This article covers the changes to the Command Tones used by the Cyara Audio Generation Device (AGD), this change included in Cyara Release 2020.2 will affect both Software and Hardware based AGDs provided by Cyara.
Note: These changes only affect the 2020.2 Versions of the Hardware and Software Cyara AGDs, older AGDs do not include this solution and as such do not require associated Test Cases to be updated.
The version number of both AGD types where this feature is introduced is as follows;
Background
Before getting into the changes themselves, it's helpful to know why these changes were necessary in the first place. In certain IVR setups, ringtones or ZIP codes could be played down the audio stream and picked up by the AGD. Some of these tones could overlap with the existing AGD command tone structure (e.g Volume Up, Volume Down), and would result in unexpected/non-deterministic Test Case results.
As an additional improvement as part of these changes, several base tones have also been refactored from experience learned in the field and feedback from Cyara Customers, see further details on these changes below.
Solution
To resolve this issue, the new AGD Command structure utilizes Two independent tones in sequence as the basic of commands to operate the AGD. These two tones are played to the AGD with a potential gap in between, the first tone is a "Command" or "Escape" tone, designed to put the AGD into a "awaiting command" state. The second tone then sends the request to perform a command.
This two-tone structured setup has been tested on a range of carriers and regions to identify if the AGD command tone could be incorrectly triggered, with no false operations detected.
Implementation
When using Cyara Test Cases with the 2020.2 version of the Cyara AGD, a slightly adjusted Test Case approach to AGD commands should be used. Cyara will provide a new series of Tone Files that will contain the dual-tones required for the commands, as well as the single tones required for utterances.
The Dual-Tone audio files are attached to this article as a downloadable file.
Also attached is a Cyara Test Case .XML importable file, this test case set is an example of the newly introduced dual-tone method for AGD Operation. We recommend importing this Test Case to better your understanding of the new implementation.
- DualTone AGD Test Cases Example.xml40 KB
- AGD-AUDIO.zip500 KB