In this blog, we have listed down different ways through which you can use Alexa to manage business tasks.
Over the years it has become more natural to use voice assistants such as Alexa to take care of things around your house. And now more than ever it has become important to not just streamline your business tasks but to use tech in your favor so that you can focus on what you do the best and leave the rest to Alexa.
Brands across the world are jumping the wagon and making use of Alexa for Business to make the work day more efficient for their employees and to ensure that everyone is able to work at their maximum potential without having to worry about mundane tasks.
We have listed a few ways in which Alexa can help you manage your business tasks!
Table of Contents
Setting Up Alexa for your Business Use
Before we dive into the features that you can use to simplify your work tasks, let us take a quick look into setting up Alexa for your business use.
All you have to do is simply open the Alexa App, input your work email, let it sync the calendar and done. You are ready. Yes, it is that simple. No intensive tech training needed to learn how to do it all.
Now, let us look at the different tasks you can perform now that you have set up the Alexa account
Get the overview of the day
As you are getting ready for your work day, simply use the command “Alexa, what is on my calendar today?” And Alexa will inform you of everything on your list, while you get ready or have breakfast or are having your morning cup of coffee.
Get Work Briefings
If you are looking to add some things to your day, but aren’t sure about what your work day looks like, simply ask Alexa. You can use the command, “Alexa, tell me about my work day”
You will immediately get an idea of how free or busy your work day is and you can then plan to move things around accordingly or even add new tasks/events to your calendar.
Add New Events to Calendar
Gone are the days when you had to manually add each meeting to your calendar and then send out the invite for the meeting to the concerned individuals. Alexa is here to help you save time and headspace on those all.
To schedule a meeting and to add it to your calendar, simply use the command “Alexa, schedule a meeting with <person name> for <day> at <time>”
In case you forget to mention what the name of the meeting is, Alexa will immediately ask you what it should be labeled as and you can simply respond and get the meeting name added to it. Additionally, Alexa will also ask you for the option to automatically send the meeting invite to the other person, and you can simply respond to that with a simple yes or no.
We told you, that scheduling tasks were never this easy!
Interesting read: Check out our blog which lists down top Alexa skills to manage day-to-day life.
Read & Respond to Emails
Alexa helps you stay on top of your tasks irrespective of where you are. You can even use Echo Auto while driving to get a lot of things done on the go.
To read your emails simply use the command “Alexa read me my mails” and Alexa will not only inform you about the unread mails you have but also read them out loud for you.
No more waiting to stop at the signals, to be able to type out your mails on the go. Once Alexa has read your mail aloud, you can ask Alexa to reply to an email for you, by using the command, “Alexa, reply to this email with <your response>.”
Reschedule calendar events using Alexa
If something comes up and you have to reschedule your meetings, you can simply use the command “Alexa, move <meeting name> to <day> at <time>.” And you are set, not only will the meeting be rescheduled in your calendar, but the new meeting invite will also be automatically sent to the people concerned.
Let others know if you are running late
It is quite natural to sometimes get late for a meeting, cause you got stuck in traffic or simply because life happened. In any scenario, you don’t have to worry about having to call up people and to inform them that you are running late, simply let Alexa do it for you.
You can use the command “Alexa, I am running <number> minutes late for <meeting name>”
And Alexa will automatically send an email to the concerned individuals that you are running a few minutes late for the meeting.
You can drive in peace and ensure that you arrive at your meeting safely.
Join Conference Calls
Whether you are working from home or are in the office, you can also use Alexa to join in the conference calls. You can use the command “Alexa, join the meeting” and you will be added to the meeting which is in your calendar. Additionally, once the meeting ends, you can use the command, “Alexa, end the meeting” and Alexa will end the meeting for you and you can move onto the next task at hand.
Book Conference Rooms
When you are using Alexa for Business, you can easily voice-enable your conference rooms and your meeting rooms. This will allow your colleagues to book different conference/meeting rooms when they require and they can simply check with a voice command who booked the room for which slot and what are the other available meeting rooms. Here are some of the commands that can be used for it
“Alexa, who booked this conference room?”
“Alexa, which meeting room is available at this moment?”
“Alexa, book meeting room <number> for tomorrow’s meeting”
And so on.
Setting Up Alexa for Business : A Quick Guide
Alexa for Business gives you the tools to be able manage thousands of Echo Devices in your office and enable your employees to use Alexa anywhere they work. Alexa can be used in an infinite number of ways and you can even add custom skills to it, which are fit to your business operations.
- Setting up Alexa Devices
To simplify setting up of alexa devices, you can easily import the echo devices registered with Amazon.com or use the setup tool to connect multiple devices to the network of the organization and automatically register them all to the account. - Enabling Access to Corporate Calendars
You can link your work calendar to Alexa and this allows it to access your meeting information and start meetings in your voice-enabled conference rooms. You can easily link to Google G-suite Calendars, Office 365 and Microsoft Exchange. - Set up Voice Profiles
You can ask your team members to set up their voice profiles, so that Alexa can learn to recognize their voice and then respond only to the enrolled users if the voice matches their voice profiles. - Managing Shared Devices
You can manage all the shared devices in the office by using the console API. This will help you set up location for the different devices, such as designating it to a specific conference room. You can also assign different sets of skills to it and secure the device so that other users aren’t able to add any skills to it or register the device to their personal accounts. - Delete voice history
Administrators can delete the voice utterances and responses using API. You can also automate the deletion process using AWS lambda. - Manage user enrollment
You can invite users to enroll their personal Alexa accounts with your Alexa for Business Account. Once you invite a user, they receive an automated email with steps to enroll. Once they are enrolled, you can give them access to private custom skills that you use in the business. You can easily remove users as well when required. - Managing Skills
Alexa Skills are what help you enhance its functionality and make it more useful for you and in the process make you even more productive. You can assign different sets of public skills and custom private skills available to the different users. And you can even assign skill groups to specific shared devices across the office.
Conclusion
Do we even need to say anything more about why you should be getting Alexa for Business right away and start streamlining your business processes immediately and let your employees focus on what they do the best.
We at Boltd understand that every business has their own requirements and we can help you build those custom private skills and help you be even more productive while having seamless business operations.
Boltd is an award-winning voice application development studio specializing in Alexa Skill Development. In the last 5 years, we have built voice assistant-based apps for some of the top brands in the world and we are quite excited to build the next one for you.
Get in touch with our team experts today and take the first step towards enhancing your workspace.
