Invoke Workflow

Nodes and Palette Options > Detailed Palette Option Descriptions > Invoke Workflow

	Invoke Workflow

Type

IC connector item

Available from

Data Node only

Purpose

The Invoke Workflow item allows you to invoke and use a workflow on an Avaya Interaction Center (IC) system without exiting the speech application on the IVR system. With the Invoke Workflow item, you can pass variable values to the workflow on the IC system. The workflow on the IC system can process these variable values and then return the results to the speech application on the IVR system.

Behavior

Before you can use this or any other IC item, you must enable IC for Dialog Designer. For more information about the ability of Dialog Designer to interact with IC, and to enable IC in your Dialog Designer applications, see About the IC Connector.

When the speech application encounters the Invoke Workflow item, the application:

Sends a command to the IC system to invoke the workflow identified in the Workflow Name property.

For more information about this property, see the "Properties" section of this item.

Passes the values of any variables selected in the input variables and input variable fields in order to the IC workflow.

Note:

These values are passed in the order listed in the Avaya Properties view means that you must know the order in which variable values are expected in the workflow.

Waits for the IC workflow to finish and return any results.

Note that the amount of time that the Dialog Designer application waits for a return from the IC system is determined by the Max Timeout in ms property. See the description of this property in the "Properties" section that follows.

The Return Immediately property can be set to true or false (default) to have the invoked call return without waiting for the workflow to finish. If this flag is set, you would not be able to enter output variables or a max Timeout value.

Note:

The vox.tr1 call allows you to perform a send and forget when invoking a workflow. The IC Connector will not wait for the results of the running workflow and the application may continue executing. Enable this feature by setting the Return Immediately property in the IC Invoke Workflow data node to true.

Receives the results passed back to the application by the IC workflow and assigns them to the designated output variables and output variable fields.

Important:

When passing variable values to and from the IC system, keep in mind that, whereas the IC system allows dots ( . ), pluses ( + ), stars ( * ), and marks( ! ) in variable names, Dialog Designer, being Java-based, does not. So, for example, a variable name of account.number is valid in the IC system, but it violates Java naming conventions, which do not allow the dot in a name.

Therefore, when creating variables to pass values to known variables on the IC system or to receive variable values from known variables on the IC system, you must use the following naming convention:

Replace the dot ( . ) with the following: __DOT__

Replace the plus ( + ) with the following: __PLUS__

Replace the star ( * ) with the following: __STAR__

Replace the mark ( ! ) with the following: __MARK__

This mnemonic replacement consists of two underscore ( _ ) characters, followed by the word DOT, PLUS, STAR, or MARK (all uppercase), as applicable, followed by two more underscore characters.

At run time, the Dialog Designer application translates this mnemonic replacement for the dot, whether for variable values being passed to the IC system or received from the IC system.

Tip:

There are two ways that variable values can be passed to and from the IC system: One is to use the Invoke Workflow item, and the other is to create custom variable fields in the vdu variable and assign values to them. The second method can be useful if you need to pass more than four variable values at a time. This is because the Invoke Workflow item has a limit of four output and four input variable values. By creating and assigning custom variable fields in the vdu variable before the Invoke Workflow item is initiated, you can send additional variable values to the IC system for use with the Invoke Workflow item.

Properties

Workflow Name - Enter the name of the workflow you want to invoke on the IC system.

This name must match exactly the name of a workflow on the IC system.

Max Timeout in ms - Enter the amount of time in milliseconds to allow the IC system to invoke the workflow, complete its process, and return any results.

If the IC system takes longer than this amount of time to return a response, the IVR system throws a run-time error and responds appropriately.

Tip:

This setting requires you to know the normal amount of time it takes the IC system to complete the workflow you are invoking. If, for example, you are invoking a workflow that normally takes from 4 to 7 seconds to process a request, and you have set this timeout to 5000 milliseconds (5 seconds), there is a good chance that the IVR application will time out before the request can be processed. Avaya recommends that you set this field to approximately 5 seconds more than the normal processing time that the workflow requires. In this example, that means that you should set this field to 12000.

Input Variable1 through 4 - For each input variable, select the variable whose value you want to pass to the IC workflow. You must assign the variables in the order the IC workflow expects to receive them.

If a selected variable is a complex variable, you must also select a corresponding Input Variable Field for that variable.

Input Variable Field1 through 4 - If a given Input Variable is a complex variable, select the corresponding variable field whose value you want to pass to the IC workflow.

Output Variable1 through 4 - For each output variable, select the variable to which you want the IC workflow to return the results of processing.

Note:

The IC system creates output values using name-value pairs. Dialog Designer applications can retrieve those name-value pairs only if it knows the names. For this reason, the name of the variable or variable field to which you want to assign the return from the IC system must exactly match the name of one of the names in these name-value pairs.

If a selected variable is a complex variable, you must also select a corresponding Output Variable Field for that variable.

Output Variable Field1 through 4 - If a given Output Variable is a complex variable, select the corresponding variable field to which you want the IC workflow to return the results of processing.