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Building a Simple Application

Now, that you know the basics of building a simple application, let's learn how to use some of the other modules for user interaction. First, we will begin with an autoattendant application.

To begin our autoattendant application, first drag out a Simple Menu module onto the workspace and connect the circular node from the Start module to the triangular node on the Simple Menu module.

Once you've connected the modules together, enter the following text in the textbox of the Simple Menu module: “Hello! Welcome to The General Store. For sales, press 1 or say sales. For support, press 2 or say support. To speak to an operator, press 0 or say operator.” Then, click on the ”+” button twice to add two additional options for your module.

For your first option, enter “sales” in the textbox under Or say. For the second option, select 2 from the drop-down menu and enter “support” in the textbox under Or say. For the third option, select 0 from the drop-down menu and enter “operator” in the textbox under Or say.

Additionally, let's set our Simple Menu module to “Set result to keyword”. By doing this, the variable, menuChoice, will be set to either sales, support, or operator based on the user's input.

Next, let's drag out three Multipart + Yes/No modules to the workspace and connect the circular nodes of our Simple Menu module choices to each of the triangular nodes. For the Multipart + Yes/No module connected to the “sales” choice, enter the following text in the textbox: “You entered”. Click on the ”+” button to add two additional phrases/variables to your module.

Next, click on the toggler for your second phrase/variable to convert it to a variable and select menuChoice as your variable.

For your third phrase/variable, enter the following text in the textbox: “Is this correct? Press 1 for yes or 2 for no.”

Follow this same procedure for the Multipart + Yes/No modules that are connected to the “support” choice and “operator” choice of your Simple Menu module.

For each of the “No” nodes of your Multipart + Yes/No modules, connect them to the triangular node of your Simple Menu module.

By doing this, you can redirect the user to your main menu prompt if they entered an incorrect choice. From here, let's drag out 3 Jump to Page modules onto our workspace and connect each of them to a Yes node on our Multipart + Yes/No modules.

Now, let's add a couple of extra pages to our Autoattendant application. To add a page, first click on the New Page button.

Once you click on the New Page button, you will be prompted to enter a name for your new page. Enter “Sales” into the textbox and click on Create.

After adding this page, click on the New Page button again and add a page titled, “Support”. Add one more page to your application titled, “Operator”.

Click on the Untitled Page 1 tab to return to your first page. You can rename this page by clicking on the options button for the tab and selecting Rename Page.

Rename your page to Startmenu and click on Rename.

Now that we have added pages to our application, we can select the appropriate pages for our Jump to Page modules to go to.

To select a page to go to, click on the drop-down menu of your Jump to Page module and select the appropriate page.

This should complete the Startmenu page for our Autoattendant application.

Let's now create the Sales page for our autoattendant. First, click on the page tab for Sales to go to that page and drag out a Simple Prompt module onto the workspace. Connect the circular node of the Start module to the triangular node of the Simple Prompt module and enter the following text in the Simple Prompt module textbox: “Hello! Welcome to the sales department.”

Next, drag out a Transfer module onto the workspace and connect the circular node of the Simple Prompt module to the triangular node of the Transfer module.

In the textbox of the Transfer module, enter the following text: “Please wait while you are transferred to a sales representative.” Also, enter in a 10-digit phone number for the user to be transferred to your sales department.

To set up additional event handlers for your Transfer module in case a sales representative is busy on the phone or does not answer, you can check the Error handling checkbox for the Transfer module's Menu Options.

Now, drag out two Simple Prompt modules onto your workspace. Connect the Busy/Error node of your Transfer module to the triangular node of one of your Simple Prompt modules and enter the following text in its textbox: “Our sales representatives are busy right now. Please try your call again later.” Then, connect the No answer node of your Transfer module to the triangular node of the other Simple Prompt module and enter the following text in its textbox: “Our sales representatives are currently unavailable. Please try your call again later.”

Finally, drag out a Hang Up or Exit module onto your workspace and connect the circular nodes of your Simple Prompts modules to its triangular node.

Let's now create the Support page for our autoattendant. First, drag out a Digits Input module to your workspace and connect the circular node of the Start module to its triangular node. Enter the following text in its textbox: “Please enter your eight digit support account number.” To restrict the digit entry of the user to only being able to enter 8 digits as a correct input, let's enter 8 for min digits and 8 for max digits.

Let's also add some error handling to our Digits Input module. To do this, click on the checkbox for Error handling under the module's Menu Options.

Drag out two Simple Prompt modules onto your workspace. Connect the Silence node of your Digits Input module to the triangular node of one of your Simple Prompt modules and enter the following text in the textbox: “You did not enter an input. Please try again.” Then, connect the circular node of that Simple Prompt module and connect it to the triangular node of your Digits Input module. Next, connect the Invalid entry node of your Digits Input module to the triangular node of your other Simple Prompt module and enter the following text in its textbox: “I'm sorry, that entry is invalid. Please try again.” Lastly, connect the circular node of that Simple Prompt module and connect it to the triangular node of your Digits Input module.

Next, drag out a Transfer module to your workspace and connect the circular node of your Digits Input module to its triangular node. In the textbox of the Transfer module, enter the following text: “Now transferring you to a support representative.” Then, enter a 10-digit number for your user to be transferred to a support representative. Also, to keep consistency with how you designed your Sales page, you should also check the checkbox for Error handling for your Transfer module.

Now that we have created our Support page, we can proceed with creating the Operator page for our autoattendant. First, click on the page tab for Operator to go to that page and drag out a Transfer module onto the workspace. Connect the circular node of the Start module and connect it to the triangular node of the Transfer module.

In the textbox of the Transfer module, enter the following text: “Please wait while you are transferred to an operator.” Also, enter in a 10-digit phone number for the user to be transferred to an operator.

Similar to the Sales page we had created earlier, we can set up error handlers for our Operator module by clicking on the checkbox for Error handling.

Drag out two Simple Prompt modules onto your workspace. Connect the Busy/Error node of your Transfer module to the triangular node of one of your Simple Prompt modules and enter the following text in its textbox: “The operator line is currently busy. Please try your call again later.” Then, connect the No answer node of your Transfer module to the triangular node of the other Simple Prompt module and enter the following text in its textbox: “Our operator line is currently unavailable. Please try your call again later.”

Once you have set up error handling for your Transfer module, you will have completed your autoattendant. However, in our next section, Branching and Logic, we will see how we can use branching modules to make our autoattendant less clunky.

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Branching and Logic