Indicators

Overview

"Indicators" is an Alexa Skill for interacting with the Federal Reserve Bank's FRED® API. In essence, it provides users with the ability to ask questions and receive answers about the state of the global economy.

Ultimately, this skill attempts to simplify what has been, and in many ways still is, the cumbersome task of consuming economic data. It strives to illustrate how voice can enhance the usability and reach complex economic information.

Note that this is a third-party application that is developed and maintained independently of the Federal Reserve Bank. As such, it is not affiliated with or supported by the institution.

Creating the Skill

Create a Lambda Function Deployment Package leveraging lambda_function.py and the modules listed in requirements.txt (repository below). To avoid compatibility issues, build the modules on an Amazon Linux EC2 instance.

From the AWS CLI, create the Lambda Function and upload the deployment package (you can also do this directly via the AWS Lambda Console):

aws lambda create-function --region [your_region] --function-name [your_function] --zip-file fileb://[your_package].zip --role [your_aws_iam_role] --handler [your_lambda_handler] --runtime python2.7 --timeout 15 --memory-size 512

From the AWS Lambda Console, add the "Alexa Skills Kit" event source to the Lambda Function:

From the Alexa Developer Portal, create the application:

Be sure to enter the correct Amazon Resource Name (ARN) for the Lambda Function under the Skill Information tab. This skills' Intent Schema and Sample Utterances, which belong in the Interaction Model, are available in the code repository under Indicators/interactions. Don't forget a cool invocation name!

Once you are done, simply test and deploy.

Enabling the Skill

To use Indicators on your Amazon Echo, you must enable it. The skill can be found here: http://alexa.amazon.com/spa/index.html#skills/amzn1.echo-sdk-ams.app.2eb650d7-cc8f-47c6-9f8b-843e479b64bd

Using the Skill

Ask Alexa for the value of GDP:

Alexa, ask Economic Indicators for the value of GDP.

Get a response from Alexa:

Gross Domestic Product is eighteen thousand, one hundred and forty-eight point four in billions of dollars.

This and other basic queries are demonstrated in the following video:

Sample Data Series

Existing Home Sales
Household Income
Unemployment Rate
Probability of a Recession
Housing Starts
Loan to Value Ratio of New Car Loans
Federal Funds Rate
Nonfarm Payroll
Median Sale Price of Existing Homes
Total Construction Spending

Visit the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis to browse available data series.

Note that some data series are owned by third parties and subject to copyright restrictions. To address data ownership issues, if a user requests information about a copyrighted series, and if we have not yet obtained permission to return information about the series, Indicators will return a copyright statement. Addressing data ownership issues is a unique feature of our application.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank colleagues Dave Conroy (@conroydave) and Joe Sullivan (@theBDR) of CRTLabs for their thought leadership and support in developing "Indicators". CRTLabs is the R&D arm of the National Association of REALTORS®. The lab focuses on studying how emerging technologies impact real estate. Read more about them and their work at CRTLabs.org.