How to Use Amazon Alexa Skill Blueprints and Fixing Common Problems

Over the years, voice assistants like the Amazon Echo Plus and the Google Home have seamlessly integrated with our everyday life. With the ever-increasing number of skills, the use of these AI-powered assistants has grown to include more than the simple commands.

But these assistants do not always function the way you want them to. For example, take the case of the Amazon Echo. It can play songs, help you remember things or even double up as an intercom. But ask it to play you a story of your choice, or repeat the current password of your Wi-Fi network, it won’t be able to do so. To counter this, Amazon has come out with an interesting feature — Amazon Alexa Skill Blueprints.

What Are Amazon Alexa Blueprints

Alexa Skill Blueprints are a set of templates with which you can customize your own set of skills by building on top of them. Long story short these are text in/text out mechanism, where you have to fill in the relevant details to create a particular skill.

For instance, if you want your Echo device to repeat your favorite inspirational quotes in the morning, you can enter any lines you want and set the name of the skill. The next time you want a bit of a motivational push, all you need to do is ask Alexa for the same.

There are handful of templates/blueprints available currently — Greetings & Occasions, Fun & Games, Learning & Knowledge, and At Home.

How to Set up Alexa Blueprints

Step 1: Open Blueprints and sign in using your Amazon account. Select a template of your choice and tap on Make Your Own.

Step 2: Once done, tap on Next to enter the Intro messages. These are the set of sentences that Alexa will use to greet you with. It can be a simple word such as ‘Welcome’ or a couple of lines.

Having done that, enter the name of the skill, preferably an easily pronounceable name. Currently, Alexa doesn’t support common nouns. Hence, words like ‘Welcome Home’ works better than ‘Tom, Welcome.’

Step 3: Now, all you need to do is tap on Create Skill button at the upper right corner. Congratulations, you just created your first skill.

Wait a couple of minutes for the skill to be created. Now, summon Alexa and test your first skill.

To end a skill, just say ‘Alexa, stop.’

How to Use Alexa Blueprints

Let’s take a look at few examples of the skills for Alexa Blueprints.

Welcome a House Guest

This skill is particularly important if you have house guests over frequently. Alexa helps to answer simple questions like emergency contact numbers, the location of common things and repeat passwords when you are not home.

Some of the examples of questions are:

• What is the Wi-Fi password
• Where are the house keys
• Where is the pet food

Create a Custom Fairy Tale

You must certainly check out this template if you have kids who love listening to bedtime stories. Not only can you write your own story, but you can also enter your kid’s name, add musical effects and the likes.

The best thing is there are a plethora of sounds to select. To add to it, you can also include a pause or two in between.

Build a Set of Motivational Quotes

Inspiration is your perfect shot if you want to listen to motivational quotes before you start the day. Simply select the skill and enter your favorite quotes. By default, there is room for three, and you can increase it via the Add Quote button.

Once done, rename the blueprint and ta-da!

Customize your Questions

You can also add your own set of questions and answers through Custom Q&A. Similar to the House Guest skill, you can add a set of questions and their respective answers.

Whenever you forget something, wake up Alexa and it will guide you through the issue at hand.

Share Skills with Friends

Why have all the fun alone, when you can share it? Open the skill via the ‘Skills you’ve made’ tab at the top. Click on details and select the Share with others button.

Enter the email or copy the link. The person to whom you’ve sent the skill needs to just enable the skills, and that’s pretty much it.

Common Problems and Solutions

1. Alexa Skipping Names

If Alexa is skipping names, especially in the Story skills, the chances are that you may have added a space in between names. The odds of Alexa understanding Wonderland is better than Wonder Land.

Also, if skills have names like ‘skill’, ‘Alexa’ and ‘Amazon,’ the said skill won’t work as expected. Simply head over to the skill on your PC or phone, and edit it.

2. Skills Not Working

Blueprints particular to a region won’t run in another region. Meaning, if your account is set to India and you try to set a skill particular to Amazon.com, it won’t work.

Hence, check your account before creating a skill. Also, do check the Amazon account with which you created the skill is also the same that as the one linked to your Echo device.

3. Alexa Not Answering Questions

Alexa will reply to a particular question only if you have asked it as you have entered it. So, ‘Where is my wallet’ cannot be changed to ‘Where is my purse.’

You see, Alexa is very particular.

All Set Up?

Amazon Skill Blueprints lets you take a step further with their voice-activated smart assistant. Not only do these skills add meaning to the word ‘Assistant’ but they also allow you to add your personal touches as well.

Hopefully, in the coming years, assistants such as Alexa or the Google Home will be able to understand the context even when you’ve forgotten to add a word or two to a sentence.

What do you use your Echo devices for?