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Schnibel avatar image
Schnibel asked

Is it possible to define / get specific user settings from Alexa Application ?

Hi all,

I have a newbie question, I looked for an answer in the forum, but I didn't find anything. I also hope I'm in the right space :)

I'm developing a skill which could be used in several houses. This skill is linked to a node.js lambda endpoint which deals all the user intents and assure user's experience.

Just for illustration purposes, let's suppose the user says : "Alexa, ask my performance application the current results of the challenge". In the background, the lambda function would connect to an external website using an HTTP request such as : ".../getResults?uid=specificUserID&cid=chosenChallengeID"

To do this, I would need at least two user specific settings :

  • A user ID, which is provided by the external website, and that I cannot modify... let's suppose it is for example : "schnibel_id_z34dx7fcc932fru45"
  • A challenge ID, which is provided by the external website, and that I cannot modify neither. Let's suppose it is for example "wwf_help_our_planet"

I'd like to allow the user, to enter all the specific settings, for example in the Alexa Application. It would be entered once, when the skill would be installed, and could be changed in the future.

Each time the user uses the skill, the idea is to automatically get the specific user settings and to provide values to the lambda endpoint function.

I know I could manage this using Amazon S3 service linked to the deviceId, but :

  • The user ID is really difficult to spell, so it is easier to write it down
  • Skill will be free and I don't want to pay for an extra service

Is it clear enough ? Is there any way to do this ?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Christophe

alexa skills kitskillhelphow-to
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2 Answers

Jason@Amazon avatar image
Jason@Amazon answered

Generally skills are about voice interactions - if the user needs to input text themselves, this is usually done by letting users link their accounts to the Alexa Skill. It's a little different to what you want to achieve however - there isn't any simple way for users to input text into the Alexa app for you to use, so voice prompts are generally the only workaround at this point in time unless you can provide an account linking service that also allows users to enter a challenge ID.

Those are just some ideas and food for thought - the floor is open to the community!

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Schnibel avatar image
Schnibel answered

Hi Jason,

Thank you for your answer... indeed, it's not the same thing, but maybe it could help... Do you have any example or link on how to do this ?

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Rokas avatar image Rokas ·

As Jason said, the only thing that you could do is implement account linking. Then maybe create a separate website where with that linked account credentials user could login in and enter that challange id. Without account linking it is really hard to track users who is using skill. And I totally agree on spelling. Spelling ids, like you provided in example would be quite difficult.

About example, this is a very specific problem, so I don't think that anyone has an exact example built. I suggest you to try first to figure out how you could manage those ids without alexa help and then start building the skill.

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