Can we use "AMAZON.SearchQuery" without using "search for" or "find out" phrase?

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chirag asked · Feb 28, 2019 at 09:59 AM

Can we use "AMAZON.SearchQuery" without using "search for" or "find out" phrase?

I am making a skill for quiz game in which I defined so many categories. And I have apis for generating dynamic questions. Now the thing is, Ans of those questions could be anything depending on the question like it could be any place or country or food or festivals or anything which could only cover by AMAZON.SearchQuery.

Now In my skill in QuizIntent, Alexa will ask any random question

For e.g "The World Largest desert is ? A. Thar B. Kalahari C. Sahara D. Sonoran"

Now assume that user says: "I guess Thar" or "my answer is Kalahari" or "I think Sahara".

Now I want to use AMAZON.SearchQuery to handle user answers with utterances like "I guess {answer}" or "I think {answer}" or "my answer is {answer}" where {answer} = AMAZON.SearchQuery.

But Above condition is not working properly. I search the issue then I found like we have to use AMAZON.SearchQuery with "search for" or "find out" phrase. And If I use those phrases in my scenario then user have to say like, "find out the answer Thar" or "Search for Sahara" which is obviously not user convenient in this scenario.

So How can I handle this scenario in my Alexa skill?

alexa skills kit

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2 Answers

Answer 1 · 2019-02-28T20:16:04Z

RokasV answered · Feb 28, 2019 at 08:16 PM · ACCEPTED ANSWER

This is a tough problem.

You can use whatever utterance with search query but it has to have a carrier phrase like as you mentioned 'I think {search}'. More examples in docs. Still, making sure, that alexa will catch the answer that you expect is very iffy, but overall search query might work in this case, because it would catch everything user said. In what user said you could look for the answer and if at least one word match, then match it with an answer.

Another thing to try, is if there are not too many questions, you could build a custom slot with all answers and also have utterances like 'I think it is {customSlot}'. This might be a better solution, maybe even recognition would be better, also this would allow you to have utterance with only slot like '{customSlot}' if user would only say answer. Yet again, it is not perfect, but worth trying out.

Last idea that comes to my mind how to solve this, which would be more robust, but user wouldn't be able to answer freely is to only accept answers ABCD. This way you'll have to do less management in the backend and user will confined to choose only from these four options.

Overall, there is no right answer in this case. Just test things out and see what works best.

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chirag · Mar 01, 2019 at 04:35 AM

You explained very well RokasV and thanks for that. But I have thousands of dynamic questions which I get from my API. So the custom slot is not possible in my case. And As I said I don't want to use carrier phrase with a search query. And I think you know that it would not be user convenient. But what you mentioned at the end will definitely work for me And I knew that thing but this will also stick users like they must have to give option which is also not so good. But I think for now I have to compromise with my expectation and a little bit with user convenience. I hope in near future we will get a better solution from new Alexa updates.

And Thank you once again @RokasV.

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RokasV chirag · Mar 01, 2019 at 04:34 PM

No problem. If you have feature requests for amazon team, like search query without carrier phrase or similar, you can post them in alexa uservoice website, here.

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Answer 2 · 2019-11-12T18:21:09Z

clel answered · Nov 12, 2019 at 06:21 PM

There is a request on Uservoice for this. I also added it to my unofficial issue tracker, so information can be aggregated in one place: https://gitlab.com/clel/amazon-alexa-issue-tracker/issues/15

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Can we use "AMAZON.SearchQuery" without using "search for" or "find out" phrase?

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