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When you know that a certain group of digit sequences are valid, use whatever techniques you can to validate caller input. This is especially important with spoken input, but can also be done for touchtone input. These validation methods help you increase the recognition accuracy for connected-digit sequences. The following sections describe three ways to validate an entry.
Custom grammars
You can limit the results of the recognizer to valid sequences by using a custom grammar obtained from Avaya. A grammar is the set of rules the recognizer uses to understand data, such as caller input.
A number of grammars are already provided with IVR Designer (a list can be seen in the Input ASR Mode field on the Prompt & Collect Response tab). Custom grammars are special additions to this standard set, designed for your specific needs. For example, if you know that all valid callers will have telephone numbers from only a few telephone area codes, request a custom grammar that allows only the area codes you want. This helps the recognizer make accurate judgments about caller speech.
Checksums
Another way to validate an entry is to use a checksum. Some numbers (like credit card numbers) have a checksum built into the structure of the number, so that the number can be checked with a formula to determine if it is valid.
If the digit series you are accepting has a built-in checksum, use a data interface process (DIP), IVR Designer Set and Test node, or external function to evaluate the checksum. Once the system determines that the entry is valid, it can speak the entry back for confirmation, if necessary.
Database lookups
You can also validate an entry by looking for it in a database of valid numbers. For example, when accepting a telephone number, locate the number in the database of all customer telephone numbers. If the number is found, speak it back to the caller for confirmation, if necessary. If it is not found, the system can search the database for a telephone number that matches the second-best recognition result. If the second choice is found, the system assumes that this is what the caller entered, and can speak it back for confirmation.
