The two different "Optional" Tags are used to mark a Cyara Test Case Step as “optional” for situations where prompts may or may not be played. For example, high-volume messaging, confirmations, holiday messages, and promotions.

If a Test Case Step is marked as optional, then it will be skipped if a prompt is heard that does not match its nominated criteria. The prompt is considered "absent" if a prompt of matching criteria is not heard – it is marked as "Skipped" in the Step results and the Test Case will continue to the next Step.

When the criteria of an optional Step does successfully match, any reply specified in the Reply With field on this step is played before continuing to the next Step.

{Optional AudioLength=range}

With the AudioLength form of the Optional tag, Cyara will trigger the Optional Step if the duration of audio heard for this step is within the specified range.

{Optional AudioLength=3.5-4.5}

In the above example, if the duration of audio in the captured Step recording for the Step that contains this Tag (from the beginning of audio until the end of audio) is between 3.5 and 4.5 seconds long, then the subsequent Reply With field is played.

If the audio duration is not within the range, Cyara then considers the optional Step as "absent" and will proceed to try to match the captured Step recording with the following Step’s Expect To Hear.

{Optional AudioLength=...} Conditions and Restrictions

• The {Optional AudioLength=...} Tag must be included at the start of the Expect to Hear field.
• The Tag requires a range of two values in seconds separated by a -
• The PSST of the Step that contains the Optional tag and that of the following Step must be the same.
• For the AudioLength form of the Optional tag, the optional Step must be distinguishable from the following non-optional Step by audio duration alone (as in, if both optional Step and following Step have similar durations, then using the {Optional AudioLength=...} form of the Optional tag will not work – consider using the {Optional Speech} form of the tag instead).
• The Audio Length of the step that contains the {Optional AudioLength=...} can not overlap with the audio length of the next step.
  • For example if you had a Test Case Step using {Optional AudioLength=5-10} (a range of 5-10seconds would trigger this step).
  • The subsequent Step must not be within this 5-10 seconds range.
• The {Optional} tag can not be followed immediately by another Step containing an {Optional} tag of either form.
• By using {Optional AudioLength=...} in a Test Case step, the following tags can not be used in the subsequent step after this tag.
  • {BargeIn}, {Optional}, {Ignore}, and {WaitForHangup}

Example of Using the {Optional AudioLength=...} Tag in a Cyara Test Case.

The following two examples demonstrate different scenarios that cover the usage of the {Optional AudioLength=...} form of the tag, in how it determines matching prompts.

Scenario 1.

In this scenario we want to trigger a Reply With Step within a Cyara Test Case based on hearing a section of audio that is within a given range. Here we can simulate a customers verbal response after being played the pre-recorded queue busy message of "Due to unusually high call volumes, you may encounter longer wait times.

Note: To play the Reply With speech to the remote party, the Reply With field must be completed on the Same Step that contains the  {Optional AudioLength=...} Tag as follows.

Scenario 2.

Expanding on the example above, we show what the {Optional AudioLength=...} Tag would do if the audio heard was outside the expected range. In this example we will use the same Test Case setup as before, but play it different audio (we will play audio of a normal non-busy queue).
The Optional tag is useful in allowing you to setup a single Test Case that covers multiple scenarios.

{Optional Speech}

With the Speech form of the Optional tag, Cyara will consider the optional Step present if the captured Step recording matches the text following the tag. Cyara uses speech recognition immediately after the PSST of the Step has expired to try to match it with the supplied text.

If the recognition does match, the optional Step is considered to be present and its associated Reply With is played.

Otherwise, the optional Step is marked as “Skipped” in the Step results and matching of the captured Step recording continues to the next Step.

Caution: Using this Tag causes the Step to require Priority Recognition and should not be used in load campaigns unless the Cyara ASR to Call Engine port ratio has been specifically configured to account for this. Contact Cyara Support for more information on using Priority Recognition Tags in load campaigns and how we can assist you.

{Optional Speech} Conditions and Restrictions

Examples of Using the {Optional Speech} Tag in Cyara Test Cases.

The following two examples demonstrate different scenarios that cover the usage of the {Optional Speech} form of the tag, in how it determines matching prompts. These examples also highlight the differences between the {Optional AudioLength=...} form and {Optional Speech} form and their advantages.

Scenario 1.

In this scenario we want to trigger a Reply With Step within a Cyara Test Case based on hearing a section of audio that is within a given range. Here we can simulate a customers verbal response after being played the pre-recorded queue busy message of "Due to unusually high call volumes, you may encounter longer wait times.

Note: To play the Reply With speech to the remote party, the Reply With field must be completed on the Same Step that contains the  {Optional Speech} Tag as follows.

Scenario 2.

To highlight the advantage of the {Optional Speech} form of this Tag, what if the length of the audio heard for a Test Case Step was the exact same duration as the subsequent Step?  (If our main menu text was the exact same duration as the high call volume warning). The way to solve this issue would be to use the {Optional Speech} form of this Tag as follows.