At first, the certification program will place an emphasis on the platforms of VoiceXML. The tools and applications would be tested, and to pass the certification program, the system must be in compliance. The process of certification for VoiceXML products will be processed by the members of the Forum.

There are a number of opportunities available for vendors who are interested in having their VoiceXML products certified. One advantage of going through the certification process is that it will allow vendors to get protection for their work, and it will also give them a certain degree of publicity. A great deal of communication can be facilitated between vendors and their customers before the product is officially released. To find out more information about certification tools that are available, it is important to understand the various steps of the certification process. The primary goal of the certification process is to make sure the VoiceXML language processor has the correct specifications.

The architecture of the VoiceXML tool will be tested, and the two components that are primarily responsible for this are the testing system and the device that will be tested. The testing system will often be connected to a larger component such as a telephone handset. A reference web server may also be used to process the results of the test. The test process will be centered around various features within the structure that must satisfy an implementation that is in compliance with the standards of the industry. The specification will also be responsible for making producing a definition of compliance. The process of certifying a VoiceXML application will start with the actual specification.

The organization that will be responsible for certifying the tool will produce a document that dictates the best practices for producing the VoiceXML software. In addition for defining the process of development, it will also dictate the proper behavior for the product. As far as VoiceXML certification is concerned, the W3C, or World Wide Web Consortium, is one of the recognized organizations that would play an important role in the certification process.

Another organization that is prominent in this role is IETF, or the Internet Engineering Task Force. These organization will frequently deal with issues that are related to HTML or various Internet protocols. Many of these organziations will be based in specific countries.

The organization that is directly connected to VoiceXML applications is the W3C. When a VoiceXML processor is built, the implementation must use functions from a variety of different sources. The conformance test must be compatible with the execution of the voice processor, and the term "full coverage" is used to describe testing that has a number of mandatory features. Certain parts of the VoiceXML program will only need a few features, and this is referred to as being "sufficient coverage."

The goal of sufficient coverage is make sure the VoiceXML processor is using the necessary specifications. It is not necessary for it to use them all completely. When a full coverage test is used, the requirements for this test will fall under three categories, and these are platform-optional, required, and optional.

As the name suggests, "required" is used to refer to the features which are considered to be mandatory. When the feature is required, the implementation must support the correct syntax, as well as the semantics. If the feature is optional, the conformance test must demonstrate that the feature is created with the syntax that is described in the specification. In a situation where the implementation is not in support of the optional feature, it will need to show an error message which says "error.unsupported."

The platform-optional features will make up the "may" aspect of the specification. This means the implementation can support the platform optional feature, but this is not mandatory. The platform-optional feature will deal with things such as the audio format, and the behavior of the system may be directly connected to a specific platform.