Create App Using App Blueprints

Objective:

This document aims at guiding users to create skills by using App Blueprints published by the platform admin.

Goal:

ixHello provides a platform for a wide range of customers to integrate their already existing enterprise solutions to Voice channels. It might be difficult for customers to jump into the overall process of the ixHello portal to find the capability and functionality provided by the platform. App Blueprints are created and published by the platform admin. Potential customers and new customers can use those templates to create an already working app on their account with only few clicks. They will be able to get used on how the platform works and also provide necessary feedback for customization on their skill sets.

This document demonstrates on how a user can create an app out of app blueprints, modify them and publish them to voice and chat channels.

How it works?

Depending on the communication channel you are planning to use, for instance, Alexa or Lex, you shall have a developer Alexa account for Alexa and an active AWS account for Lex.

For Alexa

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 ixHello platform

  4. Ensure you Login with Amazon (LWA) account is setup by your admin. If you are the account admin, you can follow this instruction to set it up.

  5. Create a custom App in ixHello using App Templates.

  6. Publish the skill

  7. Test the Alexa skill.

For Lex you can follow this document

Prerequisite

  1. An Account

For steps to create an ixHello account, follow the steps at https://docs.ixhello.com/general/ixhello-create-account

  1. At least one App Templates published by the Platform Admin. You can refer to following document to inquire on how a platform admin can create App Blueprints.

App Publishing as Template

Following is the step-by-step guide on how the Platform Admin can create skill template.

  1. Log on to ixHello platform. On the left navigation menu, click on “Custom Apps” and select “App Blueprints”.

  2. The list displays app blueprints created by platform admins. These templates are available across the platform irrespective of the organization. These templates refer to a fully functional custom app, which the users can replicate on their systems with only few clicks.

  1. The selection dropdown on the top right corner is the categories of blueprints. Users can use the dropdown to explore the blueprints under several categories like healthcare, retail, service, insurance as well as third party enterprise application like Salesforce.

  2. Users can search the blueprints by their name using the search box above.

  3. Let us discuss the components of a blueprint.

“1” represents Title of the blueprint

“2” provides a short description on the app that the blueprint will create

“3” on clicking “Learn more”, users can view the expected conversation between the device/ channel and users, as below:

“4” Users can create app by clicking on “Create App”.

  1. The following interface opens on clicking “Create App”. Provide the App Name, Template Name is for your reference purpose; it represents the template name the blueprint is based on. You can check/ uncheck the components you wish to keep/ remove from your app. By default, they all are checked, and we recommend you go with the default values at this point.

  1. Click on Create App.

  1. Following message is received on successful creation of app.

  1. Users can access the imported app by clicking “View App”. Click on Select button and navigate through the components of the app: data source, methods, intents, slots, utterances, input and publish.

  1. If you were creating a custom app, you would be creating all of these component’s steps by step. But using App Blueprints, you can see that these components have automatically been created for you. You can check the components of the formed skill by navigating through the tabs.

  1. The user can make modifications on the newly created skill as per their requirement and publish to ixHello supported communication channels. You can refer to this document for guidance on how to modify and publish a custom skill for Alexa. For Lex, you can refer this document.

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