Guidelines for Alternate Spoken Names

Use the Alternate Spoken Names field to provide alternative names, phonetic spellings, or additional identifying information so the Vocera speech recognition software can recognize variations of a user, group, or location name.

Locations and Role of Alternate Spoken Names

Find the Alternate Spoken Names (ASN) field on the Speech Recognition tab in several pages of the Vocera Voice Server Administration Console. The ASN field differs slightly depending on the context and the task being performed at it's location in the product. For example, the information you will provide on the Location Information page differs from that on the Users/Add/Edit page. In all ASN field locations, the information you provide ensures that a user or place can be reached by any other user in the system; Enter the names or nicknames most commonly used to address a user, group, or location.

Best Practices for Defining Alternate Spoken Names

Use these guidelines to ensure the best result when you are defining alternate names for users:
  • Person, Group, and Location Names–If users refer to a person, group, or location in various ways, enter each variation in a different field.

    For example, enter Bob Jones and Rob Jones in addition to Robert Jones. Similarly, enter a nickname that the person or place is known by, such as Skip Jones.

  • Digits and Special Characters in Name Fields–The names you provide must start with a letter or digit. They must contain only letters, digits, spaces, apostrophes ('), underscores (_), or dashes (-). No other characters are allowed.

    If you use special characters, especially apostrophes ('), they must be used adjacent to the surrounding letters and may not be separated by spaces.

    For example, enter O'Neill Staff or O'Neill's Staff, never O'Neill ' s Staff

    Note: Even though these special characters are allowed, it is unlikely that an alternate spoken name would need underscores (_), or dashes (-).
  • Staff IDs–It is recommended that you do not create an alternate spoken name that contains numeric digits only. For example, a staff ID with numbers and no letters.
    567748
    Entering numeric staff IDs is permitted. However, using numeric values only might result in
    • Slower Genie response times
    • Problems with phone number recognition
  • Acronyms and Initials in Alternate Spoken Names–If people use an acronym or initials to refer to an address book entry, provide them as a series of letters separated by spaces.

    For example, if users refer to Easton Medical Clinic as EMC, enter E M C. Similarly, enter A C Hoyle for A.C. Hoyle. For Armandeep Munindar Gill, also enter A M Gill rather than A.M. Gill.

  • Unusual Pronunciation–If a name has an unusual or confusing pronunciation, or silent letters, enter a name that is spelled as it is pronounced.

    For example, if the system does not recognize the name Jodie Dougherty, you could enter Jodie Dockerty.

  • Professional Titles in Alternate Spoken Names–If users refer to a person by his or her title, provide the full spelling of the title rather than an abbreviation.

    For example, enter Father Brown instead of Fr. Brown, or Professor Lindsay instead of Prof. Lindsay.

  • Doctor Title in Alternate Spoken Names–When adding or editing user profiles, you do not need to include the Doctor title as part of the user's name in the Alternate Spoken Names (ASN) field on the Speech Recognition tab. Instead, check the Doctor Prefix check box. When you speak a command using one of the ASN variations, Vocera understands the user to whom you are referring.

    For example, when you speak, Call Doctor Michael Smith, the Vocera Genie knows that you are referring to Doctor Michael Smith. You could also speak, Call Doctor Smith or Call Doctor Michael and the Genie will find the user because the Doctor Prefix option is checked.