Voice Based Email System

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Voice Based Email System

• Masters Project
• Advisor Dr. Irwin Levinstein
• Student Sriram Mallepedi

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Introduction

• For most people today, the preferred means of
  communication is by email. Most people use
  computers to check their email, which means that
  if they are away from a computer or are using a
  computer without Internet access, they cannot
  check their email.
• Voice Based Email System provides, a way for
  you to check your email and even send email. The
  Voice Based Email System will check your email
  and read whatever message you want in your INBOX
  aloud over the telephone.

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Technologies Used

• XML
• Voice XML
• BeVocal Café
• Tellme
• Voxeo
• Java Servlets
• JavaMail
• JAF
• Java Server Pages

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XML Basics

• An XML document is comprised of one or more named
  elements organized into a nested hierarchy.
• Element - An element is an opening tag, some
  data, and a closing tag.
• Tag - A tag is an element name preceded by a
  less-than symbol (lt) and followed by a
  greater-than (gt) symbol.
• Attribute - An attribute specifies properties of
  the element that you modify and consists of a
  name/value pair. Attribute values must be
  contained in matching single or double quotes.

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XML Rules

• For any given element, the name of the opening
  tag must match that of the closing tag.
• Tag names are case-sensitive.
• An element may include zero or more attributes.
• Elements may be arranged in an infinitely nested
  hierarchy, but only one element in the document
  can be designated as the root document element.
• Sample
• ltsalutationsgt
• ltwelcome type"texan"gtHowdy,
  partnerlt/welcomegt
• ltwelcome type"australian"gtG'day,
  matelt/welcomegt
• lt/salutationsgt

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XML Reserved Characters

• XML reserves certain characters, including
  less-than (lt), greater than (gt), and ampersand
  (). To express these characters in your document
  data, use the equivalent character entity

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Voice XML
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Voice Server

• Telephony The Voice XML server must first
  accept call from the telephony server and access
  telephony data regarding the call such as dialed
  and the dialing numbers. Based on the callers
  dialing number, the server may provide Voice XML
  applications with locality information, such as
  the callers city and sate. If the user is
  transferred to another phone number using the
  transfer tag, the Voice XML server is responsible
  for initiating a new outbound call leg to the
  transfer number and bridging it with the users
  call.
• URL database When a call is terminated at the
  server, the server must match the dialed number
  to the desired services URL. The server may have
  provisioning and billing systems associated with
  this database.

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Voice Server continued..

• Retrieving Voice XML When the Voice XML
  services URL is know, the gateway must retrieve
  the Voice XML, page and associated files, such as
  recorded audio and grammar files, from the
  servers Web host.
• Interpreting Voice XML With the applications
  Voice XML code and associated files now located
  on the server, the server must interpret the
  code, stepping through the dialogs and
  interacting with ASR,TTS,DTMF and other services
  as required. This may involve requesting
  additional files from the Web server.
• Accessing ASR and TTS These services may be
  hosted on the Voice XML server as either software
  or hardware or may be located remotely on a
  server with dedicated speech processing
  capabilities.
• Caching The Voice XML server can cache
  prerecorded audio files, grammars and Voice XML
  pages themselves.

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Voice XML Basics

• XML is designed to represent arbitrary data,
  VoiceXML describes grammars, prompts, event
  handlers, and other data structures useful in
  describing voice interaction between a human and
  a computer.
• VoiceXML, a specific kind of XML designed to
  describe voice applications. VoiceXML follows all
  the rules of XML and some more.
• At the root of every VoiceXML document is a root
  element, the vxml element.
• VoiceXML has predefined elements which the voice
  browser can understand. These elements have
  predefined set of attributes.

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Application Structure

• A VoiceXML application consists of a set of
  VoiceXML documents.
• Each VoiceXML document contains one or more
  dialogs describing a specific interaction with
  the user.
• Dialogs may present the user with information or
  prompt the user to provide information, and when
  complete, they can redirect the flow of control
  to another dialog in that document, to a dialog
  in another document in the same application, or
  to a dialog in another application entirely.
• VoiceXML provides two types of dialogs form and
  menu.

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Forms

• VoiceXML's primary user interface paradigm is
  that of a form with a number of elements that
  either provide information for the user or
  present fields to be filled by user input.
• Every form contains one or more form items, which
  are elements within a form that describe some
  kind of user interaction related to filling-in
  the form.
• Children Elements block, catch, data, error,
  field, filled, grammar, help, initial, link,
  noinput, nomatch, object, property, record,
  script, subdialog, transfer, var

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Menu

• The menu element is a convenient shorthand
  version for a form. The menu element uses the
  prompt element to present a list of choices to
  the user.
• Each option in the list is mirrored in a choice
  element as a speech or DTMF grammar fragment.
• If the user's input matches the grammar fragment,
  the Platform navigates to the location specified
  by the next or expr attribute or fires the event
  specified by the event attribute of that choice
  element.
• Children Elements audio, catch, choice, data,
  enumerate, error, help, noinput, nomatch, prompt,
  property, script, value, var

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Field

• Primary method of gathering input from a user is
  through the field element. Field is a blank slate
  waiting to be filled by user input.
• For each field, you must provide a grammar, which
  is a piece of information describing the
  allowable user inputs for a given field. The
  VoiceXML interpreter uses this information to
  determine whether the user's response was
  meaningful for this particular field.
• You can specify grammars in one of two ways
  through the type attribute of the field element,
  which causes the VoiceXML interpreter to use one
  of its built-in grammars, or through a grammar
  element, which contains a grammar of your own
  creation.

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Grammar

• A grammar defines the set of valid expressions
  that a user can say or type when interacting with
  a voice application.
• Each interactive dialog in an application
  references one or more grammars using one or more
  grammar elements.
• VoiceXML provides you with several choices when
  integrating grammars into your voice application
• Reference a 'builtin' grammar by setting the type
  attribute of the field element.
• Define your own grammar using the Nuance Grammar
  Specification Language (GSL)
• VoiceXML supports touch-tone input also known as
  DTMF input and voice input.

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Development Cycle

• The typical development life cycle for a voice
  application using the BeVocal Cafe is as follows
  
• Design the dialog. The dialog of an application
  is an essential part of the voice user interface.
  
• Build an application in VoiceXML using static
  content
• Use the VoiceXML Checker to check for syntax
  errors and use the Vocal Debugger to test flow of
  dialogs.
• Test the application by calling the toll free
  number (1-877-33-VOCAL) provided by the Cafi.
• Extend the application to serve dynamic content
  using server side scripts (such as JSP)
• Deploy your application

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Voice Based Email System

• Voice Based Web based user interface.
• Use Microsoft Exchange as the mail management
  system.
• Receive emails with text voice attachments
  using IMAP.
• Send emails with text voice attachments using
  SMTP Forward Reply.
• Delete emails from both (voice web) interface.
• Move emails to specific folders from web
  interface.
• Manage folders from web based user interface
  create, delete edit.
• Session is maintained on voice based UI as long
  as user does not hang up.

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Architecture
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Restrictions and Problems Faced

• Restrictions
• Due to Tellmes FetchTimeOut variable, a limit
  of 6.5MB per audio attachment file is imposed.
• We use BeVocal Cafe website for voiceXML
  interpretation so we have to use its grammer.
• Problems Faced
• There is a default configuration limit of 2MB on
  the connector in Tomcat.
• BeVocal Café does not support Session.getDefaultIn
  stance but supports Session.getInstance

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Future Enhancements

• Support for multiple email accounts
• Address Book Feature
• SMS message on cell phone when a new message
  arrives
• WAP based UI to access email from cell phone
• Queue management system from web based UI

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Questions?

• Thank you.