Article ID:	216
Last updated:	February 28, 2006

Would you like to...

Print this page

Post a comment

User Opinions

No users have voted.

---

How would you rate this answer?

Helpful

Not helpful

Thank you for rating this answer.

SUMMARY

This article explains why slow (or long) input by callers would cause them to be interrupted, and how to rectify this situation.

SYMPTOMS

Either by reviewing the activity logs, or through caller feedback, it is determined that some callers receive an error message (e.g. "Sorry, I didn't get that.") in the middle of providing input.  This is most common with long inputs such as social security numbers.

RESOLUTION

There are several VoiceXML properties that control how long the caller is allowed to continue entering input before they are timed out and given an error message or are reprompted.  By adjusting these properties, the application developer can fine-tune how long the ASR engine waits for user input.

maxspeechtimeout - The maximum duration of user speech. If this time elapsed before the user stops speaking, the event "maxspeechtimeout" is thrown.

completetimeout - The length of silence required following user speech before the speech recognizer finalizes a result (either accepting it or throwing a nomatch event). The complete timeout is used when the speech is a complete match of an active grammar. By contrast, the incomplete timeout is used when the speech is an incomplete match to an active grammar.

incompletetimeout - The required length of silence following user speech after which a recognizer finalizes a result. The incomplete timeout applies when the speech prior to the silence is an incomplete match of all active grammars. In this case, once the timeout is triggered, the partial result is rejected (with a nomatch event).

For a more detailed explanation of these properties, please refer to section 6.3.2 of the VoiceXML 2.0 Specification. For detailed steps on how to set these properties in your Audium applications, please refer to this Audium Knowledgebase Article; note that while this article describes a different VoiceXML property, the steps to set these properties are the same.