Alexa for Business now lets you create Alexa skills for your organization using Skill Blueprints
We are excited to announce Alexa for Business Blueprints, enabling any Alexa for Business customer to create engaging voice experiences for their organization within minutes and without writing a single line of code. Skill Blueprints are so easy to use, people have used them extensively to create Alexa skills for their households. Now anyone at the office can do the same for their workplace by using one of dozens of easy-to-use Skill Blueprints, generating a private skill in minutes. Alexa private skills are voice-powered capabilities that enhance the Alexa experience, while remaining private to members of an Alexa for Business organization. IT administrators can then review and enable those skills for the company’s users and managed Alexa-enabled devices.
We’ve also added two new Blueprints, Business Q&A and Onboard Guide, which are tailored for business use. The Business Q&A Blueprint allows people to enter their own set of questions and answers pertinent to their organization. An administrator or team leader might use these to answer common questions around the office, such as “Alexa, ask Office Helper, what are the hours for IT?” or “…who handles social media?”. Glidewell Dental plans to supplement their corporate communications using Business Q&A and “news of the day” Flash Briefing Blueprints. The new Onboard Guide Blueprint is optimized for location and how-to questions. An administrator, team leader, or HR staff member could use Onboard Guide to create an Alexa-powered reference guide so that new employees could say “Alexa, ask Team Guide, where’s the mailing center?” or “… how do I set up corporate email on my phone?”
Customers can use their Amazon account to access the Alexa Skill Blueprints website. From there, they can create a skill from any blueprint. After publishing the skill to their Alexa for Business organization, the IT admin will then review and enable the skill for the company. That means that anyone at the office can contribute to creating useful Alexa skills for the organization. Saint Louis University has four teams of students as part of their Innovation Grant creating Alexa private skills for their university, and will be using Alexa for Business Blueprints to kickstart their content. You can learn more about Alexa for Business Blueprints here.