Alexa Blogs
Note: This blog is now outdated. Please refer to our latest post on the skill beta testing tool.
Testing your skill is a critical phase in skill development. When building your skill you should following these testing guidelines to ensure that your skill is set up for success when it goes through certification. Once you have completed this initial phase of testing, you may want to add a collection of developer accounts to allow other developers to test your skill on their devices before your skill goes live. These developers will then be able to use their own developer accounts and connected Alexa devices to perform user testing and provide feedback. This is a great way to ensure you are delivering a skill that will function as expected and also catch any bugs that functional testing might miss.
Note: When you set someone up as a developer on your account, they will be able to test and change any skill in development under your account. Right now there is no way to specify testers for a specific skill in your account.
In This Tutorial You Will:
- Get an introduction to account settings
- Learn how to set up test users in the user permissions area
- Understand what each tester has to do to enable the skill on their device
- Revoke the ability to test skills from users
Let's Get Started
Review of Account Settings
1. Log in to your developer account. Navigate to Amazon Developer Portal and sign in.
2. To add a test user to your account, select Settings.
3. Next, select User Permissions
4. Once in User Permissions, select Add New. Here you will create a new entry by entering the email address of the developer account you want to add and select the developer checkbox. Click Save to add the user and generate the email to the tester.
5. The tester you just added will receive an email. They must accept the invitation by clicking on the link in their email. When they click the link they will be taken to the developer portal. If they don’t receive the email in a few minutes, have them check their spam folder.
6. Once the tester logs in, they will see this confirmation message. If they don’t see the below confirmation message, have them click the link in the email again.
7. Next, the tester will need to enable the skill for testing. They will have to go to the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) section of the developer portal. Under Apps and Services, select Alexa and then navigate to the ASK. The tester will need to enable the skill on their account, because there is no way, at this time, for you to enable the skill for them.
8. If you have multiple skills, you’ll need to direct them to which one to enable. Once they select the skill (in this case Minecraft helper), they need to click on the skill or select “Edit” to open the skill.
Note: If your tester has a skill of their own on their account, they will have to select your company name from the drop down list in the upper right corner of the screen.
9. Once the Skill is open, navigate to the “Test” section and slide the toggle bar to enable the skill.
Note: Once the skill is enabled, they can test your skill on any of their registered Alexa devices.
Revoking Tester Access
You can manage testers in the same area you added the tester to your account. When testing is complete or if you simply need to remove a tester from your account, navigate to User Permissions and click Remove Access for the tester you wish to remove.
Congratulations, you now know how to add testers to your developer account so you can QA your Alexa skills.
Get Started Today
Check out these Alexa developer resources:
