Episode 243: How To Pick Alexa-Supported Launch Phrases For Your Custom Alexa Skill - Data Driven Daily Tip 330

As an Alexa Skill Developer, you have to be aware of how to pick Alexa-Supported Launch Phrases, also known as Invocation Names.

It's not too complicated, and I'm still learning as I go, so I just wanted to share one specific thing with you.

Amazon Alexa allows Alexa Skill Developers to pick three basic invocation names that essentially launch their Alexa Skills.

These start with the word(s), "open," "launch," "load," and even "begin."

If you use one of these words with the name of your Alexa Skill, it's going to work and you'll pass the Alexa Skill Submission process, as seen in my video.

But when you want to include an Intent in your invocation, things change a bit. An Intent, or Intent Block if using a third party tool like Voiceflow to build your Alexa Skill, essentially skips ahead of a skill's opening message to a point where the skill does something specific for the user.

For example, in one of our Custom Alexa Skills called Ask Data Driven Design, you can say "Alexa, open Data Driven Design" and the Skill will open and start giving you prompts for how to get information from it.

This invocation is a basic one. But, we've also added Invocations with Intents paired with Connecting Words. These examples include:

“Alexa, ask Data Driven Design how my web traffic looks”

“Alexa, ask Data Driven Design what my bounce rate is”

“Alexa, ask Data Driven Design where most of my web traffic is coming from”

“Alexa, ask Data Driven Design what are my top viewed pages”

These intents skip the opening, and just start reading you what you asked for.

More on these can be read here in the Alexa Developer Console documentation, or on this blog about tips for creating certifiable phrases for your Alexa Skill.

This video walks you through how to avoid putting intents with connecting words in your opening invocations, in the event that your Alexa Skill isn't properly coded with intent blocks.