Variables

Variables

Fuse has robust capabilities when dealing with variables. The title of each module in Fuse represents a variable that is created immediately after that module has executed.

Any text field that has a plus sign () in the lower right-hand corner can be used to access a variable.

Once a variable is established in Fuse, it is available anywhere in the application. Variables are not retained from one call to another or after a call disconnects. When jumping between applications using the Goto App module (), Fuse isolates the variables from each application to avoid conflicts. See the Goto App module for more information.

Variable and Javascript Objects

Fuse stores all variables using Javascript. Modules that collect information from a caller create ​a variable ​that is a string primitive. Modules ​that exchange and receive information with other applications can return complex Javascript Objects. Users can access object properties by using standard Javascript dot notation: e.g., ​variable_name.subvariable_name.

Text-to-Speech Variable Types

In the prompt modules, any variables that needs to be presented back to the caller can be set with a specific variable type. Once a variable type of set, an icon will be shown next to the variable to indicate that text-to-speech variable is of a specific type.

There are 5 variable types in our Text-to-Speech engine:

1. acronym (): This instructs the TTS engine to pronounce the variable character by character. It is useful for word acronyms as well as phone numbers, credit card numbers, or zip codes.

ABS is pronounced as A-B-S instead of the word “abs” 12345 is pronounced as 1-2-3-4-5, instead of “twelve thousand three hundred and forty five”

2. address (): This instructs the TTS engine to pronounce common street address as such.

For example, “E 123rd St” as “East one hundred twenty-third street”, or “Boston, MA” as “Boston, Massachusetts”

City and State should be its own variable, set aside from the street address. Otherwise, the TTS engine will not able to say the state correctly. See Address () module for more details.

3. currency (): This instructs the TTS engine to pronounce the variable as a currency. The expected currency format is a number using period as the decimal separator, and without any currency symbols. Any other non-digits (such as thousands separator) can cause the TTS engines to misinterpret the value.

12.18 is pronounced as “Twelve dollars and eighteen cents”

4. date (): This instructs the TTS engine to pronounce the variable as date. The expected date format is MM-DD-YYYY or MM/DD/YYYY

01-01-2019 is pronounced as “January first, two thousand eighteen”

5. time (): This instructs the TTS engine to pronounce the variable as time. The expected time format is HH:MM AM/PM

10:34 AM is pronounced as “Ten thirty-four A.M.” Leading zeros are required for hours that are single digits (for example, 08:30 AM)

Text-to-speech engine settings can be found in Language Settings under Application Settings.

Note: while in most cases, the different TTS engines will pronounce variables the same way, they can still differ in some of its interpretation and usage of grammar and conjunctions, especially with non-English languages. It is recommended to test out how each variable types are spoken with your TTS engine selection

Shadow Variables

For advanced users, VoiceXML-based shadow variables exist for Input modules and the REST data module. For more information, please see the Shadow Variables page.