Secure your ixHello App with Multi-Factor Authentication

Objective

This document will demonstrate how to use the Custom Skill feature of the ixHello platform with Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) support.

Introduction to API

The ixHello platform can integrate with external platform via web API’s. To demonstrate this capability, a demo API endpoint has been created (https://demo.voiceworx.ai/api/Contacts) in our demo web app “demo.voiceworx.ai”. Multiple API endpoints have been created for Contacts module and will be using the endpoint that searches an underlying Contacts database and returns the contact number of a specific person.

The demo web app created has the ability to perform CRUD operations against the underlying Contacts database that is triggered by calls to the exposed contact API’s in demo.voiceworx.ai

Web App URL : http://demo.voiceworx.ai

Contact Finder : https://demo.voiceworx.ai/api/Contacts?Name={Name}

Here is a sample contact in the database.

Goal

Our goal is to demonstrate the capability of ixHello to integrate with external platforms and perform CRUD operations against them via web API calls with support for MFA. In this Alexa Skill it is called “Contact Finder”. This Alexa app will look up and return a person’s number that is stored in the contacts database and is accessible via the contacts API endpoints in demo.voiceworx.ai. The skill will be protected via a pin code sent to the users that invoked the skill’s phone and email. The MFA prevents unauthorized personnel from accessing the information provided by the skill. When a contact is asked and user has not authenticated with a PIN code, a 4-digit code is sent to the users email and phone number. When the correct pin code is provided by the user while interacting with the skill, access is granted but the PIN code is valid for five minutes. If a user does not interact with the skill within 5 minutes, on next interaction, a PIN code is regenerated and resent to the users email and phone number.

Note: the example uses Basic Authentication so username/passwords to the external resource is required.

Steps

The following shows the general steps/activities that will be carried out in setting up this integration. Note: It is advisable to use same email for signup across the 3 channels below. Step 1 -3 below are compulsory.

1. Sign up for Alexa account

2. Sign up for Alexa developer account.

3. Sign up for VoiceWorx platform

4. Ensure you Login With Amazon (LWA) https://developer.amazon.com/alexa/console/ask account is setup by your admin. If you are the account admin, you can follow this instruction to set it up.

5. Set up connection to the external web API

6. Create a custom skill in Voiceworx.

7. Publish the skill

8. Test the Alexa skill.

Set up connection to the external web API

1. Login to the VoiceWorx platform, use left navigation menu and click “Integration” then select “Connect System”. In the resulting page, click “Connect External Systems”.

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1. In “Connect External System” select or do the following:

Select Integration Category: Custom

Select System Type: Rest API Service

Click: Connect System.

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1. Once in “Rest API Service Setup” select or enter the following:

System Instance Name: ContactFinder

Authorization Type: Basic Auth

Add Web API URL: https://demo.voiceworx.ai

Under Basic Auth Settings

Enter Username and Password

Click: Validate System to ensure you have access to the web API endpoint.

Create Custom Skill in Voiceworx.ai

1. To create a custom skill, use left navigation menu and click “Custom Skills” then select “Manage Skills”. Then click “Create New Custom Skill”.

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1. Now add Custom Skill by entering or selecting the following:

Name: Contact Finder

Custom Skill Type: Search

Category: None

Click: Save

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1. In the top menu tabs, select “Data Sources” then “Create New Data Source”. Select or enter the following:

Name: ContactFinderDS

Integration Configuration: Rest API Service: ContactFinder

Manage Connections to create the external platform WebAPI integration

Click: Save

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1. In the top menu tabs, select “Methods” then select “Create New Methods”. Then select or enter the following:

Name: GetPhoneNumberByName

Request Type: GET

Query Path: ?name={{Person}}

Result Type: Record

Method Path: /api/contacts

Method Result-Empty Result Template: Phone Number Not Found For Requested Contact

Result Template: {{Person}} phone number is {{Phone}}

Click: Save

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1. In the top menu tabs, select “Intents” and “Create New Intent”. Then select or enter the following:

Name: GetPhoneNumberByName

Intent Type: Search

Intent Action: Executive Method

DataSource: ContactFinderDS

DataSource Method: GetPhoneNumberByName

Click: Save

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1. In the top menu tabs, select “Slots” and select “Create New Slot”. Note the Reprompt message is what Alexa will ask if it can’t fill/resolve the person slot. Then select or enter the following:

Name: Person

Slot Order: Blank

Reprompt Message: What is the person name

Type: Person

Custom Skill: ContactFinder

Intent: GetPhoneNumber

Click: Save

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1. In the top menu tabs, select “Utterance” and select “Create New Utterance”. Utterance are words spoken to launch specific intents. Now input or select the following:

Value: What is the phone number for (Person)

Custom Skill: ContactFinder

Intent: GetPhoneNumber

Click: Save

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1. In the top menu tabs, select “Input” and select “Create New Input”. Then input or select the following:

Name: Person

Custom Skill: ContactFinder

Custom Intent: GetPhoneNumber

Data Source: ContactFinderDS

Data Source Method: GetPhoneNumberByName

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Publish to Alexa

1. In the top menu tabs select “Publish” then click “Add Skill Publishing”. Then enter or select the following:

External Skill Name: ContactFinder. (This will be the name of the skill in Alexa. Therefore, make it unique and different from the names of your other skills in Alexa.)

Skill Type: Select Search

Channel: Select Alexa

Uncheck the following: Require account linking, Auto Publish

Skill Invocation Name: ContactFinder. (This will be what users say to launch your skill in Alexa. It must be in lower case alphabets cannot contain START, BEGIN, STOP, EXIT, LAUNCH and cannot contain number or special characters.)

Optional: Replace all placeholder values in all “Message”. Uncheck all the settings shown in the second image below except the Enable MFA check box

Click: Save.

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1. A slot named “Pin” will automatically be added for all intents.

2. In the top menu tabs select “Publish” then click “Publish to Alexa”.

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1. Once in Publish Skill to Amazon Alexa select and do the following:

Selected Skill: Contact Finder

Select Amazon Account: LWA Config

Select the LWA account setup by your admin or the one you set up in step 4 above.

Click: Publish To Alexa

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1. On the resulting screen, ensure that a success message shows for the publishing steps before clicking the “Go To Alexa Skill”. If success message not shown, click “Go To Skill Publishing” to fix any issue shown in publishing result.

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1. On the Alexa skill page, ensure “Full Build Successful” message is shown in bottom right corner before starting to test skill.

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1. Go to “test” tab in the top menu, then below “test” tab change the skill test status from “Off” to “Development”.

1. Invoke skill by typing the invocation name (Contact Finder) inserted in the publishing step in Voiceworx. If the invocation is successful, your configured welcome message will be displayed in the developer console.

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1. Invoke an intent and a pin will be requested

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Congratulations!

You have successfully completed a Secure your VoiceWorx Skill

with Multi-Factor Authentication.