My experience with Google Assistant Codelabs and why you should also take them right now!
A little over a year and a half ago, Google launched its platform to create Actions, the apps for the Google Assistant platform, and since then, there have been many changes.
Among the multiple fulfillment tools that exist to create your actions are platforms such as dashbot.io, Wit Lingo, Spokenlayer, Dialogflow, and many others.
When I entered the world of Google Actions, there wasn’t as much information as there is now, in fact, I had a lot of complications using Dialogflow in the beginning (formerly called Api.Ai), but after a while, I did my first action and launched it in store. However, a few months later, I was surprised that the Dialogflow API was changing from V1 to V2 and that’s why my first app slowly started to crash.
Not only the Dialogflow API, the Google Actions platform was also changing and I said to myself: Well it’s time to read again, I would like to there was a codelab of this; and that’s when on Twitter I met the user @MandyChanNYC and how she and her team created codelabs for Google Assistant. 😄😄 Yeay!
And with you ladies and gentlemen, the labs.
It wasn’t just a lab on how to create an action, it was a little tour of the new Google Actions platform, the flow of creating Dialogflow Intents, and how to launch your first WebHook to expand the capacity of your Actions.
While there are only Dialogflow or only WebHooks tutorials in the network, and some of both, these codelabs have the best of both worlds and in a well explained way, easy to understand for any user who wants to get into the world of Google Actions.
What will we find in the labs?
During the labs you will make a project that we will call Lucky Number — Your favorite color, the same project will be treated during both labs, in clear and well defined steps.
You will see the explanation of how Google Assistant works from behind.
How to create an Action in Google Actions console.
How Google Assistant, Dialogflow and Firebase work together.
Manage, Deploy and Test in the Google Action Platform
Create your own WebHook and interact with the variables in the Dialogflow console
Other very important points you will see in the labs are:
- How to use Firebase command-line interface and use Firebase Cloud Functions.
- Use a Deep Links in our Actions.
- Use Responses and Helpers in our Intents.
- Use audio effects with SSML.
- Add follow-up intents and Custom Intents.
- Store Data in your Conversations.
- Custom reprompts and custom exits.
- Visual Selectors and Rich Responses.
Challenges still to be fulfilled
While many points have been covered in these codelabs, there are still other interesting topics to keep checking:
- Internationalization — Your application must support multiple languages if you want to reach a wider audience. (I have a little post about this here)
- Transactions — You can create purchase and payment flows in your application.
- Surface Capabilities — There will not always be a screen to see results directly, like the Google Home, so you’ll have to play around with audible solutions. (You can visit this link for more information)
Conclusion
The world of Google Actions continues growing, and new features and new integrations with the platform are emerging every day. The best of all this is the great community that continually gives support to those who wish to learn more about this. The codelabs is a great step to start and believe me, once inside, there is no turning back.
In each laboratory there are project repositories respectively. In my case I’ve developed both laboratories and I’ve added my grain of sand and I’ve put internationalization to the project to have it in English and Spanish. I hope you can always help me with feedback in my repo.
