Ability to Forward Briefing to Multiple Skills

Hi, you have the right approach. You can have one install go to as many as you’d like.

You need to add limit=2 to query in order to for both to show at once. The default behavior is just the most recent 1. Amazon has a limit of 5, so you can set that to be 1-5.

OK.. Just so I have this straight…lol.

I created two briefings one is ny and one is Nj category. Each briefing is going to a different Alexa Skill.

I currently have the following:

/wp-json/alexa-fb/v1/briefings/?category=ny (Alexa SKill for NY)

/wp-json/alexa-fb/v1/briefings/?category=nj (Alexa Skill for NJ)

Is the above correct to add to each individual alexa skill? I tried this and it doesn’t work. It’s not going to different Alexa skills. Just goes to one Alexa skill – regardless of category – whichever briefing is newly updated Alexa speaks – but title stays the same even though each briefing has a different title.

What URL am I exactly typing into each Alexa skill if I want NY to go to NY Alexa Skill and NJ to go to NJ Alexa Skill? Please type it out with the query you are speaking of.

I actually had developed 3 individual Alexa skills and wanted each briefing to go to each skill regardless of which is updated with new info.

Yes, you are doing it correctly. That should register as 2 different feeds.

/wp-json/alexa-fb/v1/briefings/?category=nj&limit=5

That will show the most recent 5 briefings in that category, otherwise, it will default to 1.

Could you please send me the live website URL to look at the feed to debug?

comedyplugs.com

I only have one skill at the moment – because multiple didn’t seem to be working so on the developer screen with Amazon I’m using this:

https://comedyplugs.com/wp-json/alexa-fb/v1/briefings/

which is working but just for that one skill.

When I was trying to put 1 briefing to 1 skill with Alexa:

I’m only using 1 briefing for each category that goes to one individual skill.

So if I had a NY, NJ & CT skill. I created 3 briefings with each briefing having a category as ct, nj,& ny.

When I put the url as comedyplugs.com/wp-json/alexa-fb/v1/briefings/?category=ny into the NY skill, comedyplugs.com//wp-json/alexa-fb/v1/briefings/?category=nj, into NJ skill, etc. – it didn’t work.

You are right, looks like there was some bugs. There was an issue with the transient caching and categories. I have pushed the fix and should be live in a few hours. Thanks for bringing this up!

So if I create 3 briefings(NY, CT & NJ) with each one having a separate category for New York (ny), New Jersey (nj) & Connecticut (ct) and then if I create 3 different Alexa skills and add the following urls in each one:

comedyplugs.com/wp-json/alexa-fb/v1/briefings/?category=ny
comedyplugs.com/wp-json/alexa-fb/v1/briefings/?category=nj
comedyplugs.com/wp-json/alexa-fb/v1/briefings/?category=ct

Then anyone enabling the CT skill will only have the category ct briefing pull up for them, NY skill- only category ny briefing pull up etc?

If this is a yes, then I will try it again tomorrow and let you know how it worked.

Yes that is 100% correct.

The update should be plug and play and should solve your issue.

Please note there is an updated cache feature that can be useful to set to 0 while testing. The plugin page has been updated with new instructions.

OK. Great. I’ll re-add the skills to Amazon and let you know tomorrow how it turns out. Thank you for all the help!

You are welcome, thanks for your patience. Fixed some things that I’m sure were affecting others. Please let me know how it works with v 1.6

Unfortunately it still does not work. All 4 failed the certification briefings.

I have the following 4 briefings:

(A) Comedy Plugs March 2019 Events Category=ALL

https://comedyplugs.com/wp-json/alexa-fb/v1/briefings/?category=all
**This one was working without any issues when I only had one briefing and the url I used was “https://comedyplugs.com/wp-json/alexa-fb/v1/briefings/”. Now after I changed it to category=all – Amazon is failing the updated certification but the one that still live – **Now shows on the Alexa as titled “Comedy Plugs NJ Comedy Events” – which is category “nj”. ** Instead of what is written on the briefing title “March Comedy Plugs 2019 Events – it’s pulling up the NJ title and briefing **

(B) Comedy Plugs CT Comedy Events Category=CT
https://comedyplugs.com/wp-json/alexa-fb/v1/briefings/?category=ct

(C) Comedy Plugs NJ Comedy Events Category=NJ
https://comedyplugs.com/wp-json/alexa-fb/v1/briefings/?category=nj

(D) Comedy Plugs NY Comedy Events Category=NY
https://comedyplugs.com/wp-json/alexa-fb/v1/briefings/?category=ny

On each of the 4 failed skills – in the emails it is describing the NJ briefing although the categories are all different.

Emails:

(A)
1.Your skill does not meet the necessary requirements and we were not able to complete a full review of your skill because it does not function properly in its current state.

When testing your flash briefing skill, Alexa returned an error communicating that the skill’s feed(s) do not contain recent content. The skill’s feeds must contain content that has been updated within the past 7 days.

Steps To Reproduce:

User: Alexa, whats my flash briefing

Skill: Here’s your flash briefing. From Comedy Plugs dot com
“We’re sorry. At this time there are no new jersey comedy events posted.
Listen each day for show updates. For more information, and to find out, how to have your comedy event listed, go to Comedy Plugs dot com.

(I didn’t post an actual event on this briefing. There is content but not enough I guess. I will be adding more content to the briefing now and re-uploading to Amazon – but it’s pulling up to Amazon “NJ” category instead of “ALL” category.)

(B)

Issues with Feed/s: ? Applicable to: Comedy Plugs CT Events

1.Your skill does not meet the necessary requirements and we were not able to complete a full review of your skill because it does not function properly in its current state.

2.The content of the feed provided in the skill is not relevant to the skill’s description. Please make sure that the content of the feed is aligned with the skill’s description.

Please note that the skill fails to provide any update on the comedy events (current or upcoming) for Connecticut and provide irrelevant response “We’re sorry. At this time there are no new jersey comedy events posted.”.

Additionally, read more option present in home card gives irrelevant information with title as “Comedy Plugs NJ Comedy Events”.

(I didn’t post an actual event on this briefing. There is content but not enough I guess. I will be adding more content to the briefing now and re-uploading to Amazon – but it’s pulling up to Amazon “NJ” category instead of “CT” category. Nowhere on the skill I developed for this briefing does it mention NJ – it all relates to CT)

(C)

Issues with Feed/s: ? Applicable to: Comedy Plugs NJ Events

1.When testing your flash briefing skill, Alexa returned an error communicating that the skill’s feed(s) do not contain recent content. The skill’s feeds must contain content that has been updated within the past 7 days.

Steps To Reproduce:

User: “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing”
Skill: “Here’s your flash briefing.From Comedy Plugs dot com New Jersey Events”, We’re sorry. At this time there are no new jersey comedy events posted.”

2.Your skill does not meet the necessary requirements and we were not able to complete a full review of your skill because it does not function properly in its current state.

(Well this one is the NJ briefing – so I guess it’s working correctly -although all briefings are showing as NJ. I also just created these briefings yesterday before I developed the skills and sent them to Amazon – so I’m sure why it is saying content hasn’t been updated in 7 days. I’m going to add content to this one as well and re-upload to Amazon.)

(D)
Issues with Feed/s: ? Applicable to: Comedy Plugs NY Events

1.Your skill does not meet the necessary requirements and we were not able to complete a full review of your skill because it does not function properly in its current state.

2.The content of the feed provided in the skill is not relevant to the skill’s description. Please make sure that the content of the feed is aligned with the skill’s description.

Please note that the skill fails to provide any update on the comedy events (current or upcoming) for New York and provide irrelevant response “We’re sorry. At this time there are no new jersey comedy events posted.”.

Additionally, read more option present in home card gives irrelevant information with title as “Comedy Plugs NJ Comedy Events”.

(I didn’t post an actual event on this briefing. There is content but not enough I guess. I will be adding more content to the briefing now and re-uploading to Amazon – but it’s pulling up to Amazon “NJ” category instead of “NY” category.)

So – the issue right now is that the skill I have that is live right now and I’m not using categories – is pulling up the NJ briefing. I’m going to make sure that all briefings have current comedy events on it so that when I re-upload the skills right now for certification – the issue won’t be the content. But even if they do go through – they are all pulling the NJ category.

This is what my briefings in wordpress looks like:

Title Categories Date
Comedy Plugs CT Comedy Events CT 17 hours ago

Comedy Plugs March 2019 Events ALL 2019/03/05

Comedy Plugs NJ Comedy Events NJ 17 hours ago

Comedy Plugs NY Comedy Events NY 17 hours ago

Hi thank you for the report.

Yes, I see that the feeds are all pulling from NJ. Even invalid categories are pulling it, which should NOT happen, it should return null which it’s not. It’s as if it’s ignoring the category param altogether.

It makes me think there may be a plugin or setting that is affecting the query loop, a caching issue, or the new version didn’t take right.

If you want to give me access to your wordpress site I can help debug it quicker. You can use this for a temp login if you’d like: https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/temporary-login-without-password/

My email is [email protected]

If you’re not comfortable with that, I’d suggest trying a new install with the default theme and no plugins except this and see if the feeds work correctly, then you know it’s a conflict. A clean install for me gives the desired results you are looking for.

Andrew – I just emailed you a temporary login to the site – Tom

Hi Tom, thank you.

I updated this plugin to the latest version (1.6) and all appears to be working fine now.

Be sure to use https for all your feeds, like the following:

https://comedyplugs.com/wp-json/alexa-fb/v1/briefings/?category=ct&limit=5

Thank you so much for all the help.

I resubmitted the skills with the exact url feed you mentioned to use changing each category within them.

I’ll let you know what happens tomorrow. Thanks!

It works perfectly! Thank you for all the help!