Business platform voice interactions

• US 9,524,713 B2
• Filed: 05/30/2012
• Issued: 12/20/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 05/30/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP SE
• Inventors: Blank, Guy, Soffer, Guy
• Primary Examiner(s): Desir, Pierre-Louis
• Assistant Examiner(s): SHIN, SEONG-AH A
• Application Number:
  US13/483,544
• Publication Number:
  US 20130325461A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,665 Days
• Field of Search: 704/235, 704/270, 704/275, 705/26.1, 707/3, 707/770, 715/234
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/04 Details of speech synthesis systems, e.g. synthesiser structure or memory management
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence

Abstract

According to some embodiments, a user device may receive business enterprise information from a remote enterprise server. The user device may then automatically convert at least some of the business enterprise information into speech output provided to a user of the user device. Speech input from the user may be received via and converted by the user device. The user device may then interact with the remote enterprise server in accordance with the converted speech input and the business enterprise information.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method, comprising:

receiving, at user device, business enterprise information from a remote enterprise server;

receiving, at the user device, an extensible markup language (“

XML”

) schema from a voice interaction server, the XML schema representing a voice interaction between an enterprise service and end-user voice commands which are associated with a modeled business scenario;

automatically converting, by the user device, at least some of the business enterprise information, based on the XML schema, into speech output provided to a user of the user device, the speech output navigating the user through a workflow associated with the modeled business scenario;

receiving speech input from the user via the user device;

automatically converting the speech input; and

interacting with the remote enterprise server in accordance with the converted speech input and the business enterprise information.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the user device is associated with at least one of:

(i) a mobile computer, (ii) a smartphone, (iii) a gaming device, (iv) a navigation device, (v) a music player, or (vi) glasses.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the user device comprises at least one of:

(i) a personal computer, or (ii) a kiosk.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the conversion of the business enterprise information into the speech output is facilitated by an interaction engine, executing at the user device, via a text-to-speech connector communicating with a third party text-to-speech engine.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the conversion of speech input is facilitated by an interaction engine, executing at the user device, via a speech-to-text connector communicating with a third party speech-to-text engine.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the remote enterprise server is associated with at least one of:

(i) an Enterprise Resource Planning application, (ii) a Customer Relationship Management application, or (ii) an Advanced Business Application Programming application.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein said converting is performed in accordance with model extensible markup language information.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said converting is performed in accordance with an application programming interface.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said interaction is associated with at least one of:

(i) a purchase request, (ii) a purchase order, (iii) a sales order, (iv) contact information, (v) a workflow, or (vi) an alert.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein said interaction is performed via an interactive business voice dialog platform executing on demand in a computing cloud environment.

11. A non-transitory, computer-readable medium storing program code executable by a computer processor to perform a method, the method comprising:

receiving, at user device, business enterprise information from a remote enterprise server;

receiving, at the user device, an extensible markup language (“

XML”

) schema from a voice interaction server, the XML schema representing a voice interaction between an enterprise service and end-user voice commands which are associated with a modeled business scenario;

automatically converting, by the user device, at least some of the business enterprise information, based on the XML schema, into speech output provided to a user of the user device, the speech output navigating the user through a workflow associated with the modeled business scenario;

receiving speech input from the user via the user device;

automatically converting the speech input; and

interacting with the remote enterprise server in accordance with the converted speech input and the business enterprise information.

12. The medium of claim 11, wherein the user device is associated with at least one of:

(i) a mobile computer, (ii) a smartphone, (iii) a gaming device, (iv) a navigation device, (v) a music player, or (vi) glasses.

13. The medium of claim 11, wherein the user device comprises at least one of:

(i) a personal computer, or (ii) a kiosk.

14. The medium of claim 11, wherein the conversion of the business enterprise information into the speech output is facilitated by an interaction engine, executing at the user device, via a text-to-speech connector communicating with a third party text-to-speech engine.

15. The medium of claim 11, wherein the conversion of speech input is facilitated by an interaction engine, executing at the user device, via a speech-to-text connector communicating with a third party speech-to-text engine.

16. The medium of claim 11, wherein the remote enterprise server is associated with at least one of:

(i) an Enterprise Resource Planning application, (ii) a Customer Relationship Management application, or (ii) an Advanced Business Application Programming application.

17. A mobile user device associated with a user, comprising:

a communication port to receive (i) business enterprise information from a remote enterprise server and (ii) an extensible markup language (“

XML”

) schema from a voice interaction server, the XML schema representing a voice interaction between an enterprise service and end-user voice commands which are associated with a modeled business scenario; and

a processor coupled to the communication port and configured to;

(i) convert at least some of the business enterprise information into speech output provided to a user of the user device, (ii) receive speech input from the user, (iii) convert the speech input based on the XML schema, into speech output provided to a user, the speech output navigating the user through a workflow associated with the modeled business scenario, and interact with the remote enterprise server via the communication port in accordance with the converted speech input and the business enterprise information.

18. The device of claim 17, wherein the conversion of the business enterprise information into the speech output is facilitated by an interaction engine, executing at the user device, via a text-to-speech connector communicating with a third party text-to-speech engine.

19. The device of claim 17, wherein the conversion of speech input is facilitated by an interaction engine, executing at the user device, via a speech-to-text connector communicating with a third party speech-to-text engine.

20. The device of claim 17, wherein the remote enterprise server is associated with at least one of:

(i) an Enterprise Resource Planning application, (ii) a Customer Relationship Management application, or (ii) an Advanced Business Application Programming application.