Default value of maxnbest property

[kimbamutt]

Your documentation for the maxnbest property is a bit confusing: at the top of the page (http://www.plumvoice.com/docs/dev/voice ... s:maxnbest) it says the default value of maxnbest is 5, but the second to last sentence says the default value is 1, and the last sentence says this property is not supported. Some preliminary testing shows that the value is actually 1 regardless of what is set in my VoiceXML code for the maxnbest property. Is this true just for the (free) developer accounts, or can maxnbest be increased on the (paid) commercial hosting platform?

Thanks,
-RJ

[support]

Hi RJ,

Thanks for pointing this out. We'll make changes to our documentation to correct the typo regarding default value.

The maxnbest property is unsupported by our platform, so you wouldn't be able to change the default value of 1 for the maximum size of the "application.lastresult$" array.

We apologize for any confusion this may have caused you.

Regards,
Plum Support

[kimbamutt]

Thank you for that info. FYI, on Sun 8/25/13 9:33 PM I had sent some other online documentation comments/corrections/questions to Troy Signorelli, who had contacted me shortly after I registered for a free Plum developer account, but he never replied. Here is what I sent him, in case you want to fix those other sections (you already answered my question in the last bullet item)...
----------
Hi Troy,

I read through the online documentation, and had some comments/corrections/questions on particular sections:

• 1.10 Tuning Application Behavior - in fetchaudioscript.php example, '<goto next="holdmusic.wav"/>' should be rewritten as '<goto next="delayexamplescript.php"/>'.
• 1.11 Auto Attendant Example - the transfer tag examples need to be corrected:
  '<transfer dest="123-456-7890" connecttimeout="20s" bridge="true"/>' should be rewritten as '<transfer dest="tel:+11234567890" connecttimeout="20s" bridge="true"/>'
  '<transfer dest="555-444-3333" connecttimeout="20s" bridge="true"/>' should be rewritten as '<transfer dest="tel:+15554443333" connecttimeout="20s" bridge="true"/>'
  '<transfer dest="personextension" connecttimeout="20s" bridge="true"/>' should be rewritten as '<transfer destexpr="personextension" connecttimeout="20s" bridge="true"/>'
• 3.4 JSGF Tag Format - in this section you say that JSGF can't link any information to the tags; however, the example in section 3.2 JSGF above shows '( pizza {food=pizza;} | burger {food=burger;} | wings {food=wings;} ) [ and ( coke {drink=coke;} | tea {drink=tea;} ) ]'. Just for clarification (and to be consistent with section 3.2 JSGF), you mean you can have something like '((Puppy | Dog) {Type=Dog;})', but not '((Puppy | Dog) {Type=Dog; Name=Lassie; Age=5; Color=brown;})', is that correct?
• 3.6 Mixed Initiative Forms - in 3rd sentence,'tyle' should be rewritten as 'style'; also, the example in this section didn't seem to clearly illustrate the advantage of using a mixed initiative form.
• 3.7 Built-in Grammars - the last sentence of this section mentions a 19% chance of first/last name not being recognized; however, the descriptions above say that lastname/firstname only covers 90% of the U.S. population, so where does the 19% come from? Is it because the example code sets the confidencelevel value as 0.2?
• 3.8 Extended Built-in Grammars - just to be sure, is the grammar root="usstreet" really the same for both usstreetaddress.php and usstreet.php?
• 3.9 External Grammars - an errant single quote in the grammar tag of entercardnumber.php needs to be removed, so '<grammar src="numbergrammar.grxml'" type="application/srgs+xml" maxage="0"/>' should be rewritten as '<grammar src="numbergrammar.grxml" type="application/srgs+xml" maxage="0"/>'.
• 3.10 Record and Recognition Chart - for the 'speech followed by a DTMF-#' Speech Recognition Timeout Behavior under DTMF-only, why isn't the result the same as that of 'DTMF-#' and 'speech followed by non-# DTMF followed by a DTMF-#' behavior (i.e., 'stops immediately after DTMF-#, returns DTMF input including #')? Is it because the initial speech isn't followed immediately by non-# DTMF, or is this simply a documentation error (seems like all 3 behaviors should have the same result)?
• 7.3 Examples of Maxage/Maxstale Usage - in both the 2nd and 4th examples, the results seem reversed, and should be as follows: when maxage = 25, resource age exceeds expiration by 10 (= 110 - 100) and this is less than maxstale (10 < 25) so cache engine should use CACHED COPY; when maxage = 5, resource age exceeds expiration by 10 (= 110 - 100) and this is more than maxstale (10 > 5) so cache engine should FETCH RESOURCE. Also, in the 2nd example, '...this time is greater than the maxstale value (10 < 5)...' should be rewritten as '...this time is greater than the maxstale value (10 > 5)...'.
• Application and Session Variables (under References) - according to chapter 6. Logging, a semi-colon separates channel and starttime, so in session.id description, '...three digit channel identifier...' should be rewritten as '...three digit channel identifier, followed by a semicolon...'. Also, this reference says that application.lastresult$ can hold at most 5 elements, and according to the Properties reference, maxnbest has a default value of 5 (but this property is not supported), so does that mean that the maximum number of interpretations returned by the Plum platform is a non-configurable value of 5?!

Thanks,
-RJ

[support]

Hi RJ,

Thanks for your comments regarding the documentation. We will make corrections to the sections you have pointed out.

Regarding your questions:

3.4 JSGF Tag Format

We are removing this code example from the documentation as it is outdated. If you wish to link information to tags, we would recommend implementing an SRGS+XML grammar instead as the performance of JSGF grammars are inferior to SRGS+XML grammars.

For example:

<field name="Name"/>
<field name="Age"/>
<field name="Color"/>

<grammar type="application/srgs+xml" root="ROOT" mode="voice">
<rule id="ROOT">
<one-of>
<item>
Dog<tag>Name="Lassie";Age="5";Color="brown"</tag>
</item>
<item>
Puppy<tag>Name="Lassie";Age="5";Color="brown"</tag>
</item>
</one-of>
</rule>
</grammar>

3.7 Built-in Grammars

The 19% comes from the probability that the user's full name will not be recognized (either the first name or the last name isn't recognized), since there's a 90% chance that the first name will be recognized and a 90% change that the last name will be recognized.

3.8 Extended Built-in Grammars

Yes, this shouldn't matter.

3.10 Record and Recognition Chart

Sorry for this confusion; we are planning to remove the Speech Recognition Timeout Chart from the documentation as it wasn't clear about what behavior to expect.

7.3 Examples of Maxage/Maxstale Usage

These examples are correct. The maxage value in example 2 is 150 and there is no maxage value provided for example 4. Please let us know if there's something we're misunderstanding regarding these examples.

Regards,
Plum Support