Building Apps Using Amazon’s Alexa and Lex – Loonycorn

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Building Apps Using Amazon’s Alexa and Lex

Alexa Skills and Lex Chatbots

Alexa, Siri, Cortana and Google Now – voice-activated personal assistants are one of the hottest trends in technology these days. They are a great way to convey complex information to your customers in a free-flowing, conversational way. Alexa is a great way to build them – an AWS service for building conversational interfaces for Echo, FireTV and a host of Alexa-aware devices.

• Alexa and Lex are state-of-the-art, with support for new devices being added all the time
• Powered by a deep learning based engine that parses user voice and resolves the contents of user utterances to API calls and parameter values
• No deep learning or natural language processing expertise is needed to build even complex voice and chat apps
• Provides an intuitive way of specifying the conversational interface
• Automatically and dynamically adjusts conversational responses
• Easy to build, test and publish app

In the sections on Alexa we will cover:

• The big picture – voice and text interfaces and current trends in human-computer interaction
• How Alexa, Lex, Echo and the other bits of the Amazon ecosystem come together
• Interaction models: Utterances, intents, slots, prompts and their resolution into API calls
• Fulfilment models: Using AWS Lambdas to fulfil user intents, and how AWS lambdas provide smooth, no-ops, auto-scaling code endpoints

In the sections on Lex we will cover:

• Interaction models: Utterances, intents, slots, prompts and their resolution into API calls
• Fulfilment models: Using AWS Lambdas to fulfil user intents, and how AWS lambdas provide smooth, no-ops, auto-scaling code endpoints
• Third-party integration: How a chatbot can be added to your Slack workspace

Course Curriculum

Introduction

• You, This Course and Us (2:40)
• Source Code and PDFs

Alexa Basics: Eco-system and Skill Concepts

• Skill Concepts: Invocations, Utterances and Intents (8:43)
• Tools and Platforms: AWS, Amazon Developer Console and Echosim.io (8:17)
• Types Of Skills (6:02)
• Introducing Alexa (1:59)
• Evolution Of Human Computer Interaction And Voice Interfaces (7:34)
• Prereqs And Course Overview (2:53)
• Alexa, Echo And AWS (5:57)

Build a Basic Alexa Skill

• Overview Of The Stock Market Tracker (4:27)
• Utterance-Intent Mapping (4:45)
• Financial Data From AlphaVantage (3:20)
• Setup And Configure An Alexa Skill (8:10)
• AWS Lambdas (6:07)
• Link the Alexa Skill with the Lambda Function (8:15)
• Set up and Test Lambda Code (7:59)
• Code And Test the Launch Request (5:07)
• Code And Test the Intent Request (4:53)
• Handle Help And Stop Intents (5:03)
• Test Using Echosim.io (1:41)

Multi-turn Dialogs for Rich Conversation

• Slots As Request Configuration Parameters (6:23)
• Slots, Prompts And Utterances (8:09)
• Financial Data From Intrinio (2:28)
• What Exactly are Slots? (5:06)
• Configure the Dialog Model (8:42)
• Handle Start, End and Launch Requests (7:00)
• Handle the GetStockInfo Intent (9:50)
• Handle Help, Stop and Cancel Intents (1:18)
• Testing With Echosim.io (1:53)

Persist State Across Sessions

• Remember Data Across Sessions (5:47)
• Create A Dynamo DB Table (2:06)
• Configure Full Access To Dynamo DB from Lambda (7:34)
• Handle Start, End and Launch Requests (1:50)
• Handle Add, Remove And List Stock Intents (8:03)
• Test Using Echosim.io (1:12)

Build a Flash Briefing Skill

• Understanding Flash Briefing Skills (6:20)
• Set Up A Twitter RSS Feed (3:07)
• Set Up A Flash Briefing Skill (4:19)

Introducing Lex

• Course Outline (8:01)
• Signing in to AWS (6:10)
• Sample Bots (4:39)
• CustomBots_and_IAM (8:07)
• Complete Creating Your First Bot (4:53)

Interaction Models in Amazon Lex

• ModuleOutline (5:23)
• CreatingIntents (5:02)
• SlotTypes (8:04)
• Slots (9:50)
• Slot Properties (6:04)
• Sample Utterances (7:03)
• Confirmations (8:17)
• ConfiguringTheBot (4:39)
• Test:OrderCoke (6:21)
• Test:Order Pizza (Fail) (6:31)
• Test:OrderPizza (success) (7:40)
• Cleaning Up Resources (6:22)

Fulfilment Models in Amazon Lex

• Module Outline (5:49)
• Weather Bot (4:39)
• Built In Slot Types (7:17)
• Setting Up Weather Bot (3:43)
• Lambda Intro (7:08)
• Lambda Blueprint (6:21)
• Code Big Picture (3:42)
• Lambda Handler (6:18)
• Constructing Response (6:26)
• Configuring an AWS Lambda (5:42)
• Lex Lambda Configuration (4:25)
• Open Weather API (6:09)
• Invoking Open Weather API (9:20)
• Importing External Libraries To AWS LAmbda (7:57)
• Versions,Aliases And Publishing (9:24)

Third-party Apps: Chatbots in Slack

• Module Outline (4:16)
• Creating Slack Application (8:59)
• Activating Lex ntegration (6:12)
• Configuring Stack App (8:09)
• Testing Slack Bot (3:21)