Shadow Variables

VoiceXML uses standard variable systems. This means that Fuse does too, because it is built on VoiceXML. Standard variable systems allow users to create their own variables and manipulate them directly.

Global Shadow Variables

Fuse allow access to global session variables that contains information about the current call. The session variable is a complex object that contains properties. Sometimes those properties have properties of their own.

Because these variables are global variables, there will be no need to use the $ notation to access them.

In Fuse, users might want to access the following session properties:

Last Result Shadow Variables

When collecting input or interacting with a REST web service, information often exists in addition to the “response” data that users may want to access. Shadow variables allow users to access this additional data.

Adding a $ symbol to the end of a variable, automatically creates a shadow variable for that variable. The shadow variable will contain different member variables depending on the type of input or web service it is being used with. For example, with an input credit_card you can determine the confidence of the grammar engine match by accessing credit_card$.confidence.

This variable is filled in the case of both a match or a nomatch. Lastresult$ allows users to get the list of all possible matches, not just the best match. In the event that speech input exists for the variable in use, lastresult$ can also provide a recording of the utterance spoken by the user (for speech input).

Having access to this data, even in the “nomatch” case, allows users to send DTMF input off without requiring a match, or to send the utterance recording somewhere (perhaps to transcription).

Users can also access the “n-best” results if there were multiple matches by accessing $lastresult[i] where “i” represents the position in the list of matches (0 is the best match, 1 is second best, etc.).

The common lastresult$ properties are (https://www.w3.org/TR/voicexml20/#dml5.1.5):

  • lastresult$.confidence

  • lastresult$.utterance

  • lastresult$.inputmode

  • lastresult$.interpretation

  • lastresult$.recording (only for speech input)

  • lastresult$.length

  • lastresult$[i].confidence

  • lastresult$[i].utterance

  • lastresult$[i].inputmode

  • lastresult$[i].interpretation

Module Specific Shadow Variables

Some modules in Fuse have specific shadow variable associated with them. “name” below refers to the actual name of the module.

Call-Flow Modules

  • name$.duration

Input Modules

  • name$.utterance

  • name$.inputmode

  • name$.interpretation

  • name$.confidence

  • name$.duration

  • name$.size

  • name$.termchar

  • name$.maxtime

Data Modules

  • name$.http_code

  • name$.headers (object indexed by header name)

  • name$.raw_headers (0-indexed array containing all header strings)

  • name$.error (only in the event of an error)

Integration Modules

NOTE: Some of the following terms and concepts are specific to Google Dialogflow.

Dialogflow module

DynamoDB module

Format: module_name[index_number].[column_name]

Example: CallerQuery[0].product_id

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