How to create a reminder inside your Alexa chatbot

Last updated: 02 May 2023

Amazon Alexa devices have the ability to set reminders. You can automatically set reminders for your chatbot users. Here’s how.

Step 1: Create the integration

Go to Integrations. Under Active integrations, click Add new.

Give your integration a name (e.g. Alexa), the Base URL https://api.eu.amazonalexa.com, and select REST.

Under Authorization, select Bearer token. Your token is saved under the variable {{alexa.api_access_token}}. Simply paste this variable inside the bearer token field and hit Save.

Step 2: Create your endpoint

Go to Integrations. Find your previously set up Alexa integration and click Endpoints.

Give your request a name (e.g. Set reminder). Make sure it is a POST request and enter the following path: v1/alerts/reminders.

Alexa’s reminders API is quite flexible. You can find more information and use cases on this page: https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/docs/alexa/smapi/alexa-reminders-api-reference.html#timezones-work

For now, let’s assume we want to set up a reminder on a specific date for anyone reaching that step of the conversation.

In the Request body, enter:

CODE

{
   "requestTime" : "2022-06-13T10:00:00.672",
   "trigger": {
        "type" : "SCHEDULED_ABSOLUTE",
        "scheduledTime" : "2022-06-19T13:00:00.672",
        "timeZoneId" : "Europe/London"
   },
   "alertInfo": {
        "spokenInfo": {
            "content": [{
                "locale": "en-GB",
                "text": "walk the dog",
                "ssml": "<speak> walk the dog</speak>"  
            }]
        }
    },
    "pushNotification" : {                            
         "status" : "ENABLED"
    }
}

This request, once triggered, will:

Set a reminder for the 19 Jun 22 (scheduledTime).
Say ‘walk the dog’.

Step 3: Add the reminder to your chatbot

Go to Builder. Open or create a conversation.

Find the step you’d like to trigger the reminder. Open the Block bank and drag an integration onto the step.

Find your Alexa integration and the reminder endpoint.

Hit Save.

Done! When a user reaches this step, a reminder will automatically be added to their device.