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Running Your VoiceXML Code
You've saved a simple VoiceXML program and put it on your web server. The next step is to get an account with a VSP. The service provider—in this article, we'll talk about BeVocal, HeyAnita, Tellme Networks, VoiceGenie, and Voxeo—may do much more than offer VSP services; in fact, that may not be their focus at all. But these companies do offer VSP service through developer programs that are open to membership. At the time of this writing, the companies discussed here provided free accounts, some with toll-free telephone access, for programmers who joined their developer programs. As long as VSPs provide free developer programs, it makes sense to become familiar with as many of them as possible until you develop a preference, and perhaps even afterward to keep an eye on new features.
To run your VoiceXML application, you need to link your application's URL to a telephone number (and possibly a combination of ID and PIN) provided by the VSP you select. After you join a VSP's developer program, use the appropriate procedure discussed in the following sections to link your application to a phone number from the VSP.
BeVocal Café
Log into the BeVocal Café developer network with your user ID and password. After logging in, you see the File Management page. From here, go to the Remote URL Based Application Development section. Enter the URL of your application (see Figure 1) and click the Add button. The URL now appears in your list of URLs at the bottom of the page. There you can click Activate to make your application active.
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Figure 1 Enter your application's URL in Café's File Management screen to run your code using BeVocal.
When you call BeVocal Café to access your application, you're prompted to enter your PIN and user ID. You then are taken immediately to your application.
HeyAnita FreeSpeech
Log into HeyAnita's FreeSpeech developer network with your developer ID and PIN. Select the URLApp tab and enter your application's URL (see Figure 2). After you have entered the URL of your application, you can click Check Syntax to confirm that FreeSpeech correctly accesses your VoiceXML code. Click Update to make your application active.
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Figure 2 Enter your application's URL in FreeSpeech's URLApp tab to run your code using HeyAnita.
When you call FreeSpeech to access your application, you're prompted to enter your developer ID and PIN. After logging in, you're prompted to access RapidApp, FileApp, or URLApp. Use the appropriate response for the URLApp menu item to access the application you configured previously through the FreeSpeech web site.
Tellme Studio
Log in to Tellme Studio with your developer ID and PIN. On the Application URL tab, enter your application's URL (see Figure 3). Click Update. You can run your application by dialing the access phone number; when prompted, enter your developer ID and PIN.
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Figure 3 Enter your application's URL in Tellme Studio's Application URL tab to run your code using Tellme.
VoiceGenie Developer Workshop
Log in to VoiceGenie's Developer Workshop with your username and password. From the main workshop page, select Manage Extensions from the Tools category. On the Manage Extensions screen, enter your application's URL (see Figure 4) and click the Add Extension button. The next screen reports the extension your application was assigned and the access phone number.
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Figure 4 Enter your application's URL in Developer Workshop's Manage Extensions screen to run your code using VoiceGenie.
You can run your application by dialing the access phone number; when prompted, enter the extension you were assigned.
Voxeo Community
Log in to Voxeo Community developer network with your developer username and password. When you're logged in, the Voxeo Account Manager appears on your desktop. From the frame on the left, select Applications, <add new app> (see Figure 5). This brings up the Application Provisioning Wizard.
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Figure 5 Access Voxeo's Application Provisioning Wizard by selecting <add new app>.
On the first page of the wizard, click Next. On the following screen, enter the name of your application and click Next. On the next screen, enter your application's URL (see Figure 6) and click Next. On the next screen, you're asked to select your markup language: VoiceXML or CallXML. Select VoiceXML and click Next. Then you're asked to select a phone exchange.
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Figure 6 Enter your application's URL in the wizard's Application URL text field.
Note that calls to your service are not free, and calling from an exchange different from the one you select here could result in long-distance telephone charges. On the next screen, confirm your previous choices and select Next. The final screen lists the phone number to access your service.
Before you call Voxeo Community, note that you'll avoid problems by referencing Nuance's VoiceXML DTD stored at Voxeo. To do that, specify the document type in the line after your code specifying the XML version. For example:
<?xml version="1.0"?> <!DOCTYPE vxml PUBLIC '-//Nuance/DTD VoiceXML 1.0b//EN' 'http://community.voxeo.com/vxml/nuancevoicexml.dtd'> <vxml version="1.0">
Now when you call the number supplied to you when you registered the application's URL, you're taken directly to your application.