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For slots of high consequence — money, dates, values with multiple meanings, hard-to-hear words — we need to confirm the user-provided value. Making a mistake with these types of values could be costly or just annoying to users.

How does the Lambda function know when to confirm a slot? It must check the confirmation status of the desired slot(s). The function can then direct the conversation based on that information.

Here’s an example slot confirmation:

ALEXA: What genre would you like?
USER: Horror!
ALEXA: Horror movies are rated R. Do you still want that genre?
USER: Yes.

At every turn of the conversation, the confirmation status for each slot is included in the JSON request sent to your skill. It can be accessed with: 

this.event.request.intent.slots.YOUR_SLOT_NAME.confirmationStatus

When Alexa confirms a slot value, as in the example above, we expect the user to give a yes or no answer.

  • If the user responds affirmatively, confirmationStatus for that slot will be 'CONFIRMED'
  • If the user responds negatively, it will be 'DENIED'
  • If the user hasn’t confirmed or denied the slot yet, it will be 'NONE'

Instructions

1.

We’ve provided one of the JSON requests from this part of a conversation: 

ALEXA: I heard action. Is that correct?
USER: Yup.

You can view the request on the right and you can access it with JavaScript in main.js.

Because this is a reserved word in JavaScript, we’ve setup main.js so you can omit this, and start with event.

Use console.log to print the confirmationStatus for genre.

2.

We can use this property in conditionals as well. Write an if-else statement that checks the value of confirmationStatus:

  • If the status is NOT 'CONFIRMED', print 'Slot not confirmed yet!'
  • Else print 'Slot confirmed!'

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