With Alexa for Business, your employees and customers can access a variety of different voice skills that relate to your business. Alexa for Business allows you to easily manage where and how these voice skills can be accessed, and by whom. In this session, we'll walk through how you can use Alexa for Business to deploy and manage access to the custom skills you build for your organization. We'll walk through how employees "enroll" to use Alexa at work, and how the permissions model for your voice skills works. This session will include a demo showing the deployment of a pre-built custom skill, and the enrollment process for employees.

1. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
AWS re:INVENT
Deploying and managing voice skills in
your organization with Alexa for Business
K e v i n C r e w s
A W S P r o d u c t M a n a g e r
N o v e m b e r 3 0 , 2 0 1 7
B A P 3 0 8

2. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
“Conversational platforms will drive the
next big paradigm shift in how humans
interact with the digital world.”
-Gartner Press Release, Gartner Identifies the Top 10
Strategic Technology Trends for 2018
October 4, 2017
Source: https://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3812063

3. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Bring the convenience
of voice interfaces to
solve new problems…
…beyond the home!

4. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
This session will cover…
• Alexa for Business overview—shared devices and enrolled users
• Distribute a private skill to Alexa for Business
• Make a skill available for enrolled users
• Customer Story—Capital One, Command Center
• Build a context aware skill for shared devices
• Enable a skill on shared devices
• Customer Story—WeWork, WeOS skill

5. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Alexa for Business overview

6. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Setup and manage many shared devices
• Bulk setup tool
• Centralized management
through AWS Management
Console
• Settings profiles
• Skill groups
• Control over devices

7. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Invite your users to join your organization
• Auto-dial into conference calls
• Link your work calendar
• Discover and enable private skills

8. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Distribute skills to shared devices and users
Enrolled usersShared devices

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Distribute a private skill to Alexa for
Business

10. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
What is an Alexa skill?
Intent orderFlowers
Slot [value] Type [Roses, Tulips]
Color [Roses[Red, White], Tulips
[Purple, Yellow]
Quantity [6,12,18]
“Alexa, ask 1-800-flowers to order a dozen red roses”
“Alexa, ask 1-800-flowers to order flowers”
Alexa: “OK, what kind?”
“Red roses”
Alexa: “How many red roses would you like to order?”
“12”

11. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Distribute a skill using SMAPI CLI
Download and install SMAPI using npm [directions here: http://developer.amazon.com/alexa/alexa-skills-kit/]
Download the skill.json file
ask api get-skill -s amzn1.ask.skill.c2208e6d-664b-4ff3-bdaa-d30a92b182c5 > skill.json
Update the publishingInformation section of skill.json to include following enumerator
“distributionMode”: “PRIVATE”
Deploy the updated skill
ask api update-skill –s amzn1.ask.skill.c2208e6d-664b-4ff3-bdaa-d30a92b182c5 –f skill.json
Submit your updated skill
ask api submit –s amzn1.ask.skill.c2208e6d-664b-4ff3-bdaa-d30a92b182c5
Distribute your skill to one or more Alexa for Business organizations
ask api add-private-distribution-account -s amzn1.ask.skill.c2208e6d-664b-4ff3-bdaa-d30a92b182c5 -- stage live --account-
id arn:aws:iam::012345678912:root

12. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Accept skill
Alexa for Business à Skills à Private Skills à Review à Enable

13. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Make skill available to enrolled users
to discover and enable

14. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Demo Invite users

15. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Make skill available to users

16. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Capital One Command Center

17. ©2017 Capital One
“Alexa, Ask Command Center …”
Surya Avirneni & Bhavik Gudka
Capital One Technology Operations Center

18. ©2017 Capital One
18
Aboutus

19. ©2017 Capital One
Technology
Operations Center
Reduce time to
Mobilize resources
and Resolve issues
Incident Management
as a Service to handle
Capital One
Command
Center
Operations
ABOUT US
Monitoring Intelligence
24/7 monitoring to reduce time to Detect issues
Find anomalies through Machine Learning to Predict issues
Enterprise event management and Alerting
19
Resiliency and Recovery (R&R)
Governance
Technical Recovery Exercise (TREx)
Resiliency Certifications
Chaos Engineering
Prevention of Incidents and Stability of the Enterprise
Auto Remediation
Closed loop automation for known/recurring issues..
©2017 Capital One
Technology Operations Center
Reduce time to Mobilize resources and Resolve issues
Incident Management as a Service to handle critical incidents
Enterprise Triaging and Stakeholder communications
24x7 Level 1 support across all business lines.
Capital One Command Center Operations
ABOUT US
Monitoring Intelligence
24/7 monitoring to reduce time to Detect issues
Find anomalies through Machine Learning to Predict issues
Enterprise event management and Alerting
3
Resiliency and Recovery (R&R)
Governance
Technical Recovery Exercise (TREx)
Resiliency Certifications
Chaos Engineering
Prevention of Incidents and Stability of the Enterprise
Auto Remediation
Closed loop automation for known/recurring issues..

20. ©2017 Capital One
But we already have
responsive enterprise web
and mobile apps, why
20
IDEA! LET’S BUILD A VOICE APP FOR CAPITAL ONE COMMAND CENTER
©2017 Capital One
But we already have responsive enterprise web and mobile apps, why
build a voice app?
4
IDEA! LET’S BUILD A VOICE APP FOR CAPITAL ONE COMMAND CENTER

21. ©2017 Capital One
To reimagine, innovate. To
innovate, experiment.
WHY WE WANTED TO BUILD A VOICE APP?
21
©2017 Capital One
To reimagine, innovate. To innovate, experiment.
WHY WE WANTED TO BUILD A VOICE APP?
5

22. ©2017 Capital One
ASK your
22
GREAT IDEA! HOW TO BUILD AN ALEXA VOICE APP FOR USE WITHIN OUR ORGANIZATION?
22
©2017 Capital One
ASK your APIs
6
GREAT IDEA! HOW TO BUILD AN ALEXA VOICE APP FOR USE WITHIN OUR ORGANIZATION?
6

23. ©2017 Capital One
Building
the Skill
ASK your APIs to enable conservations with Alexa
BUILDING ALEXA VOICE APP INSIDE AN ENTERPRISE
Command Center
Alexa Skill
Capital One API Gateway
OAuth
23
©2017 Capital One
Building the Skill
ASK your APIs to enable conservations with Alexa
BUILDING ALEXA VOICE APP INSIDE AN ENTERPRISE
Command Center
Alexa Skill
Capital One API Gateway
OAuth
7

24. ©2017 Capital One
Voice interaction design
BUILDING ALEXA VOICE APP INSIDE AN ENTERPRISE
“ Get me TOC briefing ” “ Give me a report for Bank ” “ Are there any active incidents ”
“ How many incidents are
impacting Card ”
“ Get me a list of critical
Incidents ”
“ How many critical incidents are
effecting Auto Finance ”
24
Alexa, Ask Command Center …
Design voice interactions based on your company’s popular keywords and acronyms from
day-to-day use.
Employ the same voice design principles you would use for your public skills. We looked up
to our customer facing Alexa skill for design inspiration.
©2017 Capital One
Voice interaction design
BUILDING ALEXA VOICE APP INSIDE AN ENTERPRISE
“ Get me TOC briefing ” “ Give me a report for Bank ” “ Are there any active incidents ”
“ How many incidents are
impacting Card ”
“ Get me a list of critical
Incidents ”
“ How many critical incidents are
effecting Auto Finance ”
8
Alexa, Ask Command Center …
Design voice interactions based on your company’s popular keywords and acronyms from
day-to-day use.
Employ the same voice design principles you would use for your public skills. We looked up
to our customer facing Alexa skill for design inspiration.

25. ©2017 Capital One

26. ©2017 Capital One
Skill Distribution -
Initial Options and
Challenges
Publish to Alexa Skill
Store
Use Alexa Beta test
mode
Create a Alexa Voice
Service enabled
mobile app
What we tried?
+ Enable Beta Test for a sample of test users
+ Add test users manually
+ Test users enable the skill
+ Re-do above steps every 60 days
What we learnt?
+ Too much manual effort adding and removing users
+ Poor user enrollment experience among test users
+ Limited capabilities for self-service skill discovery and
enrollment
It’s a private skill, duh!! This can be our last resort! But we didn’t get there.
BUILDING ALEXA VOICE APP INSIDE AN ENTERPRISE
26
©2017 Capital One
Skill Distribution - Initial Options and Challenges
Publish to Alexa Skill
Store
Use Alexa Beta test
mode
Create a Alexa Voice
Service enabled
mobile app
What we tried?
+ Enable Beta Test for a sample of test users
+ Add test users manually
+ Test users enable the skill
+ Re-do above steps every 60 days
What we learnt?
+ Too much manual effort adding and removing users
+ Poor user enrollment experience among test users
+ Limited capabilities for self-service skill discovery and
enrollment
It’s a private skill, duh!! This can be our last resort! But we didn’t get there.
BUILDING ALEXA VOICE APP INSIDE AN ENTERPRISE
9

27. ©2017 Capital One
Alexa for Business PoC
27
OK, OUR TEST USERS AREN’T PLEASED WITH THE SKILL DISCOVERY AND ENROLLMENT EXPERIENCE.
WHAT DO WE DO NEXT?
27

28. ©2017 Capital One
ALEXA FOR BUSINESS POC
Sign up using internal portal Enroll using your organization’s Alexa for Business account Enable Skill and Say…
“Alexa, open Command Center”
28
Skill Discovery and User Enrollment - Proposed Approach

29. ©2017 Capital One
NEXT STEPS
29
ALEXA FOR BUSINESS MAKES IT EASIER TO DEPLOY ENTERPRISE SKILLS TO AN ORGANIZATION.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
29

30. ©2017 Capital One
+Identify the
APIs
+Requiremen
ts gathering
+Identify
target
audience
+Define the
scope
ALEXA FOR BUSINESS AND ALEXA SKILLS FOR ENTERPRISE
Research Design
+ Voice Interaction Design
+ ASK integration design with our APIs
+ Identify test users
Experiment
+ Build the Skill using ASK
+ OAuth Integration with our API gateway
+ Alexa for Business proof of concept in
sandbox.
30
Where do we go from here?
Current State Next Steps
</>

31. ©2017 Capital One
“Alexa, Open Command Center”

32. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Build a context aware skill for shared
devices

33. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Simplified account management, but…
Room 1
Room 2
Room 3
Room 4
UserName: OrganizationABC
Password: Pasword1234!
…HOW CAN I TELL
WHICH ROOM A REQUEST
CAME FROM WHEN THE
OAUTH TOKEN IS ALWAYS
THE SAME!?

34. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
With the resolveRoom API!
Request
{
“UserId”:”string”,
“SkillId”:”string”
}
Response
{
“RoomId”:”string”,
“RoomName”:”string”,
[ “RoomSkillParameter”:{
ParameterKey:”string”,
ParameterValue:”string”
}
]
}
“RoomName”: ”AWSHQ_Room_201”
ParameterKey: ”default”
ParameterValue: ”string”

35. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Enable skill on shared devices

36. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Concepts
Add Skill to Skill Group
Add Skill Group to Room
All rooms with a Skill Group
have all skills in that group

37. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Demo – Enable Skill on Shared Device

38. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
WeWork: WeOS

39. Alan Jackson
WeWork
Associate, Director of Systems Research
@alnjxn
Product Development | Connectivity
• Low Voltage
• Audio Visual (AV)
• Information Technology (IT)
• Physical Security (Access Control)
• Smart Buildings (IoT)
INTRODUCTION

40. BACKGROUND

41. BACKGROUND

42. BACKGROUND

43. BACKGROUND

44. Meeting Rooms provided the optimal environment for our first
deployment of the WeWork Private Skills.
• Private and Reservable
• Good Acoustics
• Accessible Room Technology
Our team focused on these key areas of integration:
• Meeting Room Booking (WeOS)
• Community Support (Zendesk)
• Lighting Controls (BMS / IoT)
MEETINGROOMSKILLS

45. MEETING ROOM BOOKING
Use Amazon Alexa to look for
available meeting rooms. During your
meeting, check when the next meeting
starts. If available, choose to extend
your meeting that might be running
over.
PRIVATESKILLSOVERVIEW
COMMUNITY SUPPORT
Occasionally things can go wrong. If
there is a problem with the meeting room,
Alexa can alert our Community team
though our Support Ticket system. Just
let Alexa know what the problem is and
she will categorize and submit the issue
for you.
LIGHTING CONTROLS
Ask Alexa to turn the lights on or off. If
giving a presentation, Alexa can set the
lighting scene for you or you can simply
ask to dim the lights.

46. FIND AN AVAILABLE MEETING ROOM
“Alexa, ask WeWork to
find an available
conference room.”
MEETINGROOMBOOKING

47. “Conference rooms 3B, 4A and Product Huddle
are currently available.”
MEETINGROOMBOOKING
FIND AN AVAILABLE MEETING ROOM

48. FIND AN AVAILABLE MEETING ROOM
“Alexa, ask WeWork to
find an available
conference room.”
MEETINGROOMBOOKING
WHEN THE NEXT MEETING WILL
START
“Alexa, ask WeWork
when the next meeting
will start.”

49. “The next meeting will start at 5pm. Would you
like to extend this meeting by 30 minutes?”
MEETINGROOMBOOKING
WHEN THE NEXT MEETING WILL
START

50. FIND AN AVAILABLE MEETING ROOM
“Alexa, ask WeWork to
find an available
conference room.”
MEETINGROOMBOOKING
WHEN THE NEXT MEETING WILL
START
“Alexa, ask WeWork
when the next meeting
will start.”
EXTEND THE CURRENT MEETING
“Alexa, ask WeWork to
extend this meeting.”

51. “Your meeting has been extended, and will now
end at 5pm.”
MEETINGROOMBOOKING
EXTEND THE CURRENT MEETING

52. FILE A TICKET WITH COMMUNITY
“Alexa, tell WeWork to
file a ticket.”
COMMUNITYSUPPORT

53. “What’s wrong?”
COMMUNITYSUPPORT
FILE A TICKET WITH COMMUNITY

54. FILE A TICKET WITH COMMUNITY
“Alexa, tell WeWork to
file a ticket.”
COMMUNITYSUPPORT
“…the room's
lighting.”
“…the room is freezing.
“…the room is too
warm.”
“…the television isn't
working.”
“…the phone is
broken.”

55. “Okay. I’ve filed a ticket for this room’s HVAC
system.”
COMMUNITYSUPPORT
FILE A TICKET WITH COMMUNITY

56. LIGHTINGCONTROLS

57. Excellent platform API’s and the power of integrations with AWS
Lambda allowed for a great developer experience:
• Fast development
• No resource scaling requirements with AWS Lambda
• Debug and monitor in Amazon CloudWatch
• Easy device deployment and management
User feedback has been excellent. We have already received requests for
new Skills and deployment into new environment.
FINDINGS

58. Expand the scope of Alexa in the Meeting Room environment:
• AV Controls (TV, Video, Sound)
• Phone Calls
• Video Conferencing
Deploy to new space typologies:
• Sales Room
• Front Desk
• Pantry
LOOKINGAHEAD

59. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Wrap up

60. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Related sessions
Today at 5:30 PM in Aria, Level 1, Pinyon 7
ALX204: Building Alexa skills for Businesses (Salesforce)
Watch on YouTube later:
BAP207

61. © 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
THANK YOU!