How do I use proactive event notifications in Alexa?

Owned by Rajkiran Alla (Deactivated)
Last updated: Apr 28, 2021
3 min read

Notifications are currently available only for Alexa-based devices.

You can deliver custom notification messages to Alexa device users. Use notification messages for many use cases, such as providing reminders for an upcoming appointment, giving updates regarding the well-being of a friend or relative, and so on.

Send Skill Event node

 Send Skill Event node lets you customize and send notifications to the users.

Name – You can give your custom name to the node.

Description – Your description of the purpose of the node can be given here. This will not be a part of the notification message.

Production – The Production field specifies which Amazon message delivery system to use. While the skill is in development, do not enable the Production field. However, after your skill is certified by the Amazon Alexa team and is available in production, you must enable it.

Enable Notifications in Skills

  1. Log in to alexa.amazon.com

  2. Select Skills from the side menu and click on Your Skills from the top right corner of the page.

     

  3. Click on the All Skills tab and select your skill.

     

  4. Click on Enable.

     

  5. In the Skill Permissions popup, enable “Alexa Notification” and click save permissions.

     

  6. You will be redirected to the Orbita page for account linking. Give your Login details and Sign-in.

Proactive Events schema

The schema should be placed in the function node before the Send Skill Event node.

You can place custom logic and the Proactive Events schema (event object and localized Attributes object, if present) in this function node.

When changing complex data types such as bookingTime, startTime, etc., you have to use a dynamic variable and assign the values.

Unicast

Send notifications to specific users within a skill by changing the "type" to "Unicast" in the function node in the relevantAudience object and the msg.payload.data object.

"type": "Unicast"

Multicast

Send notifications to all the subscribed users of the skill by changing the "type" to "Multicast" in the function node in the relevantAudience object and the msg.payload.data object.

Endpoint

Depending on the region, you can choose the endpoint that Amazon supports.

https://api.amazonalexa.com/v1/proactiveEvents/   (North America)

https://api.eu.amazonalexa.com/v1/proactiveEvents/ (Europe)

https://api.fe.amazonalexa.com/v1/proactiveEvents/ (Far East)

For a list of supported schemas by Alexa see Schemas for Proactive Events.

The proactive notification feature is available only if configured and deployed from the Orbita portal. You should not enable the proactive notification feature directly in the Amazon developer; it is not supported.

Sample flow

The following sample flow sends weather alerts to the users.

  File Modified

File Proactive Events.json

Apr 28, 2021 by Rajkiran Alla

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