Hello all! The past two months after CodeGarden '19 has been very busy for me - finishing up the refurb of our home, finishing up my contract and moving on to a new one. But it all ended up well and finally, I got some time to think about learning something I wanted to for a long time - IOT Device Development. Now that I have done something about it, its time to blog again, with some exciting news :-)
Umbraco Scoop Demo from Poornima on Vimeo.
Alexa, ask Umbraco scoop for what's latest in Umbraco
As I said above I always wanted to learn to develop some Alexa skills. Being an Umbracian I had no doubt on what I wanted to prototype and learn - news from the Umbraco world. I took help of some Pluralsight courses, blog posts and worked my way through, and I could see that the skill was taking shape. It was great fun seeing the simulator getting the results back from the API. Somewhere along the line, my brain told me that I should probably try and submit the skill for certification. I checked the skill store to see whether anything was already available. There were none, so I contacted Ilham at the Umbraco HQ asking whether it's okay to go ahead with the project. She was very prompt with a reply, giving me a green signal.
The first step to certification is to fill up the distribution details. It includes details like description, icon, example phrases etc. Once it validates you can move over to the functional requirements. Amazon has a checklist of security requirements which you need to fulfil before functional tests can pass. It's quite detailed but very well documented. I followed a Pluralsight course and a github repo to help me through this. Amazon recommends that both distribution details and functional tests pass before the skill is submitted for review. Not doing so can cause delays in certification. Once passed you can submit the skill for review. I submitted mine over a weekend, I woke up Monday morning to find the "Congratulations" email in my inbox.
The whole process was not without challenges.
Over the past week I have been trying to tweak the prompts and make it better. A big shout out to Emma Burstow and Paul Seal who helped me test it and provide feedback!
The first step to certification is to fill up the distribution details. It includes details like description, icon, example phrases etc. Once it validates you can move over to the functional requirements. Amazon has a checklist of security requirements which you need to fulfil before functional tests can pass. It's quite detailed but very well documented. I followed a Pluralsight course and a github repo to help me through this. Amazon recommends that both distribution details and functional tests pass before the skill is submitted for review. Not doing so can cause delays in certification. Once passed you can submit the skill for review. I submitted mine over a weekend, I woke up Monday morning to find the "Congratulations" email in my inbox.
The whole process was not without challenges.
- Fulfilling the security requirements was quite a challenge. I managed to break the skill completely during the process. But more about how I managed to fix it in another blog post :-)
- There were times where my utterances were all over the place. Sometimes it would bring me the content from my API , sometimes it would even bring me news from BBC. I had the word "news" all over my invocation name and utterances. I figured out that these were keywords which corresponds to flash briefing skill and can confuse Alexa.
Over the past week I have been trying to tweak the prompts and make it better. A big shout out to Emma Burstow and Paul Seal who helped me test it and provide feedback!
So here it is, Umbraco Scoop . Give it a go on your Alexa devices and let me know what you think. It can tell you all about what's latest in Umbraco, upcoming meetups, festivals and latest package releases.
You can say "Alexa, ask Umbraco scoop for what's latest in Umbraco" to retrieve the latest happenings in Umbraco. For meet-ups say "Alexa, ask Umbraco scoop for meetups". For festivals say "Alexa, ask Umbraco scoop for festivals". For packages say "Alexa, ask Umbraco scoop for latest packages".
Here is a little demo, I have covered only packages and festivals in my demo to keep the video under a minute :-)
You can say "Alexa, ask Umbraco scoop for what's latest in Umbraco" to retrieve the latest happenings in Umbraco. For meet-ups say "Alexa, ask Umbraco scoop for meetups". For festivals say "Alexa, ask Umbraco scoop for festivals". For packages say "Alexa, ask Umbraco scoop for latest packages".
Here is a little demo, I have covered only packages and festivals in my demo to keep the video under a minute :-)
Umbraco Scoop Demo from Poornima on Vimeo.
What next
I am sure this is not the end to the project. What I have is quite basic. It's just a trial to see how things go. At the moment I manage the news myself using Umbraco (couldn't be anything else, obviously!), keeping an eye out on the Twitter feed and adding in what is relevant once or twice a day. I know it can be made smarter, but I didn't want to go all guns blazing at my first attempt. But the most important thing is to get this out and gather the feedback and then take it from there.
P.S. I can't tell you all about the level of Imposter Syndrome I am experiencing right now, as I am about to publish this post, but I am taking the plunge. Here we go...Umbracians, get it on your Alexa devices, give it a go and let me know what you think :-)
Great article Poornima! I'll be adding this to my 'to do' list and thanks for the info about what courses and github repos you used. #h5yr
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