have been scratching my brain on is how to use an web API that GD has to monitor our call que, hold times, and agents online. I need to figure out how to get the bot to post a message regarding certain triggers automatically(exp. Hold time exceeds 10mins). I can not figure out whether to use a webhook, eventListener, or a direct bot auth'd into the GD api like my joke bot that links to chuckNorris jokes.
I appreciate all the comments truly, I have thick skin and know that I am late to the game on development. I want to build this for the experience and to integrate with slack, my end goal would be more projects to eventually become a Dev within GD.
I have a few thoughts that might help you.
Regarding these holdtimes, agents online, and call queues, think of these as events. Whenever these events occur, they should fire a payload (HTTP request) to your service that then posts messages to slack. I think you might need a slack bot token for this.
Many APIs have this functionality under webhooks. You provide them the URL to the endpoint your developing and theres usually a toggle to tell them that you want to start accepting events.
To get going on your service/bot, I'd recommend starting with learning about what these webhook event payloads will look like in terms of structure so that you can parse it.
If you have more detailed questions feel free to comment or message. Happy to help. I've written a slack bot or two.
I am trying to create a skill that will record 5 seconds of my voice and send it to my database as a blob with Alexa. (It's mainly for voice recognition.. I am using Azure Speaker API)
I have spent a lot of time trying to find if there is an specific way to do it with Nodejs and Alexa but I didn't find anything.
Currently I have this project in javascript so I am wondering if it would be possible to use what I have? Because I won't have the browser to allow my microphone, etc.. so I am not sure if it would work with Alexa.
If someone has an idea or have worked with getting audio to db from Alexa, please help me.
Thanks!
What you're trying to do is get user input as voice and as per my knowledge and finding, Alexa (alexa skill kit) doesn't allow you to get raw user input in anyway.
I'm developing an Alexa Skill hosted on an AWS Lambda.
Everything works fine with the skill most of the time, and there are no problems running it on the Alexa Developer Skill simulator page.
However, when running on an Echo Dot device, sometimes while processing a user response, the skill will just die/quit/crash for no reason, and no error is thrown at all.
Sorry I can't be more specific than this, I just wondered whether anyone else had encountered a similar issue, and whether there are any common "gotchas" I should be aware of.
Cheers.
I would check cloudwatch, and maybe increase the lamda timeout / memory. The other thing to consider is your internet connection, firewall etc. I had experience something similar when my device is connected to a specific firewalled configuration.
I am a ASK n00b and I want to create a skill, that when activated will send messages to the user on a schedule. Later I want to pause/resume that schedule. I am currently hacking the Node.js fact example to learn the ropes, but could use some veteran knowledge and help.
Examples are the preferable response.
Sending messages "on a schedule" is currently not supported by ASK.
This feature has been announced but there is no access yet.
https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/16/amazon-echo-push-notifications/
Before anyone marks this question as a dupe, let me say I am aware of this question from 2015. But Microsoft has done a lot of work on Cortana in the last two years so I thought it might be worth asking again. Please forgive me if this is not proper etiquette and feel free to educate me on how I should have handled asking the quesiton again.
I am currently writing a new skill for Cortana using, of course, the Microsoft Bot Framework. I've gotten everything registered and working except my actual interaction with Cortana. For this, I need Cortana to be able to initiate a conversation without the user prompting it. In 2015, this was not available. Is there currently a way to do so in the latest iteration of the platform? I can't seem to find it but I could be simply missing something subtle.
The Cortana Skills kit currently does not support proactive notifications, however it is on the feature request list and will be considered.