Record Block

The Record block records voice input from the caller. Also see Number of Allowed Attempts Exceeded Property. In case of user input blocks (Menu, Input, Record, Transfer), Composer adds a global variable  of type "Block" to the variables list.  You can conveniently use this variable for accessing the user input value. The Record block has the following properties: Record Block Exception Events The Record block has four exception events as described in Exception Event Descriptions:

• error
• error.badfetch
• noinput]] (supported by default)
• error.com.genesyslab.composer.recordCapture.failure

Name Property

Please find this property's details under Common Properties.

Block Notes Property

Can be used for both callflow and workflow blocks to add comments.  

Exceptions Property

Find this property's details under Common Properties.

Language Property

The language set by this property overrides any language set by the Set Language block, the Project preferences, or the incoming call parameters. The property takes effect only for the duration of this block, and the language setting reverts back to its previous state after the block is done. In the case of the Record block, this property affects the language of grammars of TTS output:

1. Click under Value to display a down arrow.
2. Click the down arrow and select English - United States (en-US) or the variable that contains the language.

Condition Property

Find this property's details under Common Properties for Callflow Blocks.

Logging Details Property

Find this property's details under Common Properties for Callflow Blocks.

Log Level Property

Find this property's details under Common Properties for Callflow Blocks.

Enable Status Property

Find this property's details under Common Properties for Callflow Blocks.

Output Result Property

You must use the Output Result property to assign the collected data to a user-defined variable for further processing. Note!  This property is mandatory. You must select a variable for the output result even if you do not plan on using the variable. If this is not done, a validation error will be generated in the Problems view.

1. Select the Output Result row in the block's property table.
2. In the Value field, click the down arrow and select a variable.

For more information, see Upgrading Projects/Diagrams.

Web Server Record File Name Property

User-defined variable (to be assigned) containing the file name of the recorded file located in the folder as specified in the Capture Location property.

1. Select the Web Server Record File Name row in the block's property table.
2. In the Value field, click the down arrow and select a variable.

Prompts Property

Find this property's details under Common Properties. Note: When Type is set to Value and Interpret-As is set to Audio, you can specify an HTTP or RTSP URL.  When Type is set to Variable and Interpret-As is set to Audio, you can specify a variable that contains an HTTP or RTSP URL.

Timeout Property

The Timeout property defines the length of the pause between when the voice application plays the last data in the list, and when it moves to the next block. To provide a timeout value:

1. Select the Timeout row in the block's property table.
2. In the Value field, type a timeout value, in seconds.

Audio Format Property

This property specifies the audio format for the recording.

1. Select the Audio Format row in the block's property table.
2. In the Value field, select a format value from the drop-down list.

You can modify this value in order to specify enhanced format information such as the codec and the rate as in the following: audio/x-wav;codec=g726;rate=<rate>

Note: You can specify a bit rate as shown in the above example only for the g726 codec.

Beep Before Recording Property

The Beep Before Recording property indicates whether a beep sound will be played for the caller just before recording begins. When set to true, a beep sound will be played; when set to false, no beep will be played. To assign a value to the Beep Before Recording property:

1. Select the Beep Before Recording row in the block's property table.
2. In the Value field, select true or false from the drop-down list.

Dtmf Term Character Property

The Dtmf Term Character property defines any character that callers can input in order to indicate that they have finished entering data. For example, the prompt given to the caller may say "Enter your account number, and then press the pound key." The pound key is the Dtmf-ending character. To provide a value for the Dtmf Term Character:

1. Select the Dtmf Term Character row in the block's property table.
2. In the Value field, type a value for a character to represent the end of the Dtmf string.

A typical value that is often used, as indicated above, is:  # If several different DTMF tones could be used to indicate the end of data entry, type all values for the supported tones. No separation signs or characters are required. Examples:

• To use # or * then type the value as #*
• If any numeric key could be used for termination, type the value as 1234567890*#  

Final Silence Property

The value supplied for the Final Silence property indicates the amount of silence (in seconds) that is allowed to elapse before recording will be stopped. The default value is 3 seconds. To provide a value for the Final Silence property:

1. Select the Final Silence row in the block's property table.
2. In the Value field, type a value for the allowable final silence before recording is stopped.

Max Duration Property

In the context of a Record block, the Max Duration property specifies the maximum recording duration. The default is 60 seconds.

To provide a value for the maximum recording duration:

1. Select the Max Duration row in the block's property table.
2. In the Value field, type a value for the maximum recording duration.

For more information on this property, refer to the Record VXML tag topic in GVP 8.1 Voice XML Help.

Min Duration Property

In the context of a Record block, the Min Duration property specifies the minimum allowed recording duration. The default is 1 second. To provide a value for the minimum recording duration:

1. Select the Min Duration row in the block's property table.
2. In the Value field, type a value for the minimum recording duration.

Capture Filename Property

A value for the Capture Filename property is required when the Capture Filename Type property is set to the value useSpecified. To provide a filename for the captured recording:

1. Select the Capture Filename row in the block's property table.
2. In the Value field, you can:

• Type a name for the recording file.
• Click the down arrow and select a variable.

Capture Filename Prefix Property

A value for the Capture Filename Prefix property is required when the Capture Filename Type property is set to the value usePrefix. To provide a prefix for the captured recording filename:

1. Select the Capture Filename Prefix row in the block's property table.
2. In the Value field, you can:
   • Type a value for the recording file prefix.
   • Click the down arrow and select a variable.

Capture Filename Type Property

The Capture Filename Type property indicates the type of the filename for saving the recording. To assign a value to the Capture Filename Type property:

1. Select the Capture Filename Type row in the block's property table.
2. In the Value field, select one of the following from the drop-down list:

• autoGenerate to auto-generate a recording filename.
• usePrefix to add the prefix value specified in the Capture Filename Prefix property to the default name that is generated for the recording.
• useSpecified to use the value specified in the Capture Filename property as the filename for the recording. In this case, the file will be overwritten for each call.

Capture Location Property

The Capture Location property specifies the destination path on the Web Application server where the recording is to be saved. If no location is specified, the recordings are saved in the working directory the web application server process. This location may change depending on the web server environment, and therefore, it is recommended that a fixed location is always specified in the Capture Location property. To specify a capture (recording) location:

1. Click the Capture Location row in the block's property table.
2. Type a file path where the recording is to be saved that is located on the web server hosting the application. If the web server is running on Linux, a UNIX-style path can be entered. Composer will not validate the path.

Security Property

When the Security property is set to true, data for this block is treated as private. GVP will consider the data associated with this block as sensitive and will suppress it in platform logs and metrics. To assign a value to the Security property:

1. Select the Security row in the block's property table.
2. In the Value field, select true or false from the drop-down list.

Use Last Reprompt Indefinitely Property

If you set the Use Last Reprompt Indefinitely property to true, the application uses your last reprompt as the prompt for all further retries. Therefore, the exception handlers that come out for nomatch and noinput are redundant--even if you set the default exceptions that come out as red dots on the left-side of the block. To assign a value to the Use Last Reprompt Indefinitely property:

1. Select the Use Last Reprompt Indefinitely row in the block's property table.
2. In the Value field, select true or false from the drop-down list.

Get Shadow Variables Property

Shadow variables (optional) provide a way to retrieve further information regarding the value of an input item. They can provide platform-related information about the interaction/input. For example, for speech recognition, this may be the confidence level the platform receives from the ASR engine about how closely the engine could match the user utterance to specified grammar. By setting this property to true, it will expose the block’s shadow variable within the callflow. When enabled, the shadow variable will be included in the list of available variables. (For example, the Log block’s Logging Details will show Record1$.) A shadow variable is referenced as blockname$.shadowVariable, where blockname is the value of the input item's name attribute, and shadowVariable is the name of a specific shadow variable, for example: Record1$.duration. To assign a value to the Get Shadow Variables property:

1. Select the Get Shadow Variables row in the block's property table.
2. In the Value field, select true or false from the drop-down list.

Number of Retries Allowed Property

The Number Of Retries Allowed property determines how many opportunities the user will be provided to re-enter the value. If Use Last Prompt Indefinitely is set to true, this property has no effect; otherwise, the error.com.genesyslab.composer.toomanynomatches or error.com.genesyslab.composer.toomanynoinputs errors will be raised on reaching the maximum retry limit. To provide a value for the number of retries allowed:

1. Select the Number Of Retries Allowed row in the block's property table.
2. In the Value field, type a value for the number of retries that will be allowed.

Retry Prompts Property

Find this property's details under Common Properties.

Use Original Prompts Property

If you set the Use Original Prompts property to true, in the event of an error requiring a retry, the application first plays back the retry error prompt, and then plays back the original prompt for the block (as specified in the Prompts property). To assign a value to the Use Original Prompts property:

1. Select the Use Original Prompts row in the block's property table.
2. In the Value field, select true or false from the drop-down list.