Amazon Alexa Skills Development: SSML Copy and Paste Worksheet 2 for Alexa Polly Voice and Language Tags – UPDATED!

Alexa Polly Voice & SSML Tags Worksheet

Update: October 10, 2020 Added a cross-reference table to more clearly delineate incompatible tags. Introduction The voice and language SSML tags options are a powerful feature for Alexa skill developers.  They can be incorporated directly into Alexa skills in-line with text that is to be recited. This article includes a simple worksheet from which the… Continue reading Amazon Alexa Skills Development: SSML Copy and Paste Worksheet 2 for Alexa Polly Voice and Language Tags – UPDATED!

Amazon Alexa Skill Development Tutorial: How to Get the User’s Day of the Week using Voiceflow

Voiceflow Tutorial Get Users Day of the Week

Update (May 10, 2020) Updated to reflect Voiceflow UI changes as of May 10, 2020. A demo skill built using this tutorial is now available in the Voiceflow Community Marketplace. You can view and download it as a template. Get User’s Day of the Week on the Voiceflow Community Marketplace Introduction At some point in… Continue reading Amazon Alexa Skill Development Tutorial: How to Get the User’s Day of the Week using Voiceflow

Amazon Alexa Skills Development Tutorial: How to configure a compound statement in the VoiceFlow IF Block – UPDATED!

Voiceflow IF Block Configuration

Updates Updated March 14, 2020 to reflect the Voiceflow February 4th, 2020 new releases. Introduction VoiceFlow is a powerful skill-building tool, incorporating a variety of features including IF blocks for configuring IF statements. Compound IF statements can be built using AND, OR and NOT. For example: The structure of the above formula is common. Having… Continue reading Amazon Alexa Skills Development Tutorial: How to configure a compound statement in the VoiceFlow IF Block – UPDATED!

Amazon Alexa VUI Design: Slot Type Cross Reference Worksheets – Updated December 7, 2019

Blog Header Image Alexa Slot Type Cross Reference Worksheets

Update December 7, 2019 The worksheets have been updated to reflect expanded locale support for the PhoneNumber and Ordinal slot types. Amazon’s announcement: The Built-In FallbackIntent, PhoneNumber Slot (Beta), and Ordinal Slot (Beta) Get Expanded Locale Support Introduction The Amazon reference documentation and Alexa Developer Console (ADC) organizes the available built-in slot types by region.… Continue reading Amazon Alexa VUI Design: Slot Type Cross Reference Worksheets – Updated December 7, 2019

Amazon Alexa Skills Development Voiceflow Tutorial: How to Efficiently Manage Character Voices. Part 1: Variables

This tutorial is the first in a series about techniques for managing voices for characters in Alexa skills built using Voiceflow. This post in the Alexa Blogs provides some context about options for voices when designing and developing skills: “To Record, or Not to Record” “When it comes to audio you have to make a… Continue reading Amazon Alexa Skills Development Voiceflow Tutorial: How to Efficiently Manage Character Voices. Part 1: Variables

How to Tailor Voice and Text with the Voiceflow Locale Variable

Level: Intermediate This tutorial introduces the new Voiceflow locale variable, and a technique for using it to control which voice and text are used. The locale variable makes it possible to detect a user’s language and region, and use this for tailoring the interaction. This tutorial assumes you are familiar with the basics of creating… Continue reading How to Tailor Voice and Text with the Voiceflow Locale Variable

Voiceflow Javascript Code Block: Random Number Generator: One through a specified Maximum Value

Updates August 12, 2020: Voiceflow implemented ability to use external libraries in the code block. “var” was removed from the code block example, as the variable is already initialized. May 30, 2019: This tutorial is for generating random numbers that can repeat.  In this case each new number generated is independent of the previous number’s… Continue reading Voiceflow Javascript Code Block: Random Number Generator: One through a specified Maximum Value

How to POST from VoiceFlow to Airtable via API

This tutorial describes how to to POST a record from Voiceflow to an Airtable. A POST will add a new record to the bottom of an Airtable. Level: Intermediate This tutorial assumes you are familiar with both Airtable and Voiceflow. If not, there are some links to resources at the bottom of this post. This… Continue reading How to POST from VoiceFlow to Airtable via API