Interactive voice response system crawler

Abstract

A system for interactive voice response system crawling, comprising an IVR crawler that may be VXML, design specification, DTMF or ASR/NLSR speech-based in nature and traverses an IVR menu to discover possible interaction paths and produces test cases based on those paths, and a database that stores test cases produced by the IVR crawler during operation, and a method for using an IVR crawler to perform a system migration.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A system for interactive voice response (IVR) system crawling, comprising:
 an IVR crawler comprising at least a plurality of programming instructions stored in a memory and operating on a processor of a network-connected computing device, and configured to:
 connect to an IVR system via a network; 
 traverse an IVR menu path by identifying a plurality of available IVR menu options as they are provided audibly by the IVR system and providing a plurality of input choices to the IVR system, the input choices produced based at least in part on the identified available IVR menu options, to progress through the menu; and 
 produce documentation of the IVR paths and branches discovered during the traversal of the IVR menu path. 
   
     
     
         2 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the IVR crawler is a VXML-based crawler. 
     
     
         3 . The system of  claim 2 , further comprising a VXML browser comprising a plurality of programming instructions stored in a memory and operating on a processor of a network-connected computing device, and configured to provide a plurality of VXML data to a VXML-based crawler via a network. 
     
     
         4 . The system of  claim 3 , wherein the VXML-based crawler receives a plurality of VXML data from the VXML browser, and traverses an IVR menu path based in least in part on the received VXML data. 
     
     
         5 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the IVR crawler is a design-based crawler. 
     
     
         6 . The system of  claim 5 , wherein the design-based crawler processes a design specification for an IVR. 
     
     
         7 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the IVR crawler is a dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) based crawler. 
     
     
         8 . The system of  claim 7 , wherein the DTMF-based crawler connects to an IVR system by placing a telephone call via a telephony-based network. 
     
     
         9 . The system of  claim 8 , wherein the DTMF-based crawler provides an input choice to the IVR system by generating a DTMF audio tone. 
     
     
         10 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the IVR crawler is an automated speech recognition (ASR)/natural language speech recognition (NLSR) speech-based crawler. 
     
     
         11 . The system of  claim 7 , wherein the ASR/NLSR speech-based crawler connects to an IVR system by placing a telephone call via a telephony-based network. 
     
     
         12 . The system of  claim 8 , wherein the ASR/NLSR speech-based crawler provides an input choice to the IVR system by generating a plurality of speech utterance audio data. 
     
     
         13 . The system of  claim 9 , further comprising an automatic speech recognition engine comprising a plurality of programming instructions stored in a memory and operating on a processor of a network-connected computing device, and configured to interpret menu prompts comprising audio data, and to provide interpretation result data to a DTMF or ASR/NLSR speech-based crawler. 
     
     
         14 . The system of  claim 1 , further comprising a test case execution engine comprising a plurality of programming instructions stored on a memory and operating on a processor of a network-connected computing device, and configured to execute a test case produced by the IVR crawler. 
     
     
         15 . The system of  claim 11 , wherein the test cases are received directly from the IVR crawler as they are produced. 
     
     
         16 . The system of  claim 11 , further comprising a test results analyzer comprising a plurality of programming instructions stored in a memory and operating on a processor of a network-connected computing device, and configured to analyze the results of test case execution from the test execution engine. 
     
     
         17 . A method for interactive voice response (IVR) system crawling, comprising:
 connecting to an IVR system via a network using an IVR crawler comprising at least a plurality of programming instructions stored in a memory and operating on a processor of a network-connected computing device;   traversing an IVR menu path using the IVR crawler by identifying a plurality of available IVR menu options as they are provided audibly by the IVR system and providing a plurality of input choices to the IVR system, the input choices produced based at least in part on the identified available IVR menu options, to progress through the menu; and   producing documentation of the IVR paths and branches discovered during the traversal of the IVR menu path.   
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 17 , further comprising the steps of:
 configuring a test case based on the documentation produced by the IVR crawler;   executing the test case using a test execution engine comprising at least a plurality of programming instructions stored in a memory and operating on a processor of a network-connected computing device;   analyzing the results of test case execution from the test execution engine; and   displaying the analysis results.