Allow render template directives during dialog directives
Currently, if a dialog is mid progress, it overrides any displays that we may want to show relating to the dialog. Would greatly enhance user experience on multi-modal skills.
Zach Nagengast
shared this idea
15 comments
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Blake Delee
commented
I work in the AWS ProServe org on the Conversational AI team, and this feature would really help build more complex and interesting experiences for customers. Please consider getting this feature enabled.
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Miha Klasinc
commented
So you want to prompt the user for slot info, but you also want to display some information on the screen - why on earth should that not be allowed? Quite frustrating that Alexa doesn't support such a basic feature.
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Ciaran Byrne
commented
Currently it is not possible to update dynamic entities during a dialog. It would be great to be able to return Dialog.UpdateDynamicEntities in combination with Dialog.ElicitSlot or Dialog.Delegate for example.
A related request is:
https://alexa.uservoice.com/forums/906892-alexa-skills-developer-voice-and-vote/suggestions/33250507-allow-render-template-directives-during-dialog-dir -
Jacob Weber
commented
Agreed....this would be very useful.
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Go General
commented
I'm surprised support for this hasn't been added yet. This holds back multimodal skills. You have to forgo things like the accuracy boost you get from intent chaining: https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/9ffdbddb-948a-4eff-8408-7e210282ed38/intent-chaining-for-alexa-skill.
Devs for existing skills that already use dialog directives might opt to skip APL/Display Templates if they have to significantly modify their skill's dialog management.
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James Tang
commented
Just voted! But if you can't wait feel free to check out my approach, I manage to show APL during slot collection but I didn't use the dialog directive.
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Alexander Chavez
commented
Really need this, doesn't make sense why we can't send both. Is APL and Dialog allowed together?
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Aaron
commented
Totally need display and dialog directives in the same response. :( It's completely limiting what I can do with my skill.
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Jeff Savin
commented
I totally agree this is somewhat of a blocker for me as well. Not being able to display something on the screen while I manage the conversation with dialog directives renders the supplemental display portion completely useless.
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Digital Admin
commented
Yes, please add this! It's a blocker for us and I agree with Michael Cranford, this is essential.
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Mathias Goor
commented
I've been pausing the optimization for echo show / echo spot devices for my skills because of this problem. To work around the problem I would have to rebuild my complete code.
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Michael Cranford
commented
This is an essential functionality that the developers should have addressed long ago. There is no conceptual difference between a response that includes a dialog directive and one that does not; it's only a technical difference. The Echo Show should always be able to include a display template as part of the interaction. The mere fact that you're telling Alexa to focus on a specific response, as in a dialog, shouldn't mean that you lose the ability to display a photo (for example) in connection with it. It basically eliminates the value of an Echo Show in cases where the slot needs to be elicited to guarantee Alexa hears only a narrow range of responses. Please fix this.
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Vince M Lombardo
commented
Other directives such as Gadget directives would be very useful as well. There shouldn't be any reason to prevent setting an Echo button light when eliciting a slot.
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pappu undalu
commented
HI Amazon Alexa team, any update on this request. going to support in future releases. or we need to forget about it?
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adamderann
commented
This is a great idea. For assistive purposes I send cards to devices with a screen like the Echo Show so users can see the question and see response options, but this spams the Alexa app with cards just full of questions and not snippets of information.