Knowledge skills are an Alexa private skill type that enable users to ask about an organization’s data - such as org charts, building information, events, FAQs, glossaries, product catalogs, and others - by simply saying “Alexa” and asking their question. Building Knowledge skills requires no coding and no AWS infrastructure - only a spreadsheet of data and the Alexa for Business service. Developers can simply select templates, add their data, and distribute the skill to the devices they want. Like all private Alexa skills, Knowledge skills remain accessible only on devices within an organization.
Features
No skill invocation
You do not need to state your Knowledge skill’s name before interacting with it, as you typically do with other skill types. Simply say, “Alexa” and then ask your question.
No code or infrastructure
Building a Knowledge skill requires no coding or AWS infrastructure. Anyone who is familiar with spreadsheets can build one.
Spreadsheet data input
Upload and refresh your data in bulk via spreadsheet files. This makes it easy to have your skill answer questions about large amounts of data quickly.
Flexible understanding
Knowledge skills support flexible questions out of the box. For example, the Events template enables questions about “next” and “last” events, as well as events happening “next month”, or “this year” without any work from developers.
Build a Knowledge skill in minutes
Building a Knowledge skill takes just a few minutes and requires no coding. To start, log in to the Alexa developer portal and select "Create Skill". Then, choose the "Knowledge" skill type.
Use cases
Knowledge skills enable Q&A on spreadsheet data that you upload and map to templates. These templates correspond to use cases, like the ones shown below. To see the wide range of available use cases, visit our documentation.
“Alexa, how do I mail a package?”
“Alexa, what is the Wi-Fi for the cafe?”
“Alexa, when’s the next keynote?”
Example
For example, you can upload a spreadsheet of your org-chart to the People Directory template. Once done, your Knowledge skill can answer a variety of questions about the people in your dataset, such as:
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Single Fact
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Multiple Facts
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Counts
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Lists
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Superlatives
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Statistics
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Single Fact
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Q: Alexa, when did Mary Major start?A: Mary Major started on September 15, 2015. -
Multiple Facts
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Q: Alexa, what’s John Public’s start date and phone number?
A: John Public started on December 18, 2017 and his phone number is 123-555-0199. -
Counts
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Q: Alexa, how many software developers are in New York?A: There is one software developer in New York. -
Lists
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Q: Alexa, what employees are located in New York?A: Mary Major and Jane Doe are located in New York. -
Superlatives
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Q: Alexa, who are the newest employees in New York?A: Jane Doe is the newest employee in New York, she started on Answer: June 1, 2016. -
Statistics
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Q: Alexa, what’s the average tenure for Software Developers?A: The average tenure for software developers is 5.1 years.
Customer success
Boston Children's Hospital, in partnership with Aiva Health, is using Alexa Knowledge Skills to allow families to ask for directory information, transportation options, planned activities, wellness offerings, food options, nearby attractions and even unit-specific amenities.
“Knowledge Skills help our patients and their families get informative responses to property-specific questions through Alexa, such as ”What are the visiting hours?“ and ”What food can I get at the food court?“. Being able to quickly and easily customize the skill’s content and allow users to access it without needing to remember an invocation phrase were key factors in choosing Knowledge skills.”
- Sarah Lindenauer, Director, Innovation & Digital Health Accelerator at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Organizations have been using Knowledge Skills to easily enable natural-language question answering for their data using Alexa. DigiValet is using Alexa Knowledge Skills to give hotel guests an easy way to access hotel and curated local information during their stay.
“We’ve found that our hotel guests who stay 2-3 days have a lot of questions that we can answer with Knowledge Skills, such as "When is the next Jazz night at the Piano Bar?", "How can I get a baby crib?", or "What is today’s special in the restaurant?". Our Knowledge Skills were easy to build and quick to update using spreadsheet data.”
- Ms. Rachana Salgia, Co-Founder & President at DigiValet.
Get started
To get started, log in to the Alexa developer portal and select "Create Skill". Then, choose the "Knowledge" skill type.