Getting Started with Café

This document provides an introduction to using BeVocal Café to develop telephone-based speech applications. It is organized as follows:

 •  Overview
 
 •  What Is BeVocal Café?
 •  What Is VoiceXML?
 •  Try It Out
 
 •  Sign Up and Log In
 •  Edit a VoiceXML File
 •  Call Your Application
 •  See How Errors Are Reported in the VoiceXML Checker
 •  Upload a VoiceXML Application
 •  Use a VoiceXML File on the Web
 •  Look at the Log for Your Call
 •  Trace a Call
 •  Debug Your Application
 •  Vocal Scripter
 •  Check Usability with Vocal Player
 •  What's Next?

Overview

What Is BeVocal Café?

You can use BeVocal Café to develop telephone-based speech applications that provide access to web content. Users run these applications by calling them on the telephone. They listen to options and provide input using the spoken word, as opposed to viewing a screen display and entering information with a keyboard or mouse.

What Is VoiceXML?

You use VoiceXML to program your speech applications. Just as a web browser renders HTML documents visually, a VoiceXML interpreter renders VoiceXML documents audibly. You can think of the VoiceXML interpreter as a telephone-based voice browser.

As with HTML documents, your VoiceXML documents have URIs and can be located on any web server. In contrast, however, a standard web browser runs locally on your machine, whereas the VoiceXML interpreter is located remotely at its hosting site. And, of course, you use any telephone to access the VoiceXML interpreter that runs your speech application.

BeVocal Café also provides you with a library of reusable VoiceXML components. These include libraries of reusable audio clips and grammars. (Grammars identify what sets of words or phrases represent valid user input.) Also, you can access many sample VoiceXML applications after logging into BeVocal Café.

Try It Out

Sign Up and Log In

Signing up for BeVocal Café is easy and quick. First click Sign-Up, then complete the Sign-Up page.

During registration you select a User ID, a web site password and a telephone PIN. You'll use the User ID and web site password to log onto the BeVocal Café web site. You'll use the User ID and telephone PIN to call the Café service at 1.877.33.VOCAL.

Successful registration takes you to the Welcome page. Note: After you have an account, when you enter the BeVocal Café, you click Login and enter your User ID and web site password. At that time, you'll be brought to the Tools & File Management page, instead of to the Welcome page.

The Welcome page provides a very brief overview of BeVocal Café, including links to tools and documentation. To continue your tour of Café, click File Management in the Tools section of the Welcome page.

Edit a VoiceXML File

 •  On the Tools & File Management page, a file called default.vxml is listed under VXML Files and is highlighted in blue.
  The blue bar indicates that this is the active file. The active file is what the VoiceXML interpreter executes when you call your BeVocal Café account to try out your application. The active file is also listed under the Account Info summary on the left of the page below the menu.
 •  Click the default.vxml filename.
  Clicking a filename invokes the VoiceXML Checker and displays the contents of the file in the Checker's edit window.
 •  In the VoiceXML Checker's edit window, change "Hello World!" by replacing "World" with your name. Then click Check beneath the edit window.
  Checking a file validates your changes. A status line that shows the results appears above the Checker window.
 •  Now click Save beneath the edit window.
  Saving a file from the VXML Checker uploads it to your home directory on the BeVocal Café.
 •  From the menu, click Tools & File Management again.
  After you check and save a file, the display shows whether it contains valid VoiceXML. A check means the file is valid; an X means it isn't.

Call Your Application

 •  To try out your application, call 1.877.33.VOCAL and enter your PIN after the Welcome and PIN request prompts. You may also be prompted to enter your User ID. (You won't have to enter a User ID if the last seven digits of the phone you're calling from match the digits you chose as your User ID.)
  Once you pass the authentication check, the VoiceXML interpreter runs the active file for your account. You'll hear the voice on the phone say a personalized hello.
  Hint: In the future, use your phone's speed dial feature for fast access.

See How Errors Are Reported in the VoiceXML Checker

 •  Introduce an error into the VoiceXML file by changing <block> to <blocks> and then clicking Check.
  An error window appears with details about the error and the status line shows a warning message. The error details give line number references. As a result, you may want to work on a local editor with line number support and upload your files, as described next, when you're ready to test them out. For more details on the VoiceXML Checker, see Chapter  1, VoiceXML Checker in Using the BeVocal Café Tools.

Upload a VoiceXML Application

 •  First, create two files on your local system, favorite_color.vxml and colors.grammar.
 
favorite_color.vxml 
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<!DOCTYPE vxml PUBLIC "-//BeVocal Inc//VoiceXML 2.0//EN" "http://cafe.bevocal.com/libraries/dtd/vxml2-0-bevocal.dtd">
<vxml version="2.0" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/vxml">
<form>
	 <field name="color">
	 	 <grammar src="colors.grammar#Colors"/>
	 	 <prompt>Whats your favorite color?</prompt>
	 	 <filled>
	 	 	 <if cond="color=='blue'">
	 	 	 	 <prompt>Wrong!</prompt>
	 	 	 	 <disconnect/>
	 	 	 <else/>
	 	 	 	 <prompt> <value expr="color"/> is fine. Good-bye.
	 	 	 	 </prompt>
	 	 	 </if>
	 	 </filled>
	 </field>
</form>
</vxml>

colors.grammar 
Colors [ red green yellow blue white black ]
 •  Next, click File Management.
 •  In the Upload File text box, enter the name of one of your files and click Upload. You can use Browse to locate the file.
 •  Now upload the second file.

Now that you have several files, notice that you can sort them by name, size or date, by clicking a column heading.

To test your uploaded application, do the following:

 •  Activate the main file:
 
 •  Click Activate on the line for favorite_color.vxml.
 •  Validate the VoiceXML:
 
 •  Click the filename favorite_color.vxml to bring up the VoiceXML Checker.
 •  Click Check beneath the Checker's edit window.
 •  If you need to make changes, make them, check them, then click Save.
 •  Call the application:
 
 •  See Call Your Application for details.

Use a VoiceXML File on the Web

 •  From Tools & File Management, add the following URI under Remote URL Based Application Development:
 
cafe.bevocal.com/resources/voicexml_samples/calculator/calc.vxml
  Note that the http:// prefix is optional; if you do not include it, the prefix is inserted before the text you enter. After you click Add, a row appears for this URI.
 •  Click Activate for the URI you just added.
  The URI becomes the active file. If you have a web server, you can use this feature to refer to a VoiceXML file on your site.
 •  Click the name of the URI you just added.
  This invokes the VoiceXML Checker and displays the contents of the file at the URI. You can now check that the file contains valid VoiceXML, just like you can check a file you've uploaded to the Café web site.
 •  Try calling the calculator application at the URI you entered.

See Call Your Application for details.

Look at the Log for Your Call

 •  From the Tools & File Management menu, click Log Browser.
  The browser displays all calls to your account for the specified time span. The default time span gives you all calls made today. You can also limit the list based on the phone number from which the call was made.
 •  Click View Log (in the Details column).
  The browser opens a window with color-coded log entries for the call. The color-coding key is at the top of the window. The checkboxes in the color-coding key let you filter the log display. By default, the log shows all information it collects.

For more details on the Log Browser, see Chapter  4, Log Browser in Using the BeVocal Café Tools.

Trace a Call

 •  First, click Activate on the line for favorite_color.vxml.
 •  From the Tools & File Management menu, click Trace Tool.
  The browser displays the Trace window with the message "No active call found".
 •  Now call your application, as described in Call Your Application.
  After you successfully pass the authorization check on the phone, click Reload on the Trace window. The window updates to display the log entries in real-time as your call progresses. Note that the audio file plays for approximately one minute.
  The Trace Tool is essentially a real-time Log Browser. Just as with the Log Browser, you can use the checkboxes in the color-coding key at the top of the window to filter the trace display. View Active Calls lets you select between several active calls.

For more details on the Trace Tool, see Chapter  3, Trace Tool in Using the BeVocal Café Tools.

Debug Your Application

Vocal Debugger is a web-based tool that allows you to step through your source code and view the state of VoiceXML variables during the call. This tool helps you understand the flow of the VoiceXML application step by step, and exposes the values of variables at each step.

While the Trace tool traces the call and describes the flow of the Form Interpretation Algorithm (FIA) and caching of resources, the Vocal Debugger steps through your source code and provides state information.

 •  From the Tools & File Management menu, click Vocal Debugger.
  A new browser window for the Vocal Debugger pops up.
  When you have an active application running, the Vocal Debugger displays the source code for your active application on the left frame and the variables and their values on the right frame. As your application executes, the line of code being executed is highlighted.
  As long as your application is executing, the status box says "Running"; when the application terminates, the status box changes to "Stopped."
 •  You can choose to pause a running application by clicking Pause. The application pauses at the next executable statement.
  An executable statement is either executable content or a form item such as <field>. Examples of non-executable statements are <property> and <grammar>. If you are dialed in on the phone and the application is paused, you hear audio wallpaper indicating that the application is paused.
 •  You can resume execution by clicking Resume.
 •  When the application is paused, you can step through your application by clicking Step.
  Each step executes the next statement and then pauses. If the application is paused for more than 5 minutes, the execution terminates.
 •  After a call session has ended and a new call session begins, click Reload to update the Vocal Debugger window.
 •  If you concurrently make more than one call to your application, you can open a Vocal Debugger window for each call by clicking List of active calls, and then clicking Open debugger for each call.

For more details on the debugger, see Chapter  5, Vocal Debugger in Using the BeVocal Café Tools.

Vocal Scripter

The Vocal Scripter is a web-based tool that provides a text channel or "chat mode" channel to test the application flow of your VoiceXML code. Vocal Scripter decouples application flow testing from voice recognition testing. This tool dramatically speeds application testing by providing developers the ability to run VoiceXML applications using a text-based interaction.

Vocal Scripter has two modes--interactive mode and batch mode. Vocal Scripter allows running one application in both interactive mode and batch mode.

Interactive Mode

In interactive mode, the user types responses to VoiceXML text prompts in real time. To use Vocal Scripter in interactive mode, do the following:

 •  Click Tools & File Management.
 •  Select an active VoiceXML application using the File Management tool.
 •  Click Vocal Scripter on the left menu to open the Vocal Scripter window.
 •  Click Interactive Mode in the lower-left of Vocal Scripter.
 •  Click Clear Screen to clear the display of text.
 •  Click Dial to make a connection.
 •  When prompted, type the corresponding input in the User Input text box.
 •  If necessary, explicitly terminate the connection by clicking the Hang Up button.

Batch Mode

In batch mode, the user either provides a URI or uploads a text file containing inputs for running the VoiceXML application. Only input files with .txt extensions are accepted. To upload a file, users can use the File Management tool. Users can also open multiple Vocal Scripter windows to debug the VoiceXML application with different input files at the same time.

The input file contains a sequence of input lines corresponding to running the application. Each line represents an input per request prompt. The application will take the first line as its first input and then go to the next line.

To use Vocal Scripter in batch mode, do the following:

 •  Select an active VoiceXML application using the File Management tool.
 •  If applicable, upload an input file using the File Management tool.
 •  Click Batch Mode in the lower-left of Vocal Scripter.
 •  Type the URI of the input file in the Batch File URL text box.
 •  Click Dial to make a connection.
 •  The connection will be terminated once the running application is completed. Alternatively, click Hang Up to explicitly terminate the application.

Changing Mode

Changing modes inside a Vocal Scripting session will not terminate the session.

Limitation

Every connection expires after an hour. At that time, the connection is disconnected.

For more details on Vocal Scripter, see Chapter  6, Vocal Scripter in Using the BeVocal Café Tools.

Check Usability with Vocal Player

Vocal Player lets you replay calls to your application. Once you give other people access to your application, you can replay their sessions. This can help you with usability testing, for example, to find out whether anything confused the caller. You can also use Vocal Player to replay your own sessions, to aid in debugging.

 •  From the Tools & File Management menu, click Vocal Player.
 •  Choose a call and click Play Log for that call.
  The Vocal Player window appears.
 •  To set up the Vocal Player for the first time, click Click Here and follow the instructions given.
  You'll restart your browser when you complete the instructions. (There is an autoinstaller for Windows NT, but you still need to do a few steps manually.)
 •  Select Vocal Player again. Choose a call and click Play Log for it.
  This time the Vocal Player window should be functional. The primary commands are at the bottom of the window.
 •  Click Play to play the entire call you selected. Or, single-step through call states that increment as user input is collected (you can use the slider bar or double arrow to step through call states).
  The user input collected is displayed in the Result section, and the associated confidence value reflects how likely it is that the speech recognition engine accurately identified what the user said.

For more details on Vocal Player, see Chapter  2, Vocal Player in Using the BeVocal Café Tools.

What's Next?

See the Café documentation for more information on using VoiceXML. This area includes useful links to reference manuals and sample applications.

[Show Frames]
BeVocal, Inc. Café Home | Developer Agreement | Privacy Policy | Site Map | Terms & Conditions
Part No. 520-0003-02 | © 1999-2007, BeVocal, Inc. All rights reserved | 1.877.33.VOCAL