Publish to Alexa for Business

If you’re already using Alexa for Business, you can quickly create a skill and have it ready for private use across your organization. Once you build your blueprint, your IT administrator will review and enable your skill for your company’s Alexa devices and users. You can use your personal Amazon account or one associated with your organization, to create and publish skills using Blueprints. Learn more about Alexa for Business.

There are four steps needed to create and publish a skill to your organization using Alexa for Business Blueprints:

1. Visit the Alexa Skills Blueprints website
2. Make your own skill from a blueprint
3. Publish your private skill
4. Submit the skill to your company for approval

Publish Your Private Skill

After creating your skill, from the skill detail page, select Publish Your Skill and select the option to Publish to Alexa for Business. You’ll need to fill out all the publishing details, which include:

• Set the opening phrase and skill name
• Add details about your skill
• Answer policy questions
• Review and submit for publication

Note:After publishing is complete and the skill’s Visibility is set to Alexa for Business, you’ll add your organization’s identifier or ARN, which submits the skill to your company. Your IT Admin will review and enable the skill for your organization’s devices and users.

Set the opening phrase and skill name

Customers launch your skill using an opening phrase that is simple to use and remember. Your opening phrase can be different than the name you choose for your skill. When setting the opening phrase for your skill, you'll need to adhere to the following rules to get the skill approved and published:

• Avoid using a one‐word opening phrase.
• Avoid using names of people or places, for example, molly or seattle, unless the opening phrase contains other words in addition to the name. For example, molly's horoscope.
• Avoid spelling out letters phonetically in your opening phrase. Simply include periods after each letter to indicate to Alexa that it's an abbreviation. For example, a skill titled USC Trivia would need USC represented as u. s. c. and not you ess see.
• Choose an opening phrase that is easy to pronounce correctly and is phonetically distinct to avoid being misinterpreted as other similar sounding words.
• Don't use an opening phrase that might clash with existing Alexa features such as: What’s the Weather, Set a reminder etc. For example, if your opening phrase is too similar to the built‐in weather command, Alexa may respond with the weather instead of launching your skill. Make sure to test your opening phrase to avoid any overlap with built‐in features.

Note: Always test your opening phrase to make sure your skill launches successfully. Once your skill is published, you cannot edit or change the opening phrase for your skill.

Enter in your Alexa for Business skill name, which will be displayed to your IT administrator when they review and enable the skill. If your administrator also enables the skill for the organization’s enrolled users of Alexa for Business, they will see this skill name in their Alexa App under Private Skills to enable it. The skill name can be different than the Opening phrase, which customers will use to open and use your skill. After you’ve set the Opening phrase and Alexa for Business skill name, you’ll need to fill in the Created by field with your name or company name.

Add details about your skill

You’ll need to provide a skill icon, short description, and detailed description about your skill. Keywords and search terms that describe your skill are optional.

Answer policy questions

Although your skill will only be published to your organization, you'll need to answer a few questions about your skill content and its intended audience. In order to be published, your skill must comply with Amazon's content guidelines. You must indicate if your skill has child related content, advertising or promotional materials.

Note: Any skills you publish will only be available to customers in the US at this time.

If you have your own Terms of Use for your content, include the URL to your page. Once you've completed the Policy details, choose the Next: Review and submit button.

Review and submit

Review your skill details, then submit your skill. Once you submit your skill, it will go live within 20 minutes. Until it goes live, you can choose the option Withdraw Submission to go back and edit your skill if you submitted it in error.

Submit the Skill to Your Company

After your skill is live (about 20 minutes), the Visibility of your skill will change from Just Me to Alexa for Business. Choose Manage Access and enter the value for the ARN that you'll get from your Alexa for Business administrator. It will look something like this: arn:aws:iam::123456789012:root.

After your skill is submitted, let your IT administrator know the following:

• The name of your Blueprint skill.
• Which rooms you want the skill enabled in, and if you’d like to share the skill with the organization’s enrolled users.

You can add more than one ARN to your skill if needed. Similarly, if you want to remove or change an ARN, go to Manage Access in the Published Skill Actions menu to add or revoke ARNs.

Note: Your IT administrator can disable your skill at any time for your organization.

Withdraw or Edit your skill

While your skill is in the submitted state before going live, you won't be able to edit any of the skill content. You'll have to withdraw your skill from publication first, edit your skill, then re-publish. To withdraw your skill, select the Withdraw Submission button in your menu options.
After your skill is published and the Visibility changes from Just Me to Alexa for Business, you'll have the option to Edit in your menu options. If you want to change aspects of your skill, select Edit to change your content and Publish Changes. This lets customers currently using your skill to still have access to it and get updates once your edits are published.

Remove your skill from the published state

If your skill is live and you no longer want others to access it, you will need to remove it. Once it is removed, anyone who used the skill will not be able to access it. The skill visibility will then be set to Just Me, so only you can use it. You can always go through the publishing process again if you want to make it available at a later date.

To remove your skill, select the Unpublish button in your menu options. You will see a pop-up message that asks you if you want to remove your skill.

If your published skill has been distributed to any Alexa for Business organizations, you must revoke those ARNs using Manage Access from the skill detail page, before being able to remove your skill from the published state.

Note: Once you confirm that you wish to remove your skill, it will take up to 2 hours to remove it.