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Overview Questions |
- What is Voiyager?
- Voiyager is a productivity platform for VoiceXML applications
with Version 1.0 of Voiyager focusing on the complete development
and testing of VoiceXML applications. Fully exercising a VoiceXML
application, Voiyager supplies the components to support the following
VoiceXML evaluations.
- Systematically identifies application defects
- Methodically discovers common usability problems
- Thoroughly validates call flow and business logic
- How does Voiyager work?
- Voiyager successfully takes the place of a voice browser with the additional capacity to determine what specific audio clips play, the active grammars, and the valid choices that a caller will speak or enter. With this information, Voiyager identifies dialog states and navigates the complete application. In addition, Voiyager places numerous virtual calls into the VoiceXML application and tests all possible flow paths demonstrating that Voiyager understands the application call flows. As Voiyager evaluates the call flows, Voiyager detects and identifies any common application faults.
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Support / Compatibility Questions |
- What VoiceXML version(s) does Voiyager support?
- Voiyager supports VoiceXML versions 2.0 and 2.1.
- What grammar formats does Voiyager support?
- Voiyager supports SRGS (W3C Recommendation 16 March 2004) XML.
Voiyager also supports the following forms of Semantic Interpretation within SRGS grammars.- SISR 1.0(W3C Recommendation 5 April 2007)
- Nuance GSL Semantic Interpretation
- What built-in grammars does Voiyager support?
- Voiyager uses English language built-ins as defined in section
2.3.1.1 of the VoiceXML 2.0 specification. The Voiyager list includes
the following built-ins.
- boolean
- date
- digits
- currency
- number
- phone
- time
- What audio formats does Voiyager support?
- Voiyager supports the following audio formats:
- Mime-type:audio/basic (muLaw, 8000 samples per second)
- Mime-type:audio/x-alaw-basic (ALaw, 8000 samples per second)
- Mime-type:audio/x-syntellect-basic (Dialogic, 4 bit ADPCIM, 8000 samples per second)
- Mime-type:audio/wav or audio/x-wav (Windows compatible WAV file.)
Audio will be passed to Windows client in the form provided by application. Note, if a dialog contains multiple audio files with different audio sample rates, all of the audio will be played at the first audio file?s rate. - Does Voiyager support Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML)?
- Voiyager does not directly process Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) and, therefore, is not impacted by the presence or absence of SSML.
- How does Voiyager handle platform specific extensions?
- Voiyager implements customizations for compatibility with popular
VoiceXML platforms. Voiyager ignores extra VoiceXML tags and attributes
as well as unknown Object tags.
Please contact the Voiyager sales team to confirm support for your platform feature needs. - How does Voiyager manage dynamically generated VoiceXML?
- Voiyager contains a VoiceXML browser to process both static and dynamically generated VoiceXML in the same manner when the VoiceXML content is hosted by a Web or application server.
- How does Voiyager exercise sub-dialogs?
- Voiyager properly follows sub-dialog references and processes sub-dialogs according to the VoiceXML 2.x specification.
- Does Voiyager support shadow variables?
- Voiyager project definition editor allows users to specify application specific shadow variables that will be set at the beginning of each call.
- How does Voiyager handle dynamically generated grammars?
- Voiyager supports both static and dynamically generated grammar content.
- Does Voiyager cache data?
- Within a single exploration or application comparison, Voiyager will cache audio and grammar resources. Voiyager will not cache individual Browser Phone calls or across different explorations or comparisons.
- What languages does Voiyager support?
- Voiyager explores applications independent of the application's
language, however, the Voiyager user interface is currently only
available in English.
Please contact Voiyager Product Marketing to explore translation to meet your language needs. - How does Voiyager process host data?
- A common misconception is that Voiyager only simulates how your VoiceXML application runs. Voiyager does not simulate your VoiceXML application—Voiyager actually executes your complete application.
- Voiyager incorporates a VoiceXML browser that implements your full application. All host data and your complete business logic are accessed and executed using the same approach as calls placed into your telephony platform.
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Features |
- What kinds of problems can the Voiyager Exploration automatically detect?
- Voiyager's dynamic and powerful functionality detects problems
in the following areas.
VoiceXML errors- VoiceXML Syntax Errors
- SRGS Syntax Errors
- Missing VoiceXML and SRGS Documents
- Missing Audio Resources
- Application Hang-ups
- Application Transfers
- Infinite Call Loops
- Audio Clip Played
- TTS Text Played
- Transfer Target Reached
- What kinds of changes can the Voiyager Comparison automatically detect?
- Voiyager's dynamic and powerful functionality also detects changes
in the following areas.
VoiceXML errors- VoiceXML Syntax Errors
- SRGS Syntax Errors
- Missing VoiceXML and SRGS documents
- Missing Audio Resources
- Changes in Call Paths
- Changes in Audio Files
- Changes in Grammar Files
- How do I integrate Voiyager into my build and test environment?
- Voiyager includes both .net and Java APIs allowing developers
to perform all features available to the user through the Voiyager
client. This includes, but is not limited to the following functionality.
- Starting and monitoring explorations and comparisons
- Evaluating exploration and comparison results
- Generate reports
- Direct Browser Phone calls to test specific use cases
- What are the run times for Voiyager Explorations and Comparisons
- Voiyager exploration and run times are application specific
but the following use case provides insight into common time expectations.
Without application host delays or significant delays fetching the application resources, Voiyager typically places 50 calls per minute with 25 concurrent calls occurring.
An average 40 state application is explored with 500 calls. If the application requires test accounts, each account is likely to require 500 calls. Therefore, performing an exploration on this application, with 10 test accounts, is expected to take approximately 100 minutes or nearly two hours. Most applications, however, experiences some amount of host delay validating the accounts and retrieving other data so this value is considered a best case expectation.
- How does Voiyager determine valid account numbers and pins?
- When Voiyager encounters a grammar with a large number of unique inputs, such as account or pin input, Voiyager randomly chooses valid grammar values and raises an issue indicating that training data is needed. The tester then provides data through the Training Collection editor.
- How does Voiyager know a call flow is correct?
- Voiyager cannot automatically determine if a call flow or the
business logic in an application is correct, however, Voiyager provides
two components that allow a developer or analyst to validate an
application quickly and easily.
First, Voiyager provides a call flow diagram the provides a visual view of the application.
A State Validater allows a user to review the call flow through each individual dialog state. The user quickly sees how a state responds with different training data and different caller responses. - How is the Voiyager Browser Phone different than a VoIP phone?
- VoIP and other telephony-based calls require a developer or
analyst to interact with an application at the same speed as a caller.
Voiyager interfaces directly the application bypassing the telephony
and the Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) layer. This gives the
Voiyager Browser Phone the advantage to offer several features not
available with VoIP.
Input Accuracy
When testing Speech Recognition applications, voice recognition servers periodically fail to recognize a correct interaction. This failure leads to test confusion as the tester performing the test attempts to determine if the failure was due to a speech recognition error or a logic error within the application.
Voiyager allows the tester to provide the explicit input phrase, spoken or entered, by a caller and prevents input ambiguity. Testers can also indicate explicit No Input and No Match actions. For VoiceXML record and transfer actions, Voiyager allows the tester to provide a rich set of responses to the application so that all scenarios are easily tested.
Voiyager allows the tester to provide the explicit input phrase spoken or pressed by the caller which prevents input ambiguity. Additionally, users can indicate explicit No Input and No Match actions. For VoiceXML record and transfer actions, Voiyager allows the tester to provide a rich set of responses to the application so that all scenarios can be easily tested.
Additionally, Voiyager provides a set of valid inputs in a drop-down menu making it easier to navigate the application by the tester.
Speed
VoIP and telephone calls typically require some amount of initial setup time at the beginning of each playback to activate the recognizer, followed by a latency period that includes end-of-speech detection and speech recognition.
Voiyager Browser Phone calls are not limited by recognition engine initialization and recognition latency. Testers provide input as soon as the VoiceXML application provides the page and resources.
Repeatability
Voiyager provides an additional advantage over traditional VoIP and telephony calls. Save or export Voiyager Browser Phone calls as Voiyager bookmarks to play back and execute the call testing again running nearly as fast as the application server provides the pages and resources for Voiyager to process. Five to ten dialog states are typically processed in 5-10 seconds.
Further, e-mail or attach Voiyager bookmarks to issues using your own issue tracking system so that developers can repeat problems discovered by testers in the development environment until the call problem is resolved.
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Purchasing / Licensing |
- How do I deploy Voiyager?
- Voiyager is easily deployed with a simple installation wizard that automates the installation of the database and application server required. Total installation time is typically less than 10 minutes.
- How is Voiyager licensed?
- Voiyager is sold as a subscription-based solution. Licensing is determined by the number of active application projects an organization is working on at any one time.
- How do I determine how many Voiyager servers I need?
- Voiyager supports multiple concurrent projects and is typically only limited by the number and size of the explorations. The typical expectation is that a Voiyager server supports two to three medium-sized concurrent projects including developers, testers, and analysts. Larger projects can require one or more servers each, depending on the number of teams with explorations that must run concurrently.