CODEWITHSUNDEEP
aws-lambdaalexa-skills-kit
Lee Probert
Lee Probert

Reputation: 10839

Amazon Skill Flow Builder timeout and fallback for reprompts and recaps

I can't find a solution in Skill Flow Builder for detecting how often a reprompt or recap is returned so that I can force a fallback route after 2-3 attempts at prompting the user.

Does anyone have a solution?

Here's a typical example:

@welcome
    *say 
        Hello. Where do you want to go?
    *reprompt
        Where to go?
    *recap
        Where to go?
    *then
        hear route A {
            -> route_a
        }
        hear route B {
            -> route_b
        }

The problem with this is unless you say "route A" or "route B" you will get the reprompts forever.

It needs a fallback that you can define to trigger after so many attempts to get a correct response.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 125

Answers (2)

Lee Probert
Lee Probert

Reputation: 10839

Thank you Ezra for this solution. I have some bits to add to make this easier to implement globally:

@global prepend
    *then
     hear * {
            -> recapHandler
        }
@recapHandler
    // *say
    // DEBUG     Recap count is {recapCount} [pause] Recap limit is {recapLimit}
    *then
        increase recapCount by 1
        if recapCount <= recapLimit {
            -> {recapScene} *recap
        }
        set recapCount as 0
        -> {fallbackScene}

Note the variable names that you have to setup in each of your scenes. Until there is a global variable for the current scene you are in, you'll have to set this manually.

@aScene
    *say
        blah blah
    *recap
        recap message
    *then
        set recapScene as 'aScene'
        set fallbackScene as 'aFallbackScene'
        hear * {
            -> recapHandler
        }

Upvotes: 0

Ezra Kim
Ezra Kim

Reputation: 26

If you define hear *, SFB driver will route the behavior to it instead of just repeating the *recap message.

Example of # of time variation recap would look something like:

@start
*say
    hello.
    Do you go to left or right?
*reprompt
    Do you want to go left, or right?
*recap
    This is a recap message.
*then
     hear left {
        set repromptCount as 0
        -> left room
     }

     hear right {
        set repromptCount as 0
        -> right room
     }

     hear * {
        increase repromptCount by 1
        set limit as 3
        if repromptCount < limit {
        -> start *recap
        }

        set repromptingDestination as 'reprompting destination'
        -> too many reprompts scene        
     }

@left room
*say
    left room

@right room
*say
    right room

@too many reprompts scene
*say
    You didn't know what to do too much.
*then
    -> {repromptingDestination}

@reprompting destination
*say
    Reprompt destination

Upvotes: 1

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