Automatic call flow system and related methods

1. A method for obtaining statistics related to the operation of an Integrated Voice Response (IVR) system comprising an IVR application server, an interception engine and an IVR browser, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving a document response from the IVR application server at an interception engine;

dynamically injecting, at the interception engine, at least one marker into the document response before the document response is executed;

passing the document response from the interception engine on to the IVR browser;

receiving a document submit at the interception engine from the IVR browser;

removing marker results, at the interception engine, from the document submit; and

passing the document submit from the interception engine on to the IVR application server.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the step of injecting at least one call flow variable into the document response, wherein the at least one marker is configured to cause information to be stored to the at least one call flow variable when a portion of the document response associated with the at least one marker is executed, and wherein removing marker results further comprise removing the at least one call flow variable from the document submit.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the at least one call flow variable facilitates obtaining information about one or more events that occurred during execution of the document response.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the statistics are obtained without changing at least one of: the IVR browser and the IVR applications server.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the obtaining statistics does not affect observable performance of the IVR browser and is transparent to the IVR applications server.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the obtaining statistics does not affect at least one of: a call flow, a live call, and a test call.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the steps of correlating the marker results with information that is useful for associating the marker results with a particular state in a call flow.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the marker results contain information for determining at least one of: forms executed at the IVR browser and when the forms were executed, fields executed at the IVR browser and when the fields were executed, results of input and when the input was provided to the IVR browser; standard platform telephony variables, and custom variables specific to the application being monitored.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the IVR application server runs a voice application and wherein the voice application is one of: a Voice eXtensible Markup Language (VXML) application, a Control eXtensible Markup Language (CCXML) application, and a State Chart eXtensible Markup Language (SCXML) SALT application.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the IVR application server comprises a telephony application that has an application syntax that is suitable for injecting logical instructions around both a user input and a system response, and that is suitable returning information leading to a collection of a uniquely identified call flow states.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the step of storing the marker results in a database comprised in the interception engine.

12. A method for obtaining statistics related to the operation of an Integrated Voice Response (IVR), the method comprising the steps of:

generating a document response, wherein the document response is intercepted by an interception engine, wherein the interception engine dynamically injects at least one marker into the document response before the document response is passed on to the IVR browser and executed, wherein the document submit from the IVR browser is intercepted by the interception engine, and wherein the interception engine removes marker results from the document submit; and

receiving the document submit from the interception engine.

13. A system for capturing Integrated Voice Response (IVR) statistics, the system comprising:

an interception engine;

an IVR browser; and

an IVR application server, wherein the interception engine is configured to receive a document response from the IVR application server and inject at least one marker into the document response to create a marked-up document response, wherein the interception engine is configured to pass the marked-up document response on to the IVR browser, and wherein the interception engine is further configured to receive a response from the IVR browser, remove the marker results from the response, and pass a stripped version of the response on to the IVR application server.

14. The system of claim 13 , further comprising a statistics database, wherein one of information based on the marker results and the marker results is stored in the statistics database.

15. The system of claim 14 , further comprising an automated call flow detection device configured to store call flow path data in a call flow database, wherein the system is configured to resolve the data in the statistics database and the call flow path data in the call flow database.

16. The system of claim 15 , further comprising the step of generating a report based on the call flow path data.

17. The system of claim 13 , wherein the interception engine is comprised in a stand alone device that does not comprise the IVR browser and that does not comprise the IVR application server.