Lessons learned - OneGC Alexa Proof-of-Concept

Set up

What went well
- After having built a hello, world skill and having learned the basics of building an Alexa Skill and using AWS Lambda, those parts of the development of the Parks fees Skill were easy.
What could have gone better
- Transforming the data into a state in which it could be imported into DynamoDB was a lot of effort due to the dataset being designed for a relational database system and the poor documentation of DynamoDB.
- Querying data from DynamoDB is case-sensitive, but Alexa lower-cases everything. We had to duplicate the 'park name' attribute to have properly-cased and lower-case instances so that we could both search it and display it.
What to do next time
- Using a relational database system would have been easier than using DynamoDB.
What needs to be fixed to make it better

Easy to start
- Helpful resource: Steps to Create a Flash Briefing Skill
Flash briefing template does not support ATOM feeds
Flash briefing template only supports HTTPS
Alexa voice flash briefings are better if source material is voice (e.g. podcast)