7 Simple Steps To Create Your Own Alexa Skill With Zero Coding Experience Using Blueprints

Alexa is the virtual assistant developed by Amazon, which can perform various tasks for users like playing music, checking the weather, and controlling smart home devices. Creating your own Alexa skill has never been easier, thanks to Blueprints.

Blueprints is a tool that allows users to create custom Alexa skills without any coding experience. In this article, we’ll walk you through 7 simple steps to create your own Alexa skill using Blueprints.

Step 1: Log in to the Amazon Alexa Blueprint website

First, you need to log in to the Amazon Alexa Blueprint website using your Amazon account. If you don’t have an Amazon account yet, create one for free.

Step 2: Choose a skill blueprint

Once you’ve logged in, you’ll see a list of skill blueprints to choose from. These blueprints are pre-built templates that allow you to quickly create an Alexa skill without any coding experience. Choose a skill blueprint that best fits your goal.

Step 3: Customize the skill

After you choose the blueprint, you need to customize the skill to make it your own. You can change the skill name, add your own questions and answers, and even add your own audio recordings.

Step 4: Test your skill

Once you’ve customized the skill, you should test it to make sure everything works as expected. You can test the skill by clicking on the “Test” button at the top of the page.

Step 5: Publish the skill

If everything works well, you can publish the skill by clicking on the “Publish” button at the top of the page. You’ll be prompted to select a category, give a brief description of the skill, and choose a name for your skill.

Step 6: Enable the skill

Now that your skill is published, you can enable it on your Amazon Alexa device. Open the Alexa app, go to “Skills & Games,” and search for your skill. Once you find it, you can enable it to start using it.

Finally, share your skill with others by giving them the name of the skill or by sharing the link to the skill. They can then enable the skill on their own Amazon Alexa device.

In conclusion, creating your own Alexa skill has never been easier thanks to Blueprints. It’s an excellent tool for those who don’t have any coding experience but still want to create their own Alexa skill. Follow these 7 simple steps to create your own Alexa skill today!

What are Alexa Blueprints?

Alexa Blueprints is a new method for customizing your Alexa experience. Simply put, Blueprints are templates to create skills of your own to be used in your home without coding. It’s as easy as filling in the blanks.

When you make a skill, the default setting makes the skill available in only your account. However, you can share the skill with friends and family if you want.

What can you do with Alexa Blueprints?

There are five different categories of Skills Blueprints: Greetings & Occasions, Fun & Games, Learning & Knowledge, At Home, and Storyteller.

In the Greetings & Occasions category, you will find what amounts to a list of greeting cards you can send to someone for their birthday or other events.

Fun & Games contains blueprints for general trivia games and birthday trivia for parties to see who knows the birthday boy or girl the best. There’s also a game show blueprint and a blueprint to create an inspirational quote generator.

For those of you with kids in school or going back to school yourself, the Learning & Knowledge category has tools to help! Just create a skill using the Flashcards or Quizzes blueprints to aid you in your studying.

The At Home category has useful templates to create skills for your house guests, babysitters, or petsitters. You can create your own custom question and answer skill and even create a chore chart.

Time for a bedtime story? Templates in the storyteller section include ones for fairy tales, sci-fi, and fables.

How do you use Alexa Blueprints?

So where do you go to create these blueprints? Follow these instructions, and you’ll have your first skill done in less time than you can imagine.

Go to blueprints.amazon.com.
Pick your template from more than twenty options. Check out Featured blueprints for inspiration.
Click on “Make Your Own.”
Fill in the blanks. Text fields are prefilled, and you can delete ones you don’t want by clicking the “x.” You can add more by clicking the “+.”
Name your skill.
Hit “Create Skill.”
Wait a few minutes. There will be a notification when it is ready to use.
Test it by asking Alexa to open it: “Alexa, open (skill name).”
If you need to, edit it in “Skills You’ve Made” at the top of the Alexa Blueprints page.

Proper names can be tough for Alexa to understand, so you want to avoid specific family names in your titles and stay more generic with your names. She can understand common special characters like question marks and dashes. If you use a symbol that she can’t understand, you will receive an error message.

You can share an Alexa skill with your family and friends, but just remember, if you share it with them, they will be able to share it too. Take that into consideration before sending it out to the masses. Don’t worry, though. You are the only one who will be able to edit the skill.

To share:

Click on “Skills You’ve Made.”
Click Details.
Choose Share with Others.
Indicate if the skill is meant for kids under 13.
Pick a sharing method. You can use Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or a clickable link.

When they choose to use the app, they can find it in in their account under “Skills -> Your skills -> Personal skill,” then just have to click “Enable.”

You can see who is using your skill and revoke access whenever you want.

There is no limit as to how many skills you can create, so be creative and have fun with it!

Image credit: FlashCards vocabulary

Tracey Rosenberger spent 26 years teaching elementary students, using technology to enhance learning. Now she’s excited to share helpful technology with teachers and everyone else who sees tech as intimidating.

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