Everyone should come here on Black Friday…I have a surprised for you 
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@MichaelS or anyone else that knows this app well.
I just got finished setting up Ask Alexa and most things are working. The Wiki page on this is pretty good but I’m having some trouble getting Alexa to actually give me content from a voice report.
I’ve got two setup in the app. One called “My Portal” (it was “Door” but she kept giving me a news story about the elderly and online shopping so I thought it was something with the name of the report) which is supposed to give me the status of my front door’s contact sensor. The other is the example used here: http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Ask_Alexa_-_Voice_Reports. I called it “Who Is Home” and I have my presence sensor selected.
When I use the examples in http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Ask_Alexa#Asking.2FTelling_Alexa_What_To_Do, to try to run a voice report, Alexa simply says “you can ask my to play the following voice reports: My Portal and Who Is Home.” So it is only listing the reports but never runs them. I’ve tried all of the ways I can think of asking to get her to run it with no joy.
“Alexa, use SmartThings to run the Who Is Home report” = list reports
"Alexa, Who Is Home report from SmartThings" = list reports
"Alexa, ask SmartThings to run the Who Is Home report" = list report
"Alexa, run the Who Is Home report from SmartThings" = “according to the BBC…” blah blah blah
(macro test) “Alexa, tell SmartThings I am Going to Bed” = “I don’t understand what you want me to do” or “I can’t find a device with that name”
Does anyone else run into this or am I just doing it wrong? 
LIST_OF_MACROS
i am going to bed
my portal
who is home
I’m hoping someone might also be able to help me with a few more things with this app.
- List item
How do I invoke the flash briefing?
How do I make Alexa sound Snarky? I set it in the personalization but she still sounds the same to me.
Thanks for the help and Happy Thanksgiving!
I would try simple “Alexa, Ask SmartThings Who is home”. Also be sure your utterances are up to date.
With regard to your other questions:
Flash briefings are simply “Alexa, flash briefing” (has nothing to do with Ask Alexa, but you can invoke a voice report during the flash briefing. More info on that is here: http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Ask_Alexa_-_Flash_Briefing)
Snarky is subtle and random…try to make a mistake on a device name, or just invoke the app without giving it a command. It is nothing rude…but definitely different than the normal responses.
Let me know if this helps.
I figured it out. Your instructions explicitly state to setup the app before running thru the Amazon developer stuff and to also go back and update that configuration after things have been added.
You told me to check the utterances and I noticed that the list of macros in the slot was ‘none’ because I hadn’t set any up when I finished the configuration. I was seeing the new stuff in the app and the variables but didn’t quite grasp that I’m going to have to do some manual steps if I’m going to be adding stuff all of the time.
Final solution was to update the custom slot and save the interaction model. I used the command you mentioned in your reply to me and she told me that I was home.
I like snarky too. I left her hanging and she told me not to waste her time.
Thanks for the awesome app and really fast response.
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Glad you got this working! I didn’t mention the list of macros as you stated you had them, but yes…if those are missing they you won’t get very far!
Watch for an update on Friday!
I have released the compound command version. Now you can give two commands in one sentence:
I have had a couple reports from some users that they are having issues with Ask Alexa recognizing the invocation work “SmartThings”. If you are experiencing this as well, I recommend changing your invocation word to something like “Smart Things” (With a space) or something like “Home”. I experienced this myself and find myself having to speak ‘smart things’ slowly, but it does work.
Amazon made some changes lately and unfortunately they don’t post those changes, so it is sometimes a cat and mouse type situation. Fortunately, the large install base of Ask Alexa lets me hear about these issues almost immediately after they occur! I love this community!
Getting some positive comments from the community on the compound commands…As stated in the release notes, the utterances play an important role in these. As such, with the help of users like @runner1717 I have put a few new updates in the official release. Simply replace what you had before and you should get new functionality.
If you have a unique compound command that doesn’t appear to be working, let me know the exact wording and I can easily fix it on the fly and give you credit!
Also, I have updated the schedules app to 1.0.3c for a small issue identified by @ericcarty
Just update via the IDE for this very unique use case issue.
Compound commands are awesome. 
Where did you ever come up with the amazing idea of adding compound commands to AA 
Hehe. Probably not where you think. Same place everyone else got the idea…from this thread: Anyway to use "And" with alexa for multiple device on/off in one command
Suggestion from @Wtstreetglow all the way…
Hey guys,
Just wanted to check in here and thank Michael for all of his hard work on Ask Alexa.
The compound commands that Michael has added to AA really creates a more natural feel when commanding Alexa to do your dirty work…
The utterances he has added make things work very smoothly.
Below are examples of what you can say and Alexa magically understands what she would’ve never understood with Amazons original implementation.
“Alexa, turn on the Kitchen Lights and Dining Room Lights”
“Alexa, turn on the Kitchen Lights and turn on Dining Room Lights”
“Alexa, turn off the Kitchen Lights and turn on Dining Room Lights”
I will update shortly with more of the possible utterances/ use cases.
Overall this was a great improvement to Michael’s already impressive smart app that he so willingly has allowed us to use.
Thank you again Michael for all of your hard work!!
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I think the most important part is that you can give devices a single verb to control both devices. Something like:
“Alexa, tell SmartThings to turn on the Kitchen Lights and Dining Room Lights”
And the responses are rather natural as well if you give a similar command to both devices: “I have turned on both the kitchen lights and dining room lights”
Thanks for the great feedback and the original suggestion. The commands get wordy for me, but if they work for you and others, I am pleased!
@MichaelS I have run into a strange problem. I have my macro set to say after initialization “Macro Initialized” it was set to originally say “Family Room Macro Initialized”. Even with it being changed to say “Macro Initialized” it says the original. Below is the screenshot showing the Macro. I am trying to trouble shoot this. That is why I had mentioned a switch to turn off a macro. But that is another subject.
P.S. turned off the macro and nothing happened as expected. Restarted Macro and same wrong acknowledge message.
I have seen this lately and seems to be an indication that SmartThings isn’t saving your settings when you click “Done” at the top of the screen. Ironically, https://status.smartthings.com/ shows everything operating normal.
In this case I would delete the macro and then recreate it with the same name and see if that fixes it. If you then change the wording and it doesn’t work again, I would open a ticket with SmartThings as there is something wrong on their end.
OK thought it must be that. There is a WebCoRE problem that if you turn off a piston it stays running. It only happened to me once, and I have yet to get it to pause completely…
Deleted the Macro, created again, but took a long time before it worked. Then it worked correctly. So it is SmartThings. I hate to have to redo all my macros as I changed the Acknowledgement message for all to shorten them. What a bummer.
Or just wait…an issue like that means others are experiencing similar issues with saving, which means they will be on it at some point. Instead I would wait 24 hours and also open a support call with them to bring it to their attention.
OK I will wait and see. Thanks
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Hi Michael,
I have a 1st gen echo Dot and a 2nd gen echo. I also have reverb.ai on my phone.
I went through and set up everything as directed (thank you for all your hard work on this!!)
I’m running into a bit of a bug, I’m not sure where the problem lies.
I have 3 Samsung multipurpose sensors
Living room
Loft
Bedroom
Via reverb.ai I can do all the voice commands as expected I without any issues (i.e ask smart things what the bedroom status is)
However when trying this on the 2nd gen echo, it sometimes works (more often not working than not), and usually only works with bedroom. Living room for whatever reason never works on the 2nd gen echo.
On the 1st gen echo dot everything works fine as well, all the time and consistently like the reverb.ai…
Are there any known issues with the 2nd gen echo?
I have an Echo Dot 2nd gen an Echo 2nd gen a tap and an Echo show all work as expected. I had the problem on an echo 1st gen, I reset it with the small button on the bottom and the n set it back up and the problem was gone.