Simon A. Kingaby - Data-Driven Alexa Skills: Voice Access to Rich Data Sources for Enterprise Applications

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Welcome to the wonderful world of data-driven Alexa skills. Come along as we take a journey beyond the typical Hello World examples and design and build innovative, custom, data-driven Alexa skills for your home or business that integrate Alexa with online APIs, rich data sources, and powerful applications. If you have basic Python skills, this book will show you how to build data-driven Alexa skills. You will learn to use data to give your Alexa skills dynamic intelligence, in-depth knowledge, and the ability to remember.

Data-driven Alexa Skills takes a step-by-step approach to skill development. You will begin by configuring a skill in the Alexa Skill Builder Console. Then you will develop an advanced custom skill that uses the latest Alexa Skill Development Kit features to integrate with lambda functions, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Internet data feeds. These skills enable you to link user accounts, query and store data using a NoSQL database, and access stock prices and more via web APIs.

What you learn from this book will help you to integrate Alexa with software-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service applications and environments such as Salesforce, ServiceNow, Microsoft Azure, and AWS.

This book is for the next generation of Alexa skill developers who want to use data to make Alexa smarter, more relevant, and more helpful. To move closer to the goal of ambient computing, Alexa will need to access and combine data from many sources in many ways. If you imagine the day when Alexa can intelligently manage your email, the day when she can reconcile your schedules from Outlook, Google, Apple, and Calendly, the day when you can ask her to tell you your net worth, or the day when you can ask her to log a ticket in ServiceNow, this book is for you.

Part I: Getting Started

In this first part of the book, we will introduce you to voice user interface development. Then we will build a Routine and a couple of Alexa skills from Blueprints. Then we set up some accounts you will need so that you can develop Alexa skills. Now you are ready to create a skill, starting with creating an Alexa Conversations voice user interface, followed by coding and testing the back end in Python and VS Code. In the last chapter of Part I, you will publish your new skill to the Alexa Skills Store!

Chapter : Voice User Interfaces

An introduction to the world of voice user interface development. Chapter includes a brief history of voice development leading up to todays voice landscape. It also answers the questions: Why voice? Why Alexa? Why now?

Chapter : Routines and Blueprints

The easiest way to create new skills for Alexa is with Routines and Blueprints. This chapter walks you through the process of creating these no-code skills.

Chapter : The Developer Accounts

You will need to create and configure a lot of accounts to develop Alexa skills. This chapter guides you through the creation of these accounts.

Chapter : Creating the VUI for a Custom Data-Driven Skill

Now that the accounts are set up, were ready to create the base Alexa skill. For the remainder of Part I, we will create a Body Mass Index skill. In this chapter, we configure the voice user interface, including the conversational dialog, the user utterances, the slot values, and Alexas responses.

Chapter : Writing the Back-End Code

With the VUI created, were ready to write some code. Of course, you will need to install the tools, including VS Code and Anaconda, among others. Chapter lists the tools youll need and where to find them on the Internet. Then it walks you through configuring an Anaconda environment for Python development. Next, we create the back-end code for the BMI Alexa skill. We end the chapter by testing our code.

Chapter : Publishing an Alexa Skill

After creating the VUI in Chapter , you will have done just that!

Part II: Custom Skill Development

After creating your first skill in Part I, we take a deep dive into many of the components of the skill development process. Building a 90-year calendar skill, we will cover the Alexa Interaction Model including Intents, Slots, and Utterances. We will use the Alexa Presentation Language to draw the 90-year calendar on devices with screens. Well use account linking to allow us to gather the events of your life safely and securely. Well create a custom lambda function the brains of our skill. Lastly, we use a DynamoDb persistence layer to store your information so that Alexa remembers you.

Chapter : Custom Alexa Skills

Now that youve created an Alexa-hosted skill in Part I, we are ready to create a fully custom skill and see how to use some of the more advanced features of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud as your Alexa skill back end. Youll need some AWS accounts and services to get started.

Chapter : Beyond Hello World

With the accounts set up and the basic requirements defined, were ready to design the voice user interface. Dialog design is notoriously difficult, but there are tools, like Botmock, that make it much easier. In this chapter, we lay out the dialog for the 90-year calendar skill.

Chapter : Configuring the VUI

After designing the dialog in Botmock, we are ready to transfer the design into a new Alexa skill.

Chapter : Using APL to Present on Screens

With the dialog sorted out, the next step is to create the visualization for Alexa devices with screens. For this, we need to use the Alexa Presentation Language, which is covered in Chapter .