Input workflow activity

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Input workflow activity

    The Input workflow activity creates an interactive phone menu within a Notify call by presenting callers with a list of selectable options. It enables callers to enter digits corresponding to menu choices and supports both simple menu configuration via conditions and advanced customization through scripting.

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    Input Variables

    • Number of digits: Sets the maximum digits a caller can enter; callers can submit fewer digits using a Finish key.
    • Finish key: Defines the key a caller presses to complete their selection.
    • Timeout (in seconds): Specifies how long to wait before automatically closing the menu if no input is received.
    • Advanced: Enables using a custom script to dynamically build the phone menu instead of static conditions.
    • Script: Defines a JavaScript object specifying menu options with audio URLs or text-to-speech prompts, including optional custom data attributes.

    Menu Configuration and Conditions

    Customers must define conditions representing each phone menu option. Notify reads the condition names aloud (up to 100 characters), supporting language prefixes for localization. The activity transitions based on caller input digits matched against condition values. An error condition can be added to handle invalid inputs or script errors.

    Scratchpad Usage

    The activity stores caller input and menu data in the workflow scratchpad for persistence and reuse:

    • workflow.scratchpad.digits: Stores the caller’s entered digits as a string.
    • workflow.scratchpad.menu<activity name>: Stores the entire menu object when using the advanced script option, allowing subsequent activities to access selected menu data programmatically.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    This activity facilitates building flexible, multilingual phone menus within ServiceNow workflows, enhancing caller interaction through customizable prompts and responses. By leveraging conditions or scripts, customers can tailor menus to their specific use cases and retrieve detailed selection data for further processing in automated workflows.

    The Input activity creates a phone menu by presenting a list of options on a Notify call.

    Input Variables

    Input variables determine the initial behavior of the activity.

    Table 1. Input Variables
    Variable Description
    Number of digits Specify the maximum number of digits the caller can enter. A caller can enter fewer digits than the maximum and press the Finish key to complete the entry.
    Finish key Specify the key a caller can press on their phone when finished selecting a menu option.
    Timeout (in seconds) Specify the amount of time to wait before closing the menu automatically when the caller does not select a menu option.
    Advanced Select this check box to use a script to build the phone menu, instead of using the activity conditions.
    Script Define the script to build the phone menu. The script must specify an answer variable as a JavaScript object with the following format:
     answer = {
  “1": {
      “play”: “https://some_url.com/options/one.mp3“,
      “myCustomData”: “some data here”
  },
  “2”: {
      “play”: “https://some_url.com/options/two.mp3”,
      “myCustomData”: “some other data here”
  },
“3”: {
      “speak”: “type 3 to speak to a representative”,
      “language”: “en-US”,
      “myCustomData”: “some more data here”
  }
};

    The script may specify either a text-to-speech string and language code using the speak attribute or URL of the music to be played using the play attribute. You can also add optional attributes to store related information, such as myCustomData in the example above.

    Note:
    The script object continues to support say attribute for backward compatibility.

    Conditions

    The conditions determine the transition that comes after this activity.

    The input activity does not specify any conditions by default. You must define conditions to build the phone menu. Each condition is one option on the phone menu. Notify reads the text from each condition Name to the caller, up to 100 characters per condition.

    You can specify a language for each condition by prefixing the message with the language code, in the format xx-XX:<Message>. For example, add fr-CA: for Canadian French. Available languages are stored on the Notify Language [notify_language] table.

    The condition that the activity transitions through depends on the digits entered by the caller. Set the condition Condition value to parseInt(workflow.scratchpad.digits) == <expected digits>. For example, to transition through a condition when the caller presses the number 3, set the Condition to parseInt(workflow.scratchpad.digits) == 3.

    You can add an error condition to this activity. The activity transitions through the error condition if the advanced script returns an invalid value, or if the text to say for a condition is empty.

    Scratchpad Entries

    The activity uses the workflow scratchpad to write persistent values.

    Table 2. Values written to scratchpad
    Entry Description
    workflow.scratchpad.digits The digits entered by the caller, as a string.
    workflow.scratchpad.menu<activity name> The entire answer variable, if using the advanced script option. You can access this menu from other activities after this activity successfully executes.
    For example, if the activity name is choices, you can access values from the menu using
    var previousActivity = "choices";
var choicesMenu = workflow.scratchpad.menu[previousActivity];
var menuItem = choicesMenu[workflow.scratchpad.digits];  // Selects the menu item based on the caller's input.
var selectedValue = menuItem.myCustomData; //get the custom data for the selected menu item.