How to hold or save the DTMF input in VXML? Any guides to set up a test IVR (VXML) service?

Question

So I currently have an IVR written in some dodgy old code which is confusing and goes way over the top for some things.

I'm wanting to re-write one of my basic IVRs with VXML.

So a little bit of research is that I can call perl scripts which I can use to run data past databases, that part isnt to bad.

My question is how, or what is the syntax to use to "hold" or save the dtmf input for a menu, and then pass it to the perl script.

Question two.

Hosting of the VXML IVR. Are there any guides to setting up a test service? I have a PABX, and a few servers I can play around with.

Answer 1

To specifically answer your DTMF question, just use <submit> to send the DTMF input to the perl script, using the attribute namelist (which is just a list of variables that you need to send).

Also, from the VXML 2.0 specification:

"The <submit> element is used to submit information to the origin Web server and then transition to the document sent back in the response. Unlike <goto>, it lets you submit a list of variables to the document server via an HTTP GET or POST request. For example, to submit a set of form items to the server you might have:

<submit next="log_request" method="post"
 namelist="name rank serial_number" 
 fetchtimeout="100s" fetchaudio="audio/brahms2.wav"/>

"

Answer 2

To play around with VoiceXML I would recommend Voxeo's excellent platform called Prophecy. You can get two ports for free that you can run on a server or even on your workstation/laptop. They provide a SIP softphone to test your apps so it does not require any elaborate setup; just a simple install and you are ready to go. They also have hosted environment that you can test from for free. You just pay for the service if you put it into production. Here is a post that describes how to setup and test applications in the hosted environment. And here is a post on how to setup and test applications if you install Prophecy on your PC. Voxeo's CTO is on the VoiceXML standards committee so their platform conforms very close to the standard.

Voxeo's developer site has excellent documentation on VoiceXML that is full of examples. On your question for how to get dtmf input you can go to the bottom of the left pane in the documentation and click on the element "field". The field element is used to collect information from the caller. To easily do this with DTMF input you can use the builtin grammars. For more information on builtin grammars look at the documentation on the "type" attribute of the "field" element. Once you get a "filled" event from the "field" you can call your Perl script using a "submit" element. Voxeo's documentation has a link to this article on creating a VoiceXML applications with Perl. The Voxeo Forum is also an excellent source of information on VoiceXML and the Prophecy. If you cannot find an answer to your question in the Forum just ask it and their knowledgeable support staff will assist.

If you are also familiar with .NET technologies there is an open source project called VoiceModel that makes it easy to develop VoiceXML applications using ASP.NET. The project has a lot of examples in it.

These resources should get you started with VoiceXML fairly quickly.